Tour de France by Brad

Tour de France Sunday!
After almost a week in Paris, we have been getting used to late mornings and late nights. However, Sunday morning we're up at 8; alarm required.
Out of the apartment, down to the Metro... Oh look, not open until 10am... Okay, now we'll speed walk to the Champs Élysées to claim our spot!
...and here is our view at the side of the street...

...at 9:30 in the morning. When are the riders due? 4pm (at the earliest). We shall settle in for the day.
10am: Cassie finds a place to buy us some food.
11am: sit down against the barrier for a while.
Noon: read Bicycling magazine on the iPad
1pm: not drinking anything as there is now 3 rows of people behind us. You can leave, but no one's letting you return.
2pm: 6 or 7 people deep. There hasn't been a chance to sit down for at least 3 hours.
And then it happened...

The Caravan has arrived in all it's glory!

Every vehicle in the Caravan has travelled the WHOLE tour route, including this Vespa Ape (pronounced Apay)

And of course the Credit Lyonnaise Lion.

However, after more than 5 hours of waiting, we find ourselves wishing the Caravan would finish because then it's only (ONLY!!) 2 more hours until the riders arrive.

And at around 4:30pm, the peloton arrives. Yay, yay,yay, damn it's tiring standing around.

And this energizes us! Jens Voigt, arguably the coolest guy in cycling (really, read his blog and tweets!) breaks away with fellow countryman Danilo Hondo and keeps out from the peloton until the last 10 seconds (at least that's what we heard) because we sure didn't see the end of the race...

So around 6pm we file our way out of the race course, find some drinks and a bathroom and hit the Metro for a ride home and dinner at the Black Dog Cafe. See Cassie's entry for that story.

Harrod's who?

And now for some shopping, Parisian style. Giant departments stores are not the sole property of London, Paris has some incredible show stoppers as well.

We were able to make it to two of them.

First up, Galeries Lafayette, whose centre atrium looks like it should host operas, not sell socks. We can't even fit it in in one shot:

And a scene that makes you wonder why we ever got rid of the Woodward's food floor at Mayfair mall. You can't want for anything down here.

Freshly carved prosciutto for your appetizer platter?

Or perhaps some Indian spices for tonight's dinner?

Or maybe you're putting on an Asian spread - here's your dimsum checkpoint:

And if the basement food hall gets a little boring, you can catch the lift to the roof for a stunning (and free!) view of Paris:

And immediately beside the Galeries, is Printemps.
Another stunning building with a grand rotunda room, this one is the setting for their formal restaurant (with one heck of an enormous globe light!):

Oh, and another stunning deck. Nothing like having this sort of views while sipping your cafe:

Incredible stores, from top to bottom.

French Fun with Friends

While playing tourists in Paris, we met up with some friends from Victoria.

So we set about to enjoy some of the typical French highlights - fashion, food and Florida.

First up, the fashion. While Scott looks dapper trying on a striking orange check blazer, the show is stolen by the shop owner, head to tails (three piece no less) in seersucker:

And onto the food. Where to dine? What did we want to embrace while we were here?
Romantic Paris? Artistic Paris? Historic Paris? Or Heavy Metal Paris.....

Option four it is! The Black Dog. A truly unique restauant experience.
If you come, make sure you have:
1) an open mind as you walk through the bar in the front and,
2) an empty stomach for the restaurant that lays at the back.

Compared to the average patron, our group was low on tattoos and piercings - but only a love for good food is a prerequisite here. Strains of Slayer and Metallica were blaring over the sound system as we sipped our pre-dinner drinks. Then we made our way into the back restaurant - an Argentinian steakhouse.

Choices are wide ranging here - meat, more meat or one kilogram of meat.
Mouth-watering, cut with a butter-knife, grilled to perfection, meat.
This place is packed, and for good reason - the service is delightful and the food is fabulous.
Brad and I couldn't decided on which cut, so we split the mixed platter (and added some token green beans for some colour on the plate).

An option we didn't choose was the 1KG serving of steak (really, it's a roast at that point, isn't it?). If you finish it, you used to be able to sign your name somewhere on the restaurant (as they're running out of room, now you get a t-shirt).

Here is a photo of the ceiling with the numerous roast-eaters:

We actually had a started of beef empanadas and chicken empanadas...but they were so good, we couldn't get the camera out in time. For dessert, we ordered more empanadas....chocolate ones.
Before attack:

During attack:

And before leaving for good, Cassie snapped a quick photo of Scott, Irene, Brad and a couple new friends (the one of the left who is now sporty a 1KG shirt!):

And for the Florida part - The Paris Beach - right along the Siene. For a touch of summer in the city, Paris trucks in sand (and a few palm trees) and creates a beach/boardwalk that stretches for about a kilometre.

As you stroll along, you pass kiosks for beer, foosball tables, giant deck chairs and...
Bands playing:

Comfy chairs to enjoy an evening picnic in:

And nearby pétanque to round out the authentic atmosphere:

Definitely one of those surreal settings - noshing on a picnic at 11pm at night, on the beach, with the twinkling Eiffel Tower in the background. Ahhhhh.

Viva le velo

Hopped the water and found ourselves in....

Came to the City of Lights to get our bike fix. The grand Tour de France was finishing up here with a few laps of the Champs Élysées. Even though we had hoped to be waving our BC flag and hollering "Ryder" at the top of our lungs, a crash earlier in the tour meant this wasn't to be. That's ok, it's just a small delay for our flag and hoarse voices. We'll be front and centre (well, in the cheap/free seats) for him in the London road race.

But keeping in the bicycle spirit. We decided to check out Paris's bike rental stations.

Cheap like borscht!

For €1.70, you get a one day "membership" to the bike program. Then you log-out bikes - the first 30min is free, then it increments up, the longer you have the bike out. So the program is there for those short hops around town.

The rental station does multi-languages, takes credit cards and gives full instructions for using the bikes. And there are 1,800 stations around town! So it's easy to find one to take or return a bike.

The bikes have the cutting edge features like:
Adjustable seats!
Three speeds!
And a cable lock!
The seats were large and cushy though...although nothing is enough to cushion you from riding on these:

But here's photographic evidence that we did:

If your orientation of Paris isn't up to snuff, we're riding up the Champs on the bikes. To get there, we've ridden through the Place de Concorde, a.k.a., the mother of all roundabouts (as the Arc de Triumphe is the grand-daddy of all roundabouts). And yes, Brad's helmet is non-existent.

Let's just say that we rode those bikes like we would NEVER ride back in Victoria. But we were riding amoung cars/scooters/motorbikes that drive like we never see in Victoria. As cyclists, we were always yielded for, period. Ahhh, Europe. It seems we'll never get like this in North America, so it's so nice to take advantage of it while we're here. But we promise to put our Victoria heads back on (in helmets) on our return to the City of Gardens.

Beigel Bagel Busy Busy

Had read about Spitalfields market and surrounding vintage stores, so we hopped the tube to check it out (and thought we could time a snack at the nearby bagel store, or beigel store, as it was called).

Must be good with this sort of crowd in it.....this rivals most Tim's lineups:

Four guys in the back are working like crazy - either boiling, lining up on narrow boards for baking or cooling and sending them to the front for sale:

Was worried about their hours and how long the line-up would take....oh wait, they're open 24 HOURS A DAY!!!!

And it's like this, most of the time. If it's not the shoppers, it's the crowds leaving the clubs. Needless to say, they were cheap - £1 for one with generous spread of cream cheese (Cassie) or a 1/4" slab of salami (Brad). Grabbed a loaf of bread as well....70p, 5p to have it sliced.....no wonder there's a line-up.

Paul Simon in Hyde Park

.....she's got wood chips on the soles of her shoes.

After many rainy days in London, the clouds lightened up on Sunday just in time for the third night of concerts put on by the Hard Rock Cafe. We were psyched that we didn't need to bring our umbrella! Long pants and jackets were required, however.

We arrived to see that drinks were a-flowing, so of course a couple of pints of cider were a must. The picnic site had a somewhat musty smell; reminiscent of the chipper room at the Crofton Pulp Mill (for those of you who have had that pleasure).

The wood chips (several thousand cubic yards worth) were dumped on the site after a concert last week (Madonna, I think) which turned the lawn into a massive mud pit. Dig a little into the chips, and voila, mud. The most popular footwear of the day were, of course, rubber boots (wellies)

If you were not interested in a direct view of the three concert stages, you might well just have to sit down for a nice glass/carafe of wine or champagne. You could leave a £5 deposit for a plastic carafe to walk the grounds with.

To the music! We sampled a few performers through the afternoon; a highlight was a guy named Ryan Sheridan from Ireland who put on an excellent performance. Plus his drummer played a plywood box as his drum kit. Very cool.

After some other acts, we settled in to see an old favourite, Big Country!

...and part way through the concert, bam, up pops their lead singer Mike Peters, just a few feet away from us! Interesting fact: the original lead singer of Big Country hanged himself in 2001... Mike Peters is the former lead singer of The Alarm, another Brit band popular in the 80's and 90's.
The one problem with this show is that the Paul Simon concert was starting at the main stage... So we and everyone else left to find a "good" spot to watch Paul Simon.

And indeed, we missed Big Country singing "In a Big Country", but we did catch Paul Simon as he began. The next three hours were spent watching (sort of) Paul Simon perform in front of 50 000 of us. And it was excellent! He played the entire Graceland album with all of the original musicians and guest artists including Ladysmith Black Mombazo and Jimmy Cliff. Each guest had the chance to sing a few songs without Paul, too. I suppose he stepped outside to smoke a "J". He is 70 after all...

This was our spot to watch the concert; if you squint you could perhaps see the stage.

And it didn't rain!

E.T. phone home

A great shot of of Big Ben....well, in the background of this cute little miniature phone booth version. This is a fundraiser for the UK Child Find. The times on the clock are 8:00 and 11:11, which together is the phone number for Child Find. Tiny people are painted on the top including Lady Gaga, Becks and Kate & Wills:

Two more booths in Picadilly Square (among the throngs of people). A giant wind-up one and a very 1980's neon yellow one:

And a two for one set of the booths in Covent Gardens. Some feisty little gargoyles in between the two (creating a T....for Telephone - the title of this one):

Another one bursting with flowers at Spitalfields market....

But perhaps our favorite of this bunch, and so very British - a tea cozy one. And yes, the entire phone booth is covered in a knitted cozy. His background told of the larger cozy-covered population, whose numbers were dwindling with the increased cell phone usage...very cute:

Shop til you drop

Shopping in London is endless here.

From the super cheap and convenient (H&M stores, three, repeat three of them on Oxford street - because you don't want to walk more than three blocks for a £2 top). Actually everything is in multiples on this High Street of all High Streets I lost count of the Boots pharmacies....they outnumbered the Starbucks for sure.

But one store that doesn't need multiple locations is Harrods. One of the top department stores in London. The service is top notch, the selection is enormous and the prices, well you are paying for the previous two points. Much of the store is filled with looky-loos (a.k.a. the general population, the 99%, or the great unwashed as they are called here in the UK).

If you don't want to get crushed in the store while picking up your caviar and aren't able to send the staff into town, they do deliver:

There are several other exclusive shops around town as well and they certainly take care of you....and your purchases, even if you are hoofing it to the tube - wouldn't want the purchases, or the bag, getting wet:

But London is also a great place for second hand clothes (or vintage as they're called - although we saw much 1980's wear, oh my goodness, we must be vintage). All decades are represented, including copious amounts of tweed outfits and 20's & 30's era clothes. And then the piece de la resistance at one store:

We're just that famous. Next we'll see a Can Tire touque.....

Those baby blues

Spent the afternoon at the Barbican, a convention facility, art gallery and community centre all rolled into one (very similar architecture style to UVic's Centre). They were exhibiting a tribute to 007 - The 50th Anniversary of Bond. Incredible displays with film footage, dresses/tuxedoes, gadgets, film props, scripts and, yes, a 1962 Aston.

But the most memorable and sought after wardrobe piece:

(please note I also shot wide enough for Ursula's bikini as well, for those not interested in the blue trunks.....)



And another entry in the, boy we're not in Kansas anymore....don't know if Cadbury is looking for a new Mars bar flavour:

....really, completely unrelated to the blue trunks.


But seeing as how we're making subconscious connections, let's throw this in:

Thinking of you DW.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

We did take time to get our Transit Geek on while in the big smoke of all big smokes. The London Transport Museum was great - taking you right from carried chairs, to trolleys, to hand-dug underground tunnels to double decker buses.

We won't bore you with the details here, but saw this familiar poster...that was published here in London in the mid sixties! Thought this one packs a bigger punch using the double deck (albeit reduced seating compared to new ones).

Alright, Geek Hat taken off.....back to our regularly schedule blogging....

Cars of South Kensington

Brad here:
Yay, I finally pulled the iPad out of Cassie's hands and get to write about, of course, cars. South Kensington and the neighbouring Chelsea make up probably the most expensive postal code in all of Britain. I won't bore you with real estate prices, but the local newspaper stated that a two bedroom flat in this area would require close to a $400 000 per year income! So, as cars go, well, Porsches and Mercedes are quite boring...

Near our flat is the only gas station for blocks. Line ups are massive most hours of the day, but I managed to pull out the camera to take this photo. I'm not really a Lamborghini expert, but the starting price for this car would be somewhere close to $300 000. Note the license plate is actually from a Middle Eastern country...

Ultimately, we are within three blocks of the local Lamborghini, Maserati and as pictured below, the Ferrari dealer. Amazing.

A quick word on license plates: when a new car is purchased, the plate states, in some sort of code, where the car was purchased, the year of the car and then random letters and numbers. So a new license plate has seven letters/numbers in some sort of combination. For example: LN 62 R6T.
HOWEVER, and there is always a however, people may buy and sell their plates to other people. Since there are no "vanity" plates, random combinations may make up something interesting. For instance, we saw a Honda CRV that had a plate the the letters CRV... It might has cost that person a few hundred Pounds to buy that plate.
BUT, there is also the idea that early license plates, with only a few characters, are even more desirable... Hence the gold Bentley below.

By the way, the purchase price of that license plate is likely worth way more than the car itself! Car: $250 000. License plate: $300 000!!!!!

So if you happen to own a 3 digit British license registration, you may indeed be able to put a down payment on a South Kensington flat.