London and Paris

The past few winters my family and I have taken a vacation to a brand new city. This year my parents wanted to take advantage of the fact that I am living in Europe. So we all spent 5 days in London and 5 days in Paris to celebrate the holidays!

In London we were kind of on a time crunch because ALL museums are closed between the 24-26th. Since we were only there from the 22nd to the morning of the 27th, we only had a couple of days to see the museums that we wanted to see. We essentially did all of the touristy things in both cities. So here are a few pictures, but essentially what we did in London included: The Tower of London, Winston Church, Chelsea FC's stadium, Arsenal's football stadium, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Abbey Road, Tower Bridge, and A LOT OF WALKING. In Paris we did more touristy things, but a lot more crepe eating which was a huge plus. Of course we saw the Eiffel Tower (we did not go up the tower because the wait was about 4 hours. We ate crepes instead. Great decision.), we saw the Palace of Versailles (which my gosh took about 3 hours to get into because of the massive lines), we entered the Louvre (possibly the most overrated museum in the world, but I did feel awful for the other paintings in the room with the Mona Lisa. They get no love!), and we saw the Church of Notre Dame. Overall a fantastic trip! If I had to choose between the cities I would choose to live in Paris but be a tourist in London. Why? Glad you asked. Paris is a beautiful city and in my opinion is a city you where you can just sit in a cafe or walk around and people watch. I didn't get the same feel in London, but the museums are much more diverse in London. If you don't enjoy art/architecture museums crammed into a vacation (like moi) then Paris isn't the place to go for a short family trip. Go to London because you have a huge selection of museums ranging from art to architecture to 20th century history.

Next on my list is Granada! Not to be confused with Grenada which is an island in the Caribbean. (Shout out to Morgan Carnes for making sure I knew the difference.)

In the National Gallery in London; Sunflowers by Vincent Van Gogh

Gift Shop at Winston Churchill's War Room Museum

Speaks for itself

Big Ben!

Being interviewed by Joe inside Arsenal's Stadium

The pitch itself at Arsenal

Tower Bridge 

Chelsea's Pitch before they take on Watford

I can't remember what this was called...

Winged Victory at the Louvre (my favorite exhibit)

The Mona Lisa, she is kind of popular. I got much closer but this picture is more true to the environment