London vying for 2012 Olympics & the 7/7 bombings

Every once and a while I have a memory of my time in London pop back into my head. I didn't keep a travel blog when I was doing study abroad, so I have to record those memories as they come to me.

In 2005 several countries were competing to become the 2012 Olympic city. At the time, 2012 seemed like a far away preposterous year, I was still getting used to not writing 1999. I don't know who else was vying to host the Olympics but I do remember London and Paris were.

Several of my friends decided to make a weekend trip to Paris and see the sights. There are many choices for traveling between London and Paris, I took a plane, my friends took an overnight ferry. DO NOT take an overnight ferry. But that's another story for another day.

 Seeing the Eiffel Tower was on on my list of "Must Sees". At first I was disappointed that the Eiffel Tower had "PARIS 2012" in bright Olympic colors, with the S and the 2 making a heart in the middle "S2".  This ruined the perfect Eiffel Tower picture I had in my head. Now I'm glad I was there to see it. It represented a unique time I got to be in Europe.

Plus I had no idea I'd be back in 5 years to get much better pictures. 

July 7th, 2005 I had just returned to the States after doing study abroad in London. I woke up to a phone call from a friend who had also just returned. "Can you believe they did that to London?" I had no idea what she was talking about, I thought maybe she was upset that they had just announced that London was going to host the Olympics, but that didn't make sense. "They bombed the tube stations."

The tubes we used everyday, to get everywhere. I quickly got on my computer searching for information. (This was before facebook had newsfeed, primitive, I know.) One of the bombings happened at the tube station right before our stop. It made me feel sick to my stomach. 52 people were killed and over 700 were injured. It was also pointed out to me that we very well could have ridden these trains with the bombers while they scoped out their locations.

I didn't commute to school, I lived in the dorms, but I had other friends that lived further away. They could have been on the trains at 9 in the morning. Thankfully no one I knew was.

I had friends who were still trying to leave London and return to the States. All the tube stations were closed, you could only travel using the major train stations. All the taxis were already taken out of fear. And the buses were either too full or just plain missing. This meant that everyone I knew who had to catch a flight that day, had to drag a semester's worth of luggage to the closest train station on foot. Which for us, our tube stop was Baker Street and they now had to get to Paddington Station.

A=Our School   B= Baker Street Tube Station   C=Paddington Train Station

 For the next two weeks I fielded tons of emails and phone calls double checking that I had in fact returned to the States and I was not still in London. (Again, before facebook had status updates.)

Photo I found on Google of damage:

My beloved Harry Potter train station, King's Cross was one of the bombing sites.

Thank you, London! I would love to go back one day. I have so many good memories. I once saw my teacher get in an argument one time, but they were being so polite, I almost didn't recognize that they were fighting.

I love that everyone in London is polite, everyone has a British accent, everyone loves the queen, and that there are rose gardens everywhere!

 

Paris & Eiffel Tower

On my way back to the US, I was forced to spend a day in Paris. There was no away around it, so I tried to make the best of it. I took it as a good sign that I saw a wedding photographer taking pictures at the carousel in front of the Eiffel Tower. It was like "Laura you are right to be going home."

I had already been to Paris once in 2005 while studying abroad in London. At the time both London and Paris were bidding for the 2012 Olympics, that's why the Eiffel Tower in my picture is adorned with kiddie-colored letters/numbers spelling out "Paris 2012". Gosh 2012 seemed a long way away back then.

5 years later, I still seem to have an affinity for purple jackets.

This trip was a little different because I've already done the whole "frolic-around-Paris-get-really-tired-and-discover-I'm-lost" thing. I had two specific goals this time. 

1) See the Eiffel Tower light up at night and sparkle.

...which sadly did not happen. I was disappointed that I had waited forever in the rain and only saw it light up but not sparkle, so my brother made me this video for me when he had to travel through Paris.

I waited for hours in the sprinkling then pouring rain, while telling a thousand people that "No, I don't want to buy a tiny replica of the Eiffel Tower," then I had to make a pretend phone call to my imaginary boyfriend after one of the vendors came up to me and kept trying to ask me questions and told me we could talk if I was lonely....sketch....

I did get a cool shot of the tower lit up even if it wasn't sparkling.

Obligatory terrible self portrait shot in the rain, barely got the Eiffel Tower in there.

Look how bright this dinner cruise boat was going under the bridge, 

it made the Eiffel Tower look dim.

Second goals was: 2) Take a drastically different picture of the Eiffel Tower, below are my favorites:

It may sound strange but I think one of the coolest parts of my trip was actually finding the Eiffel Tower. I realize this sounds like a joke for anyone who understands my directional deficiency. But it was just cool to follow the map and directions I had written for myself and think "Ok, I should be close to the Eiffel Tower." And then BAM! I turn the corner and this massive universally recognizably landmark was right there. "um yeah, ok, there it is. Found it. Guess I don't need this map anymore, I'm just gonna walk towards it now."

A few more pictures not of the Eiffel Tower. There were a couple of little parks/gardens  surrounding the Eiffel Tower and I saw these tiny birds with humongous feet. They moved pretty quickly, as you can tell from the motion blur.

These are the apartments directly across from the Eiffel Tower. 

Good for those people.

And just for kicks, I like that this girl thought so little of seeing the Eiffel Tower that she could chat away on her cell phone. Not only that, but also block the best views and photo opportunities for everyone else.

So anyway that was my last little bit of Europe. I do plan to do a summary blog and then a blog about what I'm doing now. Also on a side note you should know, I accidently woke up and started packing somewhere around 4:30 the next morning. I was ready to go at 5:20 before I was told what time it was. I had to sit and wait for the trains to start running again. Oh well...