It's a girl

Not sure if you heard but the the royal baby was born today. A girl. We walked over to Buckingham Palace to see the birth announcement.

After a full day of sightseeing, we spent the afternoon in a pub with my friend Giles.  He lives in California but is originally from London and was here to see his Mum on his way home from Tel Aviv. Ah, the busy life of a Google engineer.

I have a new favorite drink.  Not sure what it is called. I just held up the sign when I wanted another.

It's official Butch loves London.  His only disappointment was not being able to get close to the palace guards like in that I Love Lucy episode.  Admit it. You know the one.

We fly home tomorrow so this is my last post unless something interesting happens.

Mind the Gap

A full day of sightseeing today: Westminster Abbey, Churchill War Bunker, Tower of London, Tower Bridge and a boat ride on the Thames river.

I made Butch tour all of Westminster Abbey with the hope that he'd stop saying "The Westminster Abbey Dog Show."  I keep telling him there is an abbey and there is a dog show; 2 separate things. As we were walking away from the church, he leans over and says "that was really interesting but where are the dogs?"

The Churchill bunker is not something I'd seen before.  It is essentially a time capsule of the command center for WWII.  Highly recommended.

The weather held out. We were worried it was going to rain all day.

We are currently just resting up at the hotel before heading back out to see more sights.  

Hey, look kids, there's Parliament

We left rainy and cold Paris on the train this morning.  Highly recommend the train for traveling between the 2 cities. Fast and easy.  The entire trip is 2 hrs and 20 mins with only 20 mins of it underground.

Here's Butch enjoying some lunch on the train

We started off our sightseeing at the Royal Mews.  It is my favorite thing in all of London. Here I am in front of the Golden Coach.  It weighs four tons and they need 8 horses to pull it.

They have a new modern coach that was added since I was here last.  It has a built-in camera hidden in the crown on the top, hydraulic suspension, climate control, electric windows, LED lanterns but looks like one of the old coaches.  It is pulled by 6 horses.  

From the Royal Mews, we saw Buckingham Palace, walked the Birdcage Walk, saw Big Ben and Parliament, walked up Whitehall Street, saw 10 Downing Street and stopped in the Savoy Hotel.  I've been collecting cocktail books lately and the Savoy Hotel was selling a pop-up cocktail book.  A pop-up book! Full of cocktail recipes!

We stopped for a snack in a pub on Whitehall. Poor Butch. He is already spoiled by the French food. My response to his "this burger is lousy" was a simple "Welcome to England."

We are off to my favorite pub, the Bag O'Nails,  tonight.  The food is not great but the crowd is usually entertaining.

Other interesting things we saw on the trip: a charging station at Gare Du Nord where you have to pedal a bike to get a charge.

Day 3

Goûter is an institution in France where children eat sweet treats almost religiously at 4:30 pm when they get home from school.  Not a big surprise but the engineers in the Paris office have Goûter on Thursdays at 4:30.  Today, they served Raspberry Tiramisu.

The weather was horrible today. Rainy and cold.  Butch wandered around in the rain and watched a few episodes of The Nanny in French.  The waiters at the café on the corner by the Google office know his name already.

After work, we attempted to walk over by Place de la Concorde and wander up the Champs-Élysées but it was just too wet and cold.

Taking the train to London in the morning. 

Day 2

I worked all day and Butch wandered around the neighborhood.

After work, we went to the Eiffel Tower and ate dinner at a café we remembered from our first trip here.

After exploring the Eiffel tower, we strolled along the Seine before taking the metro back to our hotel.  

It's raining today so I have no idea what Butch is going to do all day.  He dropped me off at the office and wandered off into the city with an umbrella borrowed from the hotel.

We leave tomorrow for London.  Our hotel here is nice but the room is small even for European standards.  You can just barely walk around the bed.  I am reminded of the ads currently running in the NYC subway for an apartment finding service. One of the ads says "Is it still a bedroom if the bed does not fit?".

Day 1

Chris worked and Butch visited various cafés in the neighborhood.

Surprisingly, the food in the Paris office is not better than the food in NY.  The food is very good but lost points for lack of variety.

Here's the sign on the street marking the door to the Google Paris office.

For dinner, we walked up the hill from our hotel and wandered into a random restaurant. It turned out to be a Fondue place similar to Korean BBQ where they have hibachis on the table.  They brought a pot of boiling water to cook the beef and a small pan to melt Raclette and baskets of bread and potatoes.  The funniest part was the owner did not speak much English and he had to describe to us how to cook everything.  Fortunately, I'm good at translating the French menu items so it was not a complete disaster.  

Obligatory picture of the view from our hotel room

This is the second day here and I'm already sick of eating meat with every meal.

At time of writing, I have no idea where Butch is.  He dropped me off at the office at 8:30 this morning, he asked what the exchange rate between dollars and euros is and said he'd meet me at the café on the corner at 6:30.

We plan to walk over to the Eiffel tower tonight.

Je suis arrivé

We started the traveling off with lunch of grilled rib eye at Google New York.

As Butch will soon learn, comparing the food at the Google offices is an important part of Google travel.  Until this point, New York is still the best with Boulder running a close second.  Zurich is by far the worst.  I'm still trying to forget the chicken skewers.

The subway ride to JFK included some pole dancing entertainment.

Butch found them very annoying while I was amused. That's the difference between Butch and I.  My bar for a good ride on the E train is set firmly at "did not witness anyone pooping on the train."

After an uneventful flight, we have arrived safely in Paris.  Butch finally enjoyed a flight with a seat that turns into a little bed. It took some coaxing to get him to try it out.  "Your seat turns into a bed." "I'm good." "You're weird. It's a little bed." "Don't touch the buttons with numbers on them." "Wait. Are you snoring?"

The only problem we had was paying for the train tickets at the airport.  As anyone who has ever traveled with me knows, if there is a train option then I will take it.  Love trains.  We tried like 4 machines and could not figure out how to buy the tickets.  My card was possibly getting rejected. Not sure.  We finally had to go to a human to complete the transaction.

Staying at the R Hotel in the 9th arrisdonment.  The only thing the hotel has going for it is its close proximity to the Google office.

Trying to stay awake until a decent hour tonight so I can be well rested for rest of the week.

Until tomorrow...