Posted by Kitty

Day 2
London –> Paris
Since we have no idea where we are going exactly, we left the hotel early in the morning, we took the shuttle back to the airport and took the underground ($4 p) to the Eurostar station. When we got there, I forgot to bring the credit card that I used to purchase the tickets with arggg… So I went to sweet talk the agent, at first he wouldn’t issue me the tickets because it was in the agreement, at the time when I purchase these tickets online that I *MUST* bring the credit card with me and it is also printed on the confirmation page. It is totally my fault and after asking him politely and nicely if there was anything he can do to help me out. He checked my photo id and whispered to me…

“He’s not doing his job if he was going to issue me the tickets as it clearly states that I must have my credit card with me”. I apologized again that I had forgotten to bring the card with me, even though I’ve been overseas many times but I’ve never been to Europe, with the excitement and packing and booking my tours! Then he tickle the keys some more and disappeared, when he returned, he had my tickets in hand. Phew… I thanked him and thanked him again before leaving the counter, with the biggest smile I can muster LOL. It would have cost me $175 pounds per person otherwise!

Good thing we allowed for plenty of time to get from the hotel to the Eurostar station, because our train was 45 minutes EARLY. There were no notifications to us! The Eurostar was something you have to experience if you are ever in Europe! The ride was smooth and we got to Paris in about 2.5 hours

Paris
We thought we’ll be adventurous and take the public transportation from the station to the hotel via their train system, the French were really nice to us and showed us where we need to get off, as a matter of fact the lady wrote it down for us so we can’t mess up LOL. Even though I don’t speak a slick of French but we didn’t have any problems getting around. No where a good map can’t get you! We had to change trains to get to the hotel, with Kerry’s broken French and lots of pointing we got to the hotel in one piece.

Kerry took 2 years of French in school and this is his idea of speaking French:
La chook - chook is chicken in Aussie slang!
La cackleberry - cackleberry is an egg in Aussie slang
Excuse moi, get the bloody hell away - oh nice going

We got off at the Champs-Elysees station, as soon as we walked out of the station we saw the Arc de Triomphe… Oh what a sight! I was not shy being a tourist, and whipped out the camera and started clicking away. It was such an awesome surprise! We stayed at the Etoile Park Hotel near the Arc de Triomphe, we can see the Arc from the balcony of our hotel room. So very cool

Due to the short amount of time we are spending in Paris, we wasted no time and went out immediately after we checked into the hotel. It was about a 20 minutes walk to the Eiffel Tower, it was getting late and it started to mist a little bit. But the streets and places were filled with people, music and laughter! We walked past Arc de Triomphe and Champs-Elysees avenue where the big name shopping were. I couldn’t believe I was in Paris! The Eiffel Tower was magnificently beautiful in its own way, by far it’s not the tallest building in the world but as I stand there staring up at the tower, it was surreal being there. I have seen pictures of the Eiffel Tower hundreds of times, I’m feeling the romance and the amazement being there at that moment! We rode up to the top of the tower and looked down, they had a laser show while we were all the way up there, it was so very cool. As if they knew it was my birthday and wanted to put on a show for me hehee.

Our hotel concierge recommended a place for us to have dinner, after walking around the place what seemed like for hours. We can’t find the restaurant!! So, we decided to walk back to the hotel and have them call us a taxi. We thought we missed our chance to have authentic French food, because by the time we get back to the hotel it was nearly 11:00 pm. The manager over heard us, since she was leaving anyway she said she will give us a ride! Wow, what a nice thing to do for total strangers! It was only a 5 minute ride from the hotel to the Brasserie Lorraine restaurant, we chatted with her. She was actually the owner of the hotel and not the manager. She was telling us how much she enjoys traveling but was afraid to travel outside of France, because of how other people perceive the French to be. It almost broke my heart to hear that, because everyone that we’ve encountered in France were really nice and more than accomadating to us. We hope when she travels to America, she has the same experience as we did in France. She wanted to make it her mission to share with others who the French people really are, and that not all of them are rude.

When we finally arrived at he Brasserie Lorraine restaurant, my feet were killing me from wearing those super sexy knee high boots LOL. I ordered fish soup and duck, Kerry had the fish soup and steak. It was yummy!

Posted by Kitty

Three countries in 7 days, can we do it? Before the trip, I made these preparations for my birthday trip:

* Called our banks, credit card and our mobile phone companies to let them know we’ll be overseas and the charges we put on the card/phone are valid. We had our iPhones unlocked for international use.

* Went to my local bank downtown and converted $150 each in pounds and in Euros to take with us, the bank didn’t charge me any fees.

Monday, Feb 16 - Day 1
Chicago –> London
Our flight out of Chicago to D.C. was at 6:00 am, instead of doing the mad dash to the airport the morning of our flight. I booked an overnight stay at the Crown Plaza hotel near the airport. They offer free parking and free shuttle to the airport and we don’t have to worry about leaving the car at the lot. It was the best situation for us and I’m sure for the hotel.  It was maybe $10 more than if we had just parked our car at a lot for the whole week!

We caught the flight to D.C. pretty uneventful, I didn’t realize this but we only had about 15 minutes to catch the connecting flight to London Heathrow! I was taking my sweet time looking around for a bite to eat, then I looked down the hall and saw Kerry in a panic and waving at me like he’s ready to fight LOL. I rushed over and they were boarding our flight already! The flight from D.C. was about 8 hours, I downloaded a whole bunch of movies and podcasts to my iPhone to keep me occupied. The in-flight entertainment system wasn’t half bad, not as good as the Qantas system tho. I saw “Rachel Getting Married”, “The Boy in the Stripe Pajamas” and “Body of Lies”!

By the time we landed, we must have been the last red-eye into London because the whole airport of completely deserted. We gone through customs that was so painless, the agent was very chatty and friendly as well. Then we proceeded to claim our luggage and went straight out to the street.

London
My first impression was how strange it smells and looking at the taxis made me smile, I thought to myself… I’m home! Well home according to my first passport anyway, I used to have a British passport and technically, if you read the nationality from my British passport, it says I’m British!

We took a bus shuttle from the airport to the Sheraton hotel nearby the airport for the night, we were heading out to Paris tomorrow via the Eurostar. The bus shuttle cost 4 pounds per person, ouch (see why I took small amount of local money with me?!) We checked-in, by the time we get to the room it was well over 11:00 pm. I was starving, so we ordered room service. Curry chicken and mushroom soup. Yumm! It was a long day and this is only the beginning of my journey!

Posted by Kitty

Meet Keiko

Originally uploaded by badkittyx2

We got her from a nearby neighborhood, she’s from a litter of 10. The
family can’t keep all of them and decided to find good families for
the kittens.

After a week without a name and since we can’t agree on a name, finally I
told Kerry to help find her a name LOL. Kerry got a perfect name for
her… Keiko is her name, it’s Japanese for “glad” or “hopeful”. We
are glad to have her in our family and hopefully she will be
happy in our home.

She loves to cuddle and purrs like a moped hehee.

Posted by Kitty

Did you get part of the $175 million dollars settlement today? Since I haven’t been downtown the last few business days, I decided to take my walk over to Macy’s to see about the crazed free cosmetics giveaway.

It wasn’t all that bad, waited in line for about  15 minutes or so. I walked away with a .5 oz Estee Lauder Advanced Night Repair Protective Recovery Complex!

I love bonus walking days hehee, working downtown surely has its own advantage, there are free samples given out all the time. From cat food, cereal, room freshener, ziplock vacuum sealer to beverages!

Posted by Kitty

Daily Walk Picture - Corn on the cob buildings

Originally uploaded by badkittyx2

Also known as Corn Cob Towers are located on State Street and Wacker,
these buildings are 65 floor high with beauiful view of the Chicago
River!

They used to be rental apartments but they have been converted to
condos in the last 10 years so. The lower levels are parking spaces
for the tennants.

I skipped my daily walk on Friday because I was not down town, boy did
I make up for it today! It was freezing, I only walked for 30 minutes!