From London to Paris

Well we woke up (at a decent time with the help of an alarm) after a night of tossing and turning and listening to people open and shut doors in the flat we were staying in all night. We are not doing so well on ditching our jet-lag so far.

Before I forget here is a tip for anyone planning a quick trip to London. Natali and I were here for just over 2 days. If we had planned it a little better we would have just bought a 24-hour, hop-on hop-off tour and used that to get around. The open top would have been very nice and it goes around to all of the major attractions.  This is a little expensive but if you only have one day then this would be great. If you don't do that or are staying more than a couple of days then a cheaper option is to use the Oyster card (unlimited public transportation for a discounted price) and use the regular buses around town. Almost all of the buses are double-deckers so they provide a fantastic view of the city, especially if you get the top front seats. A little slower but way better than riding on the metros underneath the city because you will get go see great views like these.

This blue chicken was a surprise to see. We don't know why there is a giant blue chicken in London but we had to get a picture of it. It might have to do with the hundreds of men in kilts that you can see at the bottom of the picture.

We rode these buses over to the National Gallery to check out the artwork there. It was full of paintings  dating from the 13th century. I took an art class during my time at BYU and so I became a little bit more cultured in the different styles such as Impressionism and realism and I was proud that I knew that Manet and Monet are in fact not the same people. I wish I remembered a little bit more from class but it was interesting to see the evolution of art through the ages. One of the last paintings we saw was by Van Gogh and it was one of our favorites. 

 Also, out in front of the National Gallery was that crazy blue chicken again so Natali had to get a picture with it ;)

Then we headed to do a London street art tour that we had booked. We had heard that it was very interesting and showed some of the best street art in the East End of London. We were not disappointed. The only disappointing thing was that we had to leave the tour early in order to catch our train to Paris. Our tour guide started with telling us the history of the East End of London. We would walk down a street and he would point out old textile factories that were important to the Jewish community when they settled there or a door that was numbered 11 and a half because the expensive apartment had to be split into two separate parts when the economy crashed. 

One of the craziest things was this little plaque that the guide pointed out above one of the doors of a building. This plaque is proof that the owner has paid his fire insurance. Since the fire stations were privately owned, if there was ever a building on fire the firemen would first check to see if the plaque was on the building. If it was, they would put the fire out. If not, they would move on and not waste their time & resources on the fire!

Then we got to the street art. One of the most surprising things that I learned is that people travel all over the world doing street art. Here are some of the pictures. The details that people can produce on street art is amazing. Also amazing is the speed they must often work at since street art is illegal if they don't have permission. The picture of the boy on the right below, for example, was done without permission thus it had to be done in less than a half hour or the artist would have been caught. This artist is one of the best at using a bunch of stencils to create a masterpiece. Each stencil would be painted with one color, one on top of the other. The building owner was actually quite happy with the picture though so he decided not to clean it off or replace the window.

 

This is probably the first time any of you have seen an octopus mixed with an elephant. Brilliant!

This was done by a Brazilian artist. It represents the artist's dislike of the way the Brazilian government gives nice things to the poor people so that they will conform to do what those in power want them to do. It shows a "tribal" blue man with things like an iPod, headphones, and Nike sneakers.

This painting looks like the impressionist paintings in the art gallery because the artist sprays a small circle of spray paint and let's it dry. The paint runs a little bit and creates this image.

My favorite was one that I probably would have missed if it hadn't been pointed out to me. I was right next to the painting for about 5 minutes and I kept thinking "What is thing crazy jumble of black yarn next to me and why are we looking at it?"  

The tour guide said to cross the street and take a better look at the wall. When I looked back I couldn't believe what I was looking at. Natali and I looked at either in shock as we stared at the picture in front of us. The creativity and skill this took to create is super impressive. The jumble of yarn became two panthers fighting in an almost 3-D picture that I would have never expected.  

Then we had to rush to the flat, grab our luggage, and hurry to St. Pancras International to catch our train to Paris. Note to future self: if you ever do this again, go to the train station and store the luggage there so that you don't waste an hour traveling back and forth and miss the last 30 minutes of an awesome tour. 

We had a quick 2 hour train to Paris. Our good friend Christine Lemarchand was super nice and offered to pick us up from the train station and drive us to Evreux where we will be staying for the next few days with the awesome Lemarchand family. We arrived pretty late in Evreux, had dinner around 10:30, and didn't get to bed until about 2:00 in the morning. Yeah we stink at this jet-lag thing.