The one who got sick

Day 11-
Our second day in Paris, I woke up with a nasty head cold. I was  determined not to let it keep us down, so we walked over to Notre Dame to see it in the daylight. Being Sunday, there was a mass service about to begin and we decided to attend. It was extremely fascinating to observe a church service in another language, but after 30 minutes or so, much to the woman-behind-us's dismay, we snuck out. We walked around a bit more, but eventually I couldn't enjoy myself anymore so we headed home for a warm bed. Thankfully, the views from the apartment were surreal because we had to lay low for the entire rest of the day. Vanessa and Remi graciously shared the most delicious & simple homemade vegetable soup and I pumped myself full of all the vitamins and supplements we had packed-- hoping for a speedy recovery. 

What was ironic about this situation is that I had been getting on Ryan's case for a week and a half prior to this about biting his nails on public transportation. He kept claiming he was building up his immune system for the travels. And what do you know, Mrs. Germaphobe over here is the one who got sick. 

Nos nouveaux amis

Day 9:
We headed back to London, just in time to catch a train to Paris. When booking our travel arrangements in advance, we tried to take the most timely and cost-effective routes between each destination. The Eurostar, the train that travels between London and Paris, was quite pricey and we discovered why: this high-speed train travels under the English channel. We were somewhat disappointed and somewhat relieved to find that it was really not much different than any other train ride. When we arrived in Paris, we were welcomed into Vanessa and Remi's home like we were old friends. After asking for restaurant recommendations, they insisted that we join them for supper. Remi had prepared a classic french dish that was similar to a quiche but oh so much tastier! Since most of our day had been spent travelling, we decided to bundle up and take an evening stroll to the Notre Dame, just a few blocks away. 

Day 10:
Our new friends took the day off to show us some of their favorite places in Paris. We started the day by visiting the Sacre-Couvre, where they showed us the best view from a VERY long staircase to the side of the building. We then walked around Montmartre in the 18th arrondissement, and stopped for the most filling salads on a sunny outdoor patio of a darling cafe. They showed us what they considered to be the most picturesque street in Paris, a place where they dreamed of one day buying a home. Vanessa is originally from Italy and she said the most authentic  gelato in Paris can be found at Grom, and while we were waiting in the unfailing long line, it began pouring rain. We shared an umbrella while we made our way to the Place de Vosges, the oldest planned square in the Marais district of Paris and the rain had already subsided by the time we arrived. We pulled up chairs so we could kick up our feet up around the fountain. Our final stop before heading home was the Jardin du Luxembourg, which was only a few blocks from their flat. Remi teased us all day about taking candid (or with his French accent-- "can-deed") photos but we're so thankful for these Parisian friends of ours and the memories we made with them that day. It was such a welcomed recess from staring at maps for an entire day. Merci beaucoup!

C.S. Lewis walking tour

Day 8:
We took a bus from London to Oxford the next morning and got to see some of the English countryside along the way. Ryan had downloaded a self-guided walking tour of the significant C.S. Lewis landmarks in Oxford so we set about to see as much of them as we could. We started with lunch at the White Horse, where Lewis often met with his friends for a beer. We made our way past the house on Mansfield Road where Lewis spent his very first night in Oxford in December 1916. The best part about this tour is that in between each notable place was streets filled with the "fabled cluster of spires and towers". We arrived at Magdalen College and while we were deciding if we should pay the entrance fee, we watched the punts along the River Cherwell and walked through the Botanic Gardens. We made up our minds that it was worth the admission price and were absolutely blown away by what we saw inside. The campus was like no college we had ever seen, with stunning architecture everywhere you looked. We walked a ways on Addison's Walk and watched the deer frolic in the protected reserve, but probably our very favorite was seeing the windows of the room where Lewis resided while he worked as a Fellow there; the very room he speaks of in the following excerpt:

“You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all of England.” -C.S. Lewis

We finished the day strolling along Longwall Street and High Street, where we saw the Eastgate Hotel, a favorite meeting spot for Lewis and Tolkien.We found an organic restaurant called The Rose and when we finished supper, we were forced to take an overpriced, but quintessentially English, cab ride home when we realized the buses were no longer running.