Friday, November 6, 2009: We didn't really have a plan for today (yes, most shocking for those of you who know me) so Larry wanted to check out a few record stores here and looked them up in the phone book, both of the top two being in Notting Hill area, which is very close to us here in Gloucester road, and it's a very cute area especially known for its market and the antiques, of course. After breakfast, we hopped on the circle line the two stops to Notting Hill Gate, came out onto the bustling street and followed the signs to Portobello Road. I know Abbey road is right around there somewhere, too... As we turned right around the corner there was a wine shop right there and lo and behold: the sign was in the window! The sign that I gave up trying to find again after wandering around for hours in SoHo. The First Annual London Wine Fair! Today and tomorrow! It was already 11am, so at first we walked by and decided it was probably already going on, we missed too much, it's not going to be worth checking out, etc, then had a rash of oh, what the hell- so we went in and it was far less expensive than I thought it was going to be- 15 pounds each, and we would get a voucher for the 15 pounds back to spend at any Nicholas wine shop in England after. It was starting at 2pm today, and they had it today and again tomorrow. I bought us tickets and away we went. Crazy!
We had time, so Larry went to his record shops and I wandered around on Portobello Road in the market looking for antiques. I have long wanted to buy english soup spoons- you can't find them in the states- the ones that are completely round, not just tablespoons bigger than the teaspoons. I found them. Lots of them. In silver, silver plate, antique, not antique, cheap, not cheap at all, etc. I bought some middle of the road ones, figuring I didn't need antique silver ones since I am going to actually use them. Almost right away I found some really ornate little silver plate teaspoons that were truly victorian in era, they were certainly before 1900, a set of 6. I thanked the woman and walked away, saying to Larry "I'm going to buy them." But for some reason not doing it right then. I wandered down the road, in and our of shops, rooting in bins of cutlery and junk for my spoons, eventually finding the ones I wanted. Larry went his separate way to the record shops and we agreed to meet back up in an hour. There is a ton of junk in Portobello Road. Tons. Clothing, used clothing, records (I saw a vinyl World Won't Listen Smiths album sitting in a bin), silver, china, nick knacks, and junk, junk, junk. And food. I walked by a particularly appetizing smelling middle eastern food stall that had a "buffet" advertised for 3 pounds. I debated just going in, but knew Larry would want to eat, too so I waited. I walked back to the area Larry and I agreed to meet up at, bought my soup spoons, and walked to the table where the woman was selling the tea spoons- and saw this blonde woman paying for the spoons along with some china the woman had for sale. I was so mad I didn't just buy the damn spoons. What is my problem? So, no victorian tea spoons, but I managed to get 6 soup spoons I can tell people I got in London, on the famous Portobello Road. I waited for Larry while pining the loss of my tea spoons, who came back empty handed but enjoyed his trip to the record shops. We walked back down the road to the middle eastern food stall, paid 3 pounds where the chef guy handed us a tin and said "Buffet one trip only, mix all together in this." We paid, took our tins to the buffet which was 6trays of food: a pasta dish (totally strange), rice, a chicken dish, lentils and vegetables, sauteed vegetables, and a tray of potatoes. I tried some of the pasta, heaped my tin full of the rice and slopped in the lentils (hopefully better than the lentil and bean hotpot I had at the Founder's Arms), some of the chicken and some of the potatoes, of course. We sat down at this makeshift little counter in the stall and I tried this red sauce in front of me that turned out to be this totally amazing curry-flavored red chili sauce that I promptly squirted heavily over everything in my tin. My god that sauce rocked. Then proceeded to inhale the best 3 pounds I had spent on food in London in about 10 minutes. We needed lots of food if we were going to spend the afternoon drinking lots of wine, I'm now famous (East Bay Vintner's Association) for falling asleep at 5pm after these things... And then we left Portobello Road, bellies full to change and find these Royal Horticultural Halls where there was wine to be dunk.
After a quick stop at Gloucester road to change, we finally found the Hall where the event was being held, after wandering around Westminster lost. The walk was supposed to take us right by Scotland Yard, which I was very keen to see, and somehow I must have walked by it and not known it was it. We were lost. We finally found a sign and followed it to a place that seemed right- asked around some men taking tickets at the doors who pointed us to the next block and said "it's over there, you can't miss it." A passer by Indian gentleman in the street also pointed us right there and said "There is something going on in there" to which I replied "Yes, lots of wine drinking." And he laughed. In we went. The ticket-takers were completely puzzled at what to do with us since you didn't actually get a voucher for your £15 at the door, you either had it sent to you, or it would arrive at your local Nicholas shop for pick up by November 27th. I tried to explain that it was fine, we didn't need the vouchers, we were leaving tomorrow. Somehow this was not acceptable, and instead two managers were called over and one arranged to call the shop that we purchased the tickets at, and make sure they allotted us our £30. 20 minutes later, we had small glasses in hand and set off to one of the 44 tables sampling anywhere from one to ten wines. Oh, and there were tables sampling spirits as well. We were early, so it wasn't crowded and we had a lot of time to walk around slowly. We started at the beginning, most of the wines were french, with a few spanish here and there. One spanish table had a good mouvedre, although I'm ruined forever to crappy wines. Most of what they were sampling was available at Nicholas shops- this was the whole point of the event, which was not something we seem to do in america, but I'll take it. The wines were all generally less than 20 pounds in price- many less than 10. Some were okay. One was particularly memorable, we had a good pinot noir (no paso robles here, folks), and a Chilean Cabernet that had the most crazy nose I've ever smelled- green peas and cut grass! I mainly swished and spit, but some alcohol seeped through and by 4 we had to take a break. Larry noticed tables up in a little bar area overlooking the main floor, so we went up there and sure enough, tables were set up and there was a little coffee cart and some chips for those of us needing a break. We went back to the floor, finished the wines and then worked our way to the spirits. I don't like peaty spirits, as it turns out. Not a real surprise, I don't like very smoky wines either, so I didn't care for a lot of the scotches and things they were pouring. We had a couple visits to the pate vendor in the corner for some snippets of his foie gras (so, so good, but so, so inhumane). And finally took off around 6pm, it was starting to get busier by then. We took a cab home, it was raining and I didn't want to wander around again looking for a tube station and at the time it seemed like the easiest thing to do. True to form, I went straight to bed and the next thing I remember is waking up around 4am. Larry went back out after the event to the wine shop in Notting Hill where we got the tickets to use our vouchers on a few bottles of things we liked- they were out of the green peas cab, and the pinot Larry liked, so he came home with 4 bottles of the french bordeaux we both liked best of everything we tasted.
Saturday, November 7, 2009. Today we check out of the ambassador hotel after breakfast. I upgraded to a "hot" breakfast this morning and the waitress mixed up my order with another woman who was sitting adjacent to me- she had a non-cooked breakfast, consisting of hard boiled egg, slices of ham, cheese, cucumber with a cup of yogurt. Apparently the waitress put my hot breakfast down in front of her, and she began eating it. The waitress then came over to me, putting down the non-cooked but still "upgraded" breakfast in front of me and I looked at it quizzically and she had a moment when she looked at me, turned and looked at the french woman who was already eating and the french woman held up her fork and knife and gave the classic french shrug. Waitress takes the non-cooked in front of me and brings it over to the french people's table, putting it down there and all I heard was "it's okay. it's okay." And she walks off back into the kitchen, presumably to order me another cooked breakfast. 10 minutes later, Larry had come down after a group of 5 germans who all sat down and got their cooked breakfasts within minutes. I was still waiting. I managed to make eye contact with the none-too-bright Indian waitress who screwed this all up in the first place and she must have realized that she forgot to order me a new hot cooked breakfast because after the eye contact, in which I believe I detected a hint of alarm on her part, she went back into the kitchen and moments later my breakfast came. This was partly worth the wait as it was a pretty good breakfast, if way more meat than I eat in a week, let alone in one sitting. When Frenchie got up to leave, she looked very satisfied as well.
Upon checking out the hotel, I have a few thoughts about the
Ambassador's hotel... The reviews Larry found on the internet were awful, people
hate this place. I find it very clean, very serviceable, but there are some
things about it that I'd rather stay at the horribly shabby Kensgate house and
share a bathroom for given the choice again. We are on the 6th floor of the
Ambassador's. This is all well and good when the very slow moving elevator is
actually working, but the service is shoddy at best, and it seems to be functioning
only about 70% of the time. Normally I don't mind stairs, but walking up 7 flights
(in the UK the ground, of course, is the ground floor, not the first
floor) a few times a day gets annoying. Thankfully, I will only have to go down
with my very heavy luggage once. Going up the elevator was actually working.
Checking in after flying for 24 hours and being dirty, grimy and desperate for
a bed, a hot shower, a change of clothing and needing to brush my teeth to feel
human again to be told at check in that check in is at 2pm, and she can't do
anything about that was not at all good service. She didn't make any kind of
attempt to have housekeeping clean the room, check if the room was clean or
check if she could move us to a room which was clean. This is not rocket science,
if rooms are cleaned daily in a certain order, it shouldn't be hard to find
either a clean one, or one which can be cleaned and expedited. None of this
happened. Instead, she has no ability to offer a modicum of customer service
and tells us we can check as soon as 1pm, but she can't promise anything
even then. Ironically, housekeeping has been at our door reliably at 10 am.
When I asked about a safe box, the man first says there are no safe boxes in
rooms. It took me asking if the ones behind the desk then were available for
customer use and he says no, they are all in use, there are none available.
Since I persisted in standing there, he decided to check. Lo and behold, there
is one available for which he gives me the one and only key. On threat of loss,
of course, lest we have to break into the safe box with a crowbar and be charged
for the damages...
There is the lack of internet service unless we want to pay for it which really
fries me. If they have the service, as far as I'm concerned, customers who have
paid for rooms are costing them not a cent extra to log into a wireless network
with laptops. Really, really pisses me off. So raise the room charge by a dollar
and recoup the cost of having the damn network in the first place that way.
And I don't like being nickeled and dimed in the same way they give me a breakfast
buffet of croissants and bad cereal (which is really fine, actually) but they
charge you to "upgrade" to the cooked breakfast. Just charge people
the extra 2 pounds and have eggs at the breakfast buffet. But that's just a
minor irritation.
The other grating irritation was that the key cards to get into the room crapped
out and had to be re-keyed on a daily basis after day 3. Once again, our incapable
hostess behind the desk didn't help out one iota by actually replacing them,
just re-keying them every freaking day. Again, not huge, but walking up 6 flights
of stairs when Larry decided he wanted his credit card and an umbrella just
in case one night to get all the way to the top and realize the key crapped
out and he'd have to walk down 7 flights and then back up again after getting
the damn thing re-keyed was more than a minor annoyance.
The rooms are clean, if dwarfed by the enormous king sized bed, making it a
little tight. They could fit a lot more in the rooms if the beds were queens.
And none of the furniture was really useable, as it was not convenient to get
to because of the bed. Our window opened, which was the best part of the room,
and I really, really prefer the little kitchenette I get at kensgate so I can
save leftovers, and grocery shop and not eat out all 3 meals a day. The bathroom
was tricky, as the shower is inside a tub that is very high off the ground and
I almost fractured a hip getting out of, and nothing to do but the roof architecture
makes showing very tricky. Handheld european shower head also got all the towels
soaking wet. Just tricky, but I like having it in the room.
Location is the best and I can't beat it, it's the reason to pick the Ambassador's
in the first place, but I don't believe I'd stay here again given my choices.
The service is just so bad.
Adding up all my little annoyances with the Ambassador's is like having scabies: one bug you can probably handle, and kill with success, but lot of little bugs add to a whole lotta uncomfortable.
At 10am, we set out for King's Cross station again on the underground, our suitcases in tow to get to the train station for our second train journey of the trip: Eurostar, or "Chunnel" to Paris. I was, for some reason, thinking this was going to take 4 hours, but it only takes 2. We got to the King's Cross/St. Pancras station which was just the most unbelievable mob scene I may have ever seen even in London. Wow. I never want to do that again. The crush of people all going like there is no tomorrow in one direction which was NOT the direction we were headed in and the complete lack of guidelines, posts, barricades of some sort so that folks going in the opposite direction or trying to get around, can is just unreal. There were thousands and thousands of people in the station, all of them were going to the tube to get on the train, coming from the rails, outside, inside, it was unbelievable, like some kind of human avalanche. I was ready to start shoving people and using my elbows. Someone stepped on the back of my foot, somebody rolled a wheel of their suitcase over the very same foot, I got cut off more times than I can count, and I was not effective at making a way for me and Larry who was following (Why are we having the 5'2" person paving the path here, anyways? How did that happen?) to go against the avalanche. We managed, when there was a momentary break in the traffic flow, get up the stairs toward St. Pancras station where the Eurostars depart from. We checked in at a kiosk, went to our gate after a quick passport check and scan of our luggage and we waited about 10 minutes in a group before the gates opened, and you were allowed to board the trains. We took off precisely at 11am as scheduled, and arrived precisely at 2:17pm as scheduled. It was a quick, painless and pretty comfortable 2 hour ride. Larry stayed on his ipod watching a new tv series his cousin had a bit part on in one episode and now he's getting into the show. I worked on this page and played a little word warp.
Once we got to Paris, we deboarded the train and went into the station, which was really like an underground city. We followed signs to the metro area, bought a billet of 10 tickets (coins only, lucky I actually HAD 11 euros worth of coins!!) and tried to figure out where the heck to go. I figured out, finally, that we were at Gare du Nord and where that is on the metro map, it only took me 15 minutes to find it- then the trick was getting to Bir-Hakeim where the Eiffel Tower and our hotel reside. I managed to come up with a route. This involved something on the B line, although when we got to the B area in Gare du Nord, it said RER and not Metro. Since i had no idea what RER was, I made a new plan to take the Metro instead. It was more circuitous a route, but it worked. I still don't know what this RER is, I think it's still metro trains, but it's some kind of express thing that i don't know how it works and finding out involves reading signs in French which I am unable to do...
We got on the Metro, with another crush of people, the metro cars in Paris are not situated for people traveling with any kind of luggage, for sure. London's tube cars all have designated areas for luggage, which makes them convenient and not a pain in the ass for everyone riding in the car- both the folks with and the folks without the luggage. We jammed in as best we could and dealt. 4 stations later, most of the people on the train actually got off at Republique. Then we had some breathing room. We took the 5 to the last station, Italie, and changed over to the 10 line, which has our station on it. The 10 was almost completely empty, and it never really filled up, so we had plenty of space. Once we got out at Bir-Hakeim, we walked, quite literally, about 15 feet toward the Seine and there was the Eiffel Seine sign for the hotel.
What a first impression- especially after the dismal impression the Ambassadors left- this was sleek, contemporary, very Parisian, and very, very upscale feeling. The hotel is all recently renovated in the art deco style- but with decided French flair. In the pristine marble-floored lobby, behind a deco lacquered desk sat a lovely, smiling, welcoming and very friendly woman to welcome us into this haven of modern luxury. I sat down onto a striped tapestry chair in front of her desk after returning her "Bon jour" and said "Edwards." She didn't have the name, so she asked if there was another name it could have been booked under- a moment of total panic that the wrong dates were booked, or we were at the other Eiffel Seine which was a shabby remnant cousin of this finery before she realized that it was actually under "Shelby." I filled out a little card with my information, and it was that simple. We had a wonderful speech she gives to all people checking in: here is your key- this little round plastic bit is actually the key, just pass it over the door and it will open. Put the card part of the key in the slot inside the door to turn on the lights. We ask you please leave your key at the desk when you leave the hotel, there is a staff in the lobby 24 hours for you. Here is a map of Paris, and here are some information brochures for you to look through if you like. You are in room 301. Breakfast is 7am until 11am in the breakfast room right below us. Have a wonderful stay." We were almost dizzy with excitement. Customer service?! This is almost too much to ask for! Up the teeny, weeny little lift we came out onto the 3rd floor. The walls and floor are black, as are the doors. The ceiling is made up of tiny little LED lights on a red background, shining like stars. There is motion activated task lighting, so when it senses us, it turns up more lights so you can see your way. The room we walked into is tiny, but has those famous parisian windows which open onto a courtyard shared with a neighboring building, the bed is comfortable, the bathroom is pristine and completely new, we have free wi-fi, there is a safe in the closet, and a flat screen tv. It's pretty perfect. We unpacked our things and got situated pretty quickly to head out, which we did. And we walked. And we walked. The eiffel tower is right outside the door, really, really close. It's also crazy packed and even more so now with the light show going on. It's the 120th anniversary of the tower this year, so to celebrate every 10years that it's been around, there is a 60 second light show that changes. 60 seconds times 12 decades means there is a 12 minute light show that changes every 60 seconds every night for 3 months. We are here to see it.
We walked far. All the way across the Seine and down the main drag to the louvre, where it was finally completely dark and we decided to turn around and get some dinner at the restaurant right next to the hotel. We probably walked 5 miles and boy by the time we got back to our block I was really feeling it- back, legs, hips, feet all very sore. We went right into the corner Italian place and sat down at this tiny little table in a back corner that really was kind of hard to get into and ordered each a glass of the house red, and I got a spaghetti bolognese and larry got the salmon linguini. Wine came, it was the usual bad chianti, as most all chianti is. Not even 10 minutes after ordering our food, it arrived smelling amazing. We dug in. You know a meal is pretty amazing when the table is just silent.. this was that moment. We listened to the 2 french couples next to us talk and basically both Larry and I focused on our food, saying little and eating until we had both polished off the entire plate of our pastas. Both pastas were fresh made, none of this dehydrated business, so the noodles were fantastic. Larry's salmon was in a cream sauce and he let me taste it before I started- it tasted light and not fishy and really, really good. My bolognese was equally delicious- the sauce was spectacular- meaty and hearty and a little gamey and comforting. Again, not much talking at all, we both just dove in and kept eating until it was gone. Which didn't take long.
We paid our bill, and went back into the Eiffel Seine, retrieving the key for room trois-cent-une from our lovely hostess, got passwords for the wireless, took some aspirin and tucked in for the night. Tomorrow we're planning on the catacombs and Sacre Coeur. I've been waiting more than 10 years to get back there and do the roof walk again to get back the roll of film I lost to my SLR camera when Lara and I did it in 1997. I lost the entire rotten ROLL of film as it was not loaded properly so it wasn't advancing. This is going to be good. And the catacombs were closed when Amanda and I were here in 2005 or whenever that was- so I'm really looking forward to that as well.
For now, luxury in the shadow of the Eiffel tower, the ambiance of Paris at night, oh, and I learned tonight you can say "Lareee en Paree" to practice both your R's and your nasal sounds en Francaise, kids. And it drives Laree (you just have to say it French) a little nuts. Bon soir.