Day 4 - Traveling to Paris

It was very important to me (Lauren) to get a picture with platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross Station. When I visited London 10 years ago, I purchased my first Harry Potter book right before we went back home. 10 years later, I still love those books. For those of you who aren't Harry Potter fans, the students travel to Hogwarts (the school where they learn magic) on the Hogwarts Express that leaves each year from platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross Station. You access this platform by running through the wall between platforms 9 and 10. There is no wall between platforms 9 and 10 at King's Cross because JK Rowling confused the stations in her memory, but King's Cross has made a faux-platform 9 3/4 to take pictures at. And I did just that!


King's Cross station is right next to St. Pancras (I like to say St. Pancreas) International Railway station. We traveled by train through the chunnel to Paris. We arrived in Paris safely and checked into our hotel successfully. I was given the title of superior navigator and I am happy to say that even though everything is in a different language, I have still maintained that title.

We were determined to get some Museum Passes today so we didn't have to worry about tomorrow so we headed to a tourist information center along the Champs-Elysees to purchase them. We wandered down the Champs-Elysees looking for somewhere to eat. Most places don't serve dinner until 730 - it was about 530 at this point and were hungry. So we had to look for cafes - places that serve food all the time. We finally found a place and ate. We came back to the hotel and gazed at our view of the Eiffel Tower!






Our first impression of Paris is that it is dirty - the subways don't seem as well maintained as London's and there is a lot more graffiti. We also saw a woman pull down her pants and pop a squat on a flower bed in the middle of a sidewalk today. It was a little bit shocking. We didn't take a pictures, but we kind of wish we had! We're hoping that once we see all of the museums, etc we won't think Paris is as dirty.