Originally, I wanted to do London, Paris, Normandy and then Munich. However, I decided I was trying to take on too much and cut out Munich. Natalie thought Normandy had nothing so when I told her to plan on at least four days there she
thought I was crazy. I told her give me my four days and she can do whatever she wants for the rest of the trip. I gave her a free pass, no questions asked, she can go wherever she wants. So, while I normally do all the planning for vacation,
I mostly left it up to Natalie this time. I had too much going on anyways to be involved in this.
Since I've met Natalie it's always been her dream to go to Paris. I've always heard a lot of bad things from people about Paris and the French in general. Something I've learned in life is don't live off other people's opinions, go
experience it for yourself and decide. I thought I would like London more than Paris but after going to both, I really don't know which was better. Each had their own charm but also the trappings of modern urban life - decay, politics,
and shifting values that contrasted with their beauty.
I will say that I didn't experience any of the rudeness towards Americans that I've always heard the French are known for. I made no attempts at all to speak French and everyone was very polite. I had strangers go out of there way a
couple times to help me out. In Normandy they fly our American flag, they have memorials everywhere from D-Day, have murals of our soldiers, and one cafe had displays of the American military. I don't know how anyone can say they are
ungrateful for what we did in WWII.
For the most part the French were very pleasant, until you get to the train....
This is where I noticed the difference between the UK and France. The British were polite and talk very proper everywhere we went. On the Tube I had a woman younger than me offer up her seat so I could sit with my kids. I declined
because I have no issue standing, but the gesture was enough. In Paris they are friggin animals the minute they get to the train. The last night we were there we had nightmares of the our train experience. More about that below.
As for Western Europe overall, everything I've heard about the decline turned out to be true. In the UK the surveillance state is real. They have cameras everywhere and police sitting in vans watching people on their laptops. Everything
I've heard about the native British now being outnumbered is completely accurate. In France we didn't see so many police but we saw all the migrants crowding the landmarks with their illegal sidewalk shops. I'll go into that more below
as well. The crazy thing in Paris was around most of these landmarks we saw no police and all these illegal activities are mostly unchecked.
So why do I bring this all up? When most people go on a trip they only talk about how great everything was. I think it's better to be real about things. If you don't know about all the scams and pickpockets you're setting yourself up
for a bad time. We were overly cautious and prepared for this trip. Even though we had three kids and were clearly targets we had no issues. There were a couple instances where people tried to scam us or someone looked like they were
going to try and grab my bag but they quickly figured out I'm not the person they want to **** with.
First thing about traveling to London and Paris. Keep your head on a swivel and watch your 💩. I got the cross bag that cost an arm and a leg but it has slash resistant straps and the zippers kinda-somewhat lock. I say kinda because they have this plastic clip that slides under that black piece that keeps the bag from being opened easily. But I took it a step further and put TSA locks on my bag. I put the middle zipper on part that is built in to lock it and I locked the plastic clip. Then I took the zippers on both sides of the middle zipper and I locked them together. No one is getting this thing off me without a fight. Pick pocketing wasn't going to happen, it would have to be full on mugging, which isn't very common there. Most people are looking to get your stuff and get out undetected.
We had a plan before we got there and talked to the kids about safety. In the train stations when I opened my bag we would go to a wall or a corner where I have my back to no one when I open it. We used phone straps most of the trip but when we went on the metro and the tube I took everyone's phone and put them in my bag. Some might think this is extreme but getting pick pocketed is a good way to ruin a trip really fast.
A lot happened in two weeks so I'll summarize under each day's adventure below. Also, due to the size of this post, I had to split it in two so it doesn't crash mobile devices.
Links
Orlando to LondonLondon
Westminster / Churchill War Rooms
Tower of London / Tower Bridge / Queen Mary's Rose Garden
Windsor Castle
Imperial War Museum
Paris / Eiffel Tower / Trocadero
The Louvre / Luxembourg Gardens
Notre-Dame de Paris / Eiffel Tower Tour
Versailles / Arc de Triomphe
Family Pictures / Eglise Saint-Michel / Montmartre / Palais Garnier
Rouen
Bayeux / American Cemetery / Pointe du Hoc / Longues-sur-Mer
Omaha Beach / American Cemetery / Pointe du Hoc / Widerstandsnest 82 / Carentan
Caen
Back to London
This is the pacsaf bag I bought Amazon.
June 5th - Orlando to London
We left the evening of June 5th for London. Our flight was supposed to depart at 8:30 PM from Orlando but we were delayed a half hour. We got to London around 10 AM on June 6th. The flight was not fun. First we had a guy in the first row of our seats. He insisted he was in the correct spot but he was not. He didn't have his ticket so he had to go up front and then found out he was in the wrong seat. This was the kid's row and we were behind them. When I got our tickets I made sure I got two windows. But I was tired and the seats were confusing because Norse removed either the i or the j because they say they look alike and it was throwing me off. So in all the confusion some teenager that was with this family took our seat when he was supposed to get the isle seat and we got stuck with the isle and middle. Then his mom asked if we want to trade for her middle seats so they can be together and we can be on the same row as our kids. I laughed. Sorry but no, I picked seats behind my kids for a reason. I was tired and right before takeoff I realized this kid was in my seat but it was too late to say anything. So I had a nice 8 hour flight with a sore neck, tired, and no window to lean up on. At least I had my BBL to lay on.
June 6th - London
We flew into Gatwick instead of Heathrow. It ended up saving us around $1000 doing this and we got to take a drive through the countryside and see all the big homes outside of London. We didn't want to take the train the first day with all our luggage because we thought it might be too much trouble with kids and luggage so we took an Uber. Turns out the train was the easier way to do things but it was nice getting to drive outside of central London.
I got up to go to the bathroom and couldn't' find Dean when I got back ☺
He's under Adri.
Our Uber ride. Our drive was from Eritrea, in East Africa. He thought he had all the answers to finance and making it rich. It was interesting hearing about his background and perspective. We were talking about the police there
being unarmed and how we are armed in America at the grocery store. He said he used to be in the military but doesn't like guns in public and it would frighten his kids. He mentioned all the shootings in the US. I laughed. In the UK
they get stabbed to death or arrested for social media post. I think we'll keep our guns.
Our apartment in Chelsea. The kids have all the answers to the universe.
Our tiny kitchen that we only used for laundry. The all in one washer/dryer takes all day to do a tiny load.
My mom would have loved to see this. Harrington is all over the place in this area. After a short stop here we went for some Thai Food, which was really good but much smaller portions than we are used to.
After lunch we walked over to Hyde Park. This is in front of the Albert Memorial.
Royal Albert Hall. It was really hard to get a picture without that obnoxious Alphabet Mafia flag ruining the picture. This is something that was really annoying in London. There were entire blocks with trans flags and Ukrainian flags flying everywhere. I don't understand the mentality there. Super woke with all the trans shit but then also letting in a bunch of Muslims, who eventually when they get more power, will just throw them off the roofs. They are setting themselves up for a civil war with incompatible cultures.
This is pretty much all the boys wanted to do on vacation. Every single day asking to go to the playground.
Walking somewhere through Hyde Park.
They call this one The Thin House. No thanks, I'll keep my house in America.
We had dinner right across the street from our apartment at Brompton Cross. The food was meh, but the Heaven Cent IPA was pretty good. I should have asked them if I could buy that glass. Our waitress was from Brazil, and she said her
brother lives in Florida. I was curious how she could go from Brazil, a culture with food that contains this thing called flavor, to UK food.
This was the first day of visiting my dead ancestors. Through my mom's side the genealogy goes 1,500 years back through Charlamagne's oldest documented relative Arnulf of Metz (582-640). My great-grandma is Mary Boleyn. Through her we were related to Queen Elizabeth I, Anne Boleyn, William the Conqueror, Rollo, and allegedly even the Tudors. It's known that Mary had an affair with King Henry 8th, and even though the state won't acknowledge it most historians
say the timeline of her husband being the father or Katherine is impossible and the real father is Henry.
Walking through Kensington in the morning on the way to Westminster Abbey.
These windows were all blown out from an air raid in WWII.
A really distant cousin. I think he is something like my 8th cousin.
These kids look way too happy.
Margaret Countess of Lennox
Mary of Scots
Anne Stanhope
We found this really cool garden in St. James park.
This is what I liked seeing in Britian. Not a line of Alphabet Mafia and Ukrainian flags. The UK needs to get back to their roots.
The boys playing war.
June 8th - Tower of London / Tower Bridge / Queen Mary's Rose Garden
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On the tube heading for Tower of London.
Coming out of the tube this is what we see. Looks more like a castle than a tower.
Around the Tower of London is a mix of medieval castles and modern sky scrapers.
She loves me.
I was looking for the egg building and thought this looks nothing like on the movies. That's because the egg building is behind me. Apparently, the British like this type of architecture.
The entrance to Tower of London.
Tower of London is a small city started shortly after William's victory at Hastings.
Coming out of the tube this is what we see. Looks more like a castle than a tower.
Natalie wanted to go here because it's from Harry Potter but we couldn't find anything to eat. We ended up getting pizza on the way back to Tower Bridge.
A screenshot from one of my videos. This was absolutely the most fabulous thing we saw.
Not really what I was expecting in London. Looks more like the Southwestern US.
Some strangers offered to take our picture. Now normally I'd say no, but I gave them an ocular pat down and determined they were not a threat. After taking the picture he made a joke about running with the phone. I laughed. If
he would have tried his wife wouldn't have been going anywhere ☺
We had to take a couple trains to get to Windsor. We took the Underground from Chelsea to Paddington where we switched to the Great Western Railway, then switched to Branch Line at Slough to go to Windsor Central.
Windsor Castle, a lot of my relatives lived or spent time here.
Dean found his place.
St. George's Chapel.
Natalie snuck this picture of my great-aunt, Anne Boleyn.
We came all this way because Natalie wanted to see this bookshop. We should have known by the woke display not to go inside. Two feet in the door and there are books with dicks out and the mafia alphabet stuff right there for
everyone to see. It's sad that you can't even take kids in a book store these days.
This was the worst part of London we went in our entire trip. Everyone tries to sell it as a colorful multicultural neighborhood which is known for it's colorful Victorian houses. Translation? I saw trash everywhere and it was crowded with vendors and homeless in the streets. I couldn't get out of there fast enough.
This was found in Taroa 50 years after the war.
Walking back to the apartment.
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