French food

These are traditional french dishes, the first one is called escargot. This is snails with garlic butter. They tasted really good, but the texture was like eating an eraser! Super chewy. When the snails are served they come in the shell, with a special kind of pliers to hold onto them. They also come with a small fork to reach into their shell to get them out. We all had to try one, and then I ate chicken (the 2nd picture). I didn't want a whole plate of snails!! Another meal we had was called foix gras (it is in the back of the third picture) which is duck liver pâté mixed with some spices and rolled in a pastry. It is served cold with a kind of apple sauce. My Dad ordered that. We have also had crepes. A man made them on the street, and we had our choice of lemon and sugar, Nutella and bananas, chicken and cheese, or any other thing you could think of putting on them, we chose the ones I named, they were really good. One of the things I convinced my parents not to order for us to try was frogs legs..... I didn't think I would be able to eat them!

Arc De Triomphe

The Arc De Triomphe is in the middle of what looks like a 5 lane traffic circle, there are no lanes and people are driving everywhere. In the middle there are names engraved on the inside walls, and there is a memorial for the unknown soldiers that have died in battle during world war 1 & 2. There are flowers all around and a small fire burning in the center to show respect. There is many statues on the sides of the monument. Napolean commissioned the Arc De Triomphe. It was built in 1806. If you want to go to the middle of it you access it from under ground tunnels.

Subway

We just got the London tube (subway) figured out and now we have to learn the Paris metro (subway). What do you think does it look easy??? Try to figure out the way to the Eiffel Tower.

Eiffel Tower

Today we rushed to the Eiffel Tower to try to miss all the lines and people, we thought if we got there early we would miss all the big line ups..... Didn't happen, after a 4 hour wait we finally got to climb up the Eiffel tower. We took the elevator to the middle floor, it was a great view, we could see the whole city. We had to take another elevator to the very top. From there we
could see everything. That's where my other 2 pictures were taken from. The Eiffel Tower was finished being built March 31st 1889. It was built to be a part of the world fair. When the world fair was done many French people wanted the Eiffel Tower torn down. They thought that it was ugly and they didn't want to look at it anymore. Who knew it was one day going to be a wonder of the world?? From the top of it we could see the Arc De Triumph, Notre Dame, and the castle where the French royal family lives. Did you know they paint the Eiffel Tower every 7 years, and it takes 60 thousand tons of paint? The Eiffel Tower has 2.5 million rivets and 16,000 different pieces of steel in it. It was an amazing thing to see in real life!

The view from my hotel room

The view of Big Ben and the London eye are from our hotel room. It's so amazing, you don't even have to use a watch to see what time it is! Although the room is a little small, the view makes up for it. The London Eye is above Big Ben. I thought when I saw it the first time I would only see it once. Who knew I would be able to see it from the hotel window?! The hotel we stayed at was awesome, there were paintings of places all around the world, like New York. It's kind of funny we come here to see new European things and we see pictures of New York. To get to our room we had to climb 52 stairs. Our bathroom wasn't in our room, we had to climb another 8 stairs to get to it. It was fun.

Day of Royalty

Today we went to Buckingham palace, it was huge, and had gold statues everywhere. It was busy, there were a lot of people, and the crowds were huge. We left after a little bit and went to St James Park to see the changing of the guard. We watched the guards ride in on their horses and then they just sat there, it was interesting to see. We then went to the tube (subway) and rode it to tower hill to see The London Tower Bridge and the Tower of London. We bought tickets to see the inside of the Tower. The Tower of London has been in the royal family since the 12 hundreds. It is also the place that traitors were beheaded for treason. I had a lot of fun it was sure a Royally fun day today!!!

Big Ben

I have always wanted to see Big Ben, it has been my dream. The design on it looks like a picture out of a book. There's gold around the clock and on the top around the point. The way I first saw it was I walked out from the tube (subway) and it was right in front of me. This is the biggest clock in the world, and it is attached to the parliament buildings where they pass laws. I went on the london eye where I could see the whole city, that is where I took the 2nd picture from. Today I also saw the London bridge, which I thought didn't look like anything special. The Tower bridge is way more impressive. I walked past the Westminster Abby where Prince Charles and Lady Diana, and Prince William and Kate were married, it was beautiful.