Birthday Weekend - Day 2 - Paris

So we were out very late the night before from watching the hit musical, Wicked. And we needed to be at the train station the next morning at 6:30am. We got there in plenty of time and got our tickets from the London tour guide (there were two different guides, one in London, one in Paris). We checked in and eventually found our seats on the famous Eurostar. The Eurostar is the train that runs under the ocean between England and Paris. It runs about 220 mph (or something high). We are only under the water for about 20 minutes. But it's still cool. My mom and I found our way to the food car. Yey!

When we arrived at the Paris Nord train station, we met up with our guide Monica. She put us on our tour bus and my dad and I made our way to the open top even though it was pretty cold and I didnt have a scarf or hat! So not cool! Well.... actually really cold! My mom eventually came to the top as well and rode around the city seeing the cool sights. You'll see that we passed by The Thinker (i have a photo of his back and butt...)

We made it the Eiffel Tower, which was really cool but didnt get to go up inside. We headed straight to our Seine River cruise, which was wonderful. We got to hear an automated guide. The cruise was beautiful and we rode under several of the 26 bridges. We could see The Louvre and Notre Dame!

After that we got to tour The Louvre museum. It would take forever to get through the entire thing but we got to see the main attraction: The Mona Lisa. It was really great. I've always wanted to visit the Louvre so I was thrilled to be there and would spend as much time as possible.

At the end of the day we went to a few out-of-our-price-range stores and I learned that I love Chanel's Coco Mademoiselle perfume. Not the eau de toilette or eau de parfume - those werent as a good. But the real kind - omg! That smelled awesome! (especially on me!! haha). I also found my perfect engagement ring at Tiffany's. It was only 28,000 euro! (hey, at least it wasnt the 110,000 euro ring!) Then my mom and I drooled over some Louis Vuitton hand bags.

We finished off the day in a little Parisian cafe with creme brulee. Nice.... :-)

My Birthday Weekend- Day 1 (My actual Birthday)

There's not as much to report as there are pictures.

To start off, my parents were flying into Dublin on my bday, March 25th. They landed around 5:30am and I met up with them at about 6:30am. Unfortunately, I had been up the night before throwing up - that's a bummer. And you can guess my folks didnt get much sleep on the plane. So a little after 8am we were on another plane on the way to London. From the time we arrived, we went straight until well after 11pm. We got a train from the airport into the city centre and then discovered the Tube - the London Underground. We checked into the Travelodge just around the block from the tube station. It was past noon and we were hungry! So we found a cute English pub and ate some english food. Then we headed to Madame Tussauds, the famous wax museum. That was really fun. Almost any celebrity you can think of is made up in wax. Great fun!

Our next attraction was at the London Eye, the ginormous ferris wheel. From the view we could see Big Ben (which was right across the river) and Westminster Abbey, just next to it. You're thinking all of this should have happened within a couple of hours. Not quite. Once off the Eye it was about 5.30pm. We were next going to see a show and had to catch a taxi because the tube station we needed was closed down. When we arrived at the Apollo Victoria Theatre, we grabbed dinner right across the street at a spectacular authentic Italian restaurant. We loved our meals. I had lamb in a cherry sauce. So good. Then we walked across the street into the theatre and saw Wicked, one of the best musicals I've seen! It was so amazing. We laughed, we cried. It was just great. Wicked is the story of the wicked witches in the Wizard of Oz and how they came to be known as they were. The story was great, the songs were great, and I loved the production - the lights, the sound, the set - all so amazing!

The tube station we needed was back open by the time the show was over and we got back to our hotel by around 11.30pm.

Very long day, and not much sleep to come that night...