December in New York, Day Four: Marc Chagall, Miracles, and Mo'Pain

At 5:00 am on the morning of our final day in NYC, I was woken up by the ringing of my hotel room's phone. I picked it up, blearily thinking the hotel must be on fire, only to have a stranger with an accent start screaming at me, "Who is this? Who's calling? Who's in the room with you?" Um, hello, you called me, terrifying creeper! The fact that he kept asking, "Who's in there with you?" made me terrified I was going to be robbed (since I'd sleepily responded, "No I'm alone.").

I called the front desk, who discovered the call was internal (the call was coming from inside the house!), and I realized it was likely another guest who thought he was calling the room of his travelling companion. That didn't really explain why he didn't just hang up right away when he realized he'd called the wrong room - did he think I was hiding his friend in my closet? Did he think I was some one-night stand who'd picked up his friend's phone?

Tired and shaken, I later joined my mum for breakfast and explored the Bookmarks Lounge at the top of the hotel - it converted into a dimly-lit bar after 4pm but in the mornings it was light, airy and comfortable. We both regretted not exploring it earlier.

Afterward, we went for Sunday mass at St. Patrick's cathedral. That was kind of a wash - the whole cathedral, inside and out, was swathed in scaffolding and tarps for their massive renovation project. It felt like having mass in a parking garage - however, we did have the lovely consolation prize of having the mass performed by a cardinal (Cardinal Dolan, who waved to us after!). I felt strangely tense and weepy through the whole thing - again, I was going through some tough stuff that year and was not on the best terms with God. But at least Mum enjoyed it.

We returned to Madison and Vine - the Library Hotel's companion restaurant - for brunch. I had eggs benedict, and while I devoured the eggs, bacon, and hollandaise sauce, I hadn't recovered the confidence to try the English muffins. I've grown more wary of bread products over the years, which makes absolutely no sense since I've eaten bread my entire life without an allergic reaction. But anxiety doesn't really listen to logic.

After that, we took a taxi to the Jewish Museum - set in the astoundingly pretty Felix M. Warburg House - to see the Chagall exhibit. Mum is a huge fan of Marc Chagall and her enthusiasm swept me up in the artwork as well. We also explored the Art Spiegelman exhibit there - his work is exceptional, but often disturbing.

We finished off the day with a long, long, very long walk from Central Park to the hotel, 50 blocks of walking during which we were accosted by a would-be rapper named Mo' Pain who sold us his demo CD. I was intimidated (and as it turns out, being approached by aspiring rappers in New York is actually a popular tourist scam), but Mum was charmed and gave him $10. He whipped out a sharpie to sign the CD. "Who should I make it out to?"

Mum: "Meg."

Mo'Pain: "How do I spell that?"

Me: "..."

Mo'Pain: "That's a sexy-ass name!" When we admitted we were from Canada, he said he was a huge fan of Drake. Scam or not, it was at least a very memorable experience and Mum now has a CD of questionable music as a very special souvenir. We also passed by (intentionally) bloodied PETA protesters who were screaming at the customers of Bergdorf's before we finally made it back to the hotel.

We had time for a brief, relaxing cup of tea before the town car arrived to take us back to the airport. We'd reached the end of our trip, and the only exciting thing to happen afterward was when I really thought I saw Paul Rudd enter the first class lounge. He had rumpled hair and thick-rimmed glasses - plus he'd just hosted Saturday Night Live so he would have been in NYC at the time. It was one of those blink-and-you'll-miss it miracles that I'm still doubting myself over. Did I see Paul Rudd? Or was it just an extremely lucky man who looked like Paul Rudd and could afford first class?

We'll never know. Even as I write about this trip more than a year after it happened, it still seems fresh in my mind. Maybe I remember it all so well because it was a truly magical Christmas trip, at a truly magical hotel. Or maybe I remember it because I'm only recently back from my second trip to NYC with my mum where we stayed at the Library Hotel - another adventure I'll try and recount to you before the year is up. I promise.

December in New York, Day Three

(Sorry for the lateness, I've been very lazy - I now have a second trip to New York with my mum to write about so I'd better hurry and catch up!)

For our third day in New York City, Mum and I started out bright and early for the Morgan Library and Museum.

For NYC-bound book lovers, the Morgan Library is not to be missed, because, well, it's a fancy mansion filled with zillions of books! Piermont Morgan was a fanatical book collector and his massive library was on full display, along with exhibitions on Edgar Allen Poe (including some of his original notes), Charles Dickens (we spotted the original manuscript copy of A Christmas Carol), clay Sumerian seals (a surprise exhibit that utterly enchanted my mum), and Queen Elizabeth I's letters.

The main library was absolutely breathtaking - three stories of leather-bound books stretching to the exquisitely-painted ceiling in tightly-packed shelves protected by iron grates, interspersed with stained glass windows and an enormous tapestry, and well-lit displays of rare illuminated manuscripts and jewelled Bibles. This museum was all about the power of books and authors and the devotion of those who love them. Is there anything more powerful than reading a sentence that was hand-inked by a monk half a millennium ago?

A true reader's paradise. And that's not even mentioning the gift shop! Once we were finally able to pry ourselves away from all that literary luxury, we dined at the Morgan Library's top-notch cafe - where the ham and cheese sandwiches came on fresh-baked brioche with hot mustard aioli. New York museums don't mess around with the grub.

After the Morgan, we wandered down to Rockefeller Center to see it in daylight. The streets were so massively crowded the police had to set up barriers around the sidewalks just to prevent people from being accidentally pushed out into the street. The area around the Christmas tree and the skating rink resembled a turned-over anthill.

We made a few aborted attempts to shop in the area but were scared off by the savage crowds at Michael Kors and the dead, glassy eyes of parents entering their second hour waiting in line to get into the American Girl store. Instead, we skipped back down to some quieter side streets, where we found a nice, quite Coach whose flock of bored, nattily-dressed attendants were all too eager to wait upon us. Mum bought me a pair of presents there, under the promise that I not open them until Christmas morning.

We returned to the hotel after that, far too exhausted to even contemplate finding an appropriate restaurant for dinner. We stayed in, instead, and snacked on celery, cheese, and Prosecco at the Reading Room before heading off to our second Broadway show: Kinky Boots.

Billy Porter was astounding in the lead role - charismatic, gorgeous, confident in heels with a killer voice to round out the whole package. The other drag queens were equally talented. Mum was convinced some of them were women dressed as drag queens, until she read the playbill and discovered they were all named Trevor and Kevin. It takes major cahones to perform a jumping split in a string bikini in front of a live audience without damaging yours. Less good was the rather milquetoast while male protagonist who got a few too many solos about how unsatisfying his life is. The biggest surprise of the night came when Mum bought me a soundtrack and it turned out to be signed by Cyndi Lauper herself!

After the show, we shared cocktails in the dim Bookmarks Lounge at the top of the Library Hotel. Three days down, one more to go!

December in New York: Day Two

Friday morning, we ate a relaxed breakfast in the Library Hotel's comfortable Reading/Breakfast room before going out to explore. The weather was cool, but only on par with a brisk Canadian spring, so we had no issue walking everywhere.

Opening my mouth the day before had released me from my misery - I felt anxiety and twinges of sadness and panic here and there, but I allowed myself to experience it and it passed through me instead of building up, so I was able to enjoy myself infinitely more. Mum and I spent the morning poring over the elaborately-coiffed dolls in the Lord and Taylor windows, posing next to the New York Library Lions, comparing the candy version of the Empire State Building to the real thing, and goggling at the absurdly high-tech window display at Macy's (which involved holograms, animatronics, green screens, and sharp metal Christmas trees that transformed into stars).

The first time I ever visited New York, I succumbed to the "I'm in a movie" feeling, being surrounded by so many recognizable landmarks and buildings - so being in New York in December felt like being in one of those cheesy, wonderful Christmas films. All of a sudden, I was excited again by bright lights and toys, enthusiastic sidewalk Santas, and smiling doormen in suits who opened every door.

Macy's was pretty shameless in its Christmasness, indoors and out, but when you're the Macy's on the 34th street (where that "Miracle" occurred), you have a reputation to protect. We rode old-fashioned, clacking wooden escalators from floor to floor. We didn't get into Santaland - the line was (unsurprisingly) insanely long - but the glimpses we saw convinced us that Christmas at Macy's was Serious Business.

After that, came the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I'd already been, so I let Mum take the lead. We walked into (and then quickly out of) an unsettling exhibition of Balthus' fixation on underage girls and cats before exploring the section of religious art - I quite enjoyed the enormous nativity scene. We avoided sculpture (Mum had just gotten back from Rome the month before, and was "completely sculptured out") so we instead shifted our focus to a fascinating exhibition on musical instruments. We walked through the evolution of the flute, the guitar, and the harp - we even saw a "cross harp" which is an X-shaped instrument composed of two slanted harps. God only knows how many hands you'd need to play it.

As much as we loved the artwork and the instruments - we loooooved the gift shop. There is nothing like the Met gift shop. We both bought beautiful gifts and souvenirs, and I managed the rather impressive feat of buying my mother a massive art book on instruments with her own discount card, while she stood ten feet away, without her finding out.

After that, we broke for lunch at the Museum's cafe. And wow. The museum cafes in NYC do not mess around - none of this reheated soup and sandwich cafeteria nonsense they have back home. My chicken soup had quail eggs in it, with Yukon gold potato chips, and Mum discovered the best-tasting espresso outside of Italy itself.

After that, we returned to the hotel to relax. And I mean relax. I mentioned the Library Hotel's narrow corridors and hatbox-sized rooms, but not how the hotel compensates for that with their plush, impeccably comfortable Reading Room. Cozy furniture, soft music, free coffee and snacks (with Prosecco and cheese after 5pm!), it was the perfect place to curl up and read after a day of adventuring. It had none of the sanitized, transitory air of a hotel lobby. New York City is amazing, but it's intense and often overwhelming, and the Reading Room was an oasis of calm where one could pass time without feeling like they were wasting it. On those other, horrible New York trips, where I spent hours glumly hiding out alone in my hotel room, I really could have used a Reading Room like the Library Hotel's.

We had supper at the hotel's restaurant, Madison and Vine, which was somewhat less than appetizing (Mum ordered spinach on the side, and was served enough spinach to give Popeye a stroke), and then dashed out into the rain to the Shubert Theatre to see Matilda the musical. While it was snowing in Canada, it was only raining here, but enough to leave us quite washed up and bedraggled by the time we squished into our theatre seats.

Worse, we wound up sitting in front of a tribe of unmannered hillbilly rubes who talked during the entire show. And I mean the entire show, not just a wee bit too long after the curtain rose. Their uncultured patriarch performed quite a soliloquy about spilling his frozen margarita down the front of his pants and "freezing his boy parts" (direct quote). The only possible explanation is that the parents assumed Matilda was a "children's show," and only worthy of their children's attention, despite the fact that they must have paid upwards of $500 to take them all out to see it.

And they would have completely ruined the evening for me and my Mum, if Matilda had not been absolutely amazing - the clever set design, the brain-twisting lyrics, the stellar performances quite drowned out (most of) the complaints about Mr. Hillbilly's genital hypothermia. Both Mum and I were blown away by the energy and the music and the magic. I was so happy - my first Broadway experience (Book of Mormon with Josh Gad and Andrew Rannels) was everything I could ask for and I wanted it to be the same for Mum, and it was!

The musical version is quite a darker beast than the American film adaptation. Murder, child abuse, telekinesis - it's the same events played out in the book and suggested in the film but put under a different focus. While still child-friendly, it has an edge to it I really enjoyed. The actor who played Miss Trunchbull (a drag role), was absolutely phenomenal - from celebrating her long-ago hammer throwing victory with a triumphant ribbon dance to tossing a student out the window by her braids (one of the most delightful instances of stagecraft I've ever witnessed), Miss Trunchbull was a formidable villain.

And the soundtrack? I've already listened to it from start to finish about a hundred times since. And here ended the second day of our NYC trip.

December In New York: Day One

I sort of have a love-hate relationship with New York City.

My first trip to New York (for RWA Nationals 2011) was everything a prairie kid with a love of 1940s musicals and cop shows could ask for. My first ever Broadway show: Book of Mormon with the original cast. I wandered goggle-eyed through the Metropolitan Museum of Art, fed a pretzel to the world-weariest pigeons I'd ever seen, tramped through Central Park without a map.

The second time I went, for Book Expo in 2012, was a carriage-horse of a different colour. I had my first brush with serious anxiety. Suddenly, I felt alone, and scared, and New York morphed into this grey, claustrophobic labyrinth of strangers, garbage-strewn alleyways and bedbug-infested corners.

I figured that was a fluke, but when I returned in 2013, it escalated. I had a full-on panic attack on the train ride from Newark to Manhattan. My worry about my food allergy evolved into a massive phobia that restricted my diet to bananas and yogurt. I felt depressed despite being surrounded by hundreds of women with the same interests as me.

I came home from that last trip at midnight and stayed up three hours more to wash my laundry, vacuum and disinfect my luggage, and painstakingly inspect everything I brought home with me for parasites, bugs, or dirt of any kind. And it took a full week after that before I could eat comfortably and go to sleep without inspecting my sheets. By the end of that trip, I was convinced you couldn't get me to return to New York City if you put a gun to my head.

So why the blog post? Well, it's been exactly a year since the time I got over that fear and returned to the Big Apple for one of the most memorable Christmas seasons of my life.

After the last two disastrous trips, what could possibly tempt me back to that squalid, insect-infested island? A hotel. A very special hotel.

The Library Hotel. A glorious, boutique hotel blocks away from the flagship branch of the New York Public Library, it boasted plush reading areas, exceptional service, literary-themed cocktails, rooms based on library categories, books in every room - and one hell of a high price tag. And in April 2013, I won a two-night stay there thanks to their haiku contest on Twitter.

And even then, I almost didn't take them up on their once-in-a-lifetime offer, until my dearest mum decided she would come with me, as part of a combo Christmas-birthday celebration, to celebrate December in New York with me and keep my anxiety at bay. 

Day One

Mum and I few out on a Thursday. We arrived in Newark and grabbed a cab just in time to hit rush hour traffic in the Holland Tunnel, which chewed us up and spat us out close to the Garment District. Mum marvelled over the small shops dedicated to only zippers, spandex or tassels (a whole shop of tassels!), while we passed a deli with a sign that read, "We cure our own brisket ... and our chicken soup cures everything else!"

When we reached The Library Hotel, we discovered it wasn't only full of books - it was shaped like one. Like an enormous hardcover volume of brick, it has a wide front and an extremely narrow side. In all else, the Library Hotel exceeded expectations - but not in actual physical size. We manoeuvred our bags through the tiny entrance and to the narrow front desk and up the cramped elevator to our, uh, compact rooms (my room was Poetry because I won the Poetry contest, and my mother's was Dramatic Literature).

However, despite the lovely hotel, my anxiety was a hardy beast, undeterred by rapturous TripAdvisor reviews and designer soaps. It was determined to reach out its long, cold fingers and find every little fissure of doubt in my "perfect" trip and widen them into flaws impossible to ignore. The threat of bedbugs. The possibility of allergies. The incredible expense, and the pressure to enjoy everything, absolutely, all the time or else all that money would be wasted.

It followed me out into the street as Mum and I followed the stream of people exploring the Christmas lights on Madison and Fifth, the enormous tree at Rockefeller Plaza. We had to hold hands and walk single file through all the crowds. The Cartier building was done up like an enormous gift with glowing red ribbon and shining panthers climbing up and down the building. Harry Winston was covered with glittering diamonds (Mum actually knocked on the door to inquire about the enormous emerald pendant in the window - "10 million dollars," the attendant replied). Another building had an entire Advent calendar projected onto its face, and yet another jewellery store was encircled by a giant, gem-encrusted serpent.

And yet, that first night was a bit of a nightmare. Depression is a bit like a snowball rolling downhill - it accumulates. First I felt miserable, than I felt miserable because I was miserable because this was Christmas! In New York! And it had cost so much money! We finally paused to sit down after exploring FAO Schwartz - and I had to tell Mum the truth. I cried. I remember feeling so ashamed. Mum and spent so much time and money and effort to get me here so I could have my dream trip and I was so ungrateful and broken and selfish because I couldn't enjoy it.

But actually talking about it, about my fear and sadness, felt like loosening a pressure valve. Mum admitted she was scared, too, and that she felt the same way on her first days in Paris and Rome. New York City at Christmastime is far different from our hometown in Canada. We were still transitioning. We were still adjusting. We would feel better tomorrow. Sometimes, when you're feeling scared or pressured or sad, it can help just to be reminded that the feeling is temporary and will go away. And one should never allow oneself to feel pressured to enjoy anything.

I found the first of many Christmas presents that night: Mum and I walked into a store called the Art of Shaving, where I found a luxurious badger hair shaving brush and high-quality shaving soap for my dad (one year later, he's still addicted to the stuff, which he has to buy through Sephora now since Art of Shaving isn't in Canada yet).

I See London, I See France, Day 6: Versaille, Brought To You By Extra Strength Tylenol Cold

I woke up that morning feeling like death warmed over. Improperly. In a microwave so that death explodes out of its Tupperware container and gets everywhere and all the food you make in that microwave for the rest of the day smells a bit like death and DERAIL OVER. I felt like crap.

I was far from the only one, but at least the other people in my group got to have FUN first. Me, I had a scratchy throat, running nose, and a sinus headache so bad my teeth hurt. I swallowed a pair of Extra Strength Tylenol Cold pills from my stash, and they turned out to be surprisingly effective after only fifteen minutes. Yes, I feel the need to promote Extra Strength Tylenol Cold because in a half hour I felt Woozy But Oddly Excited, which is a far nicer state to be in than Death. Unfortunately, I had no more of those pills with me. Want to know why? Because I gave the rest of them to Meagan (Patient Zero of the Contiki Clap) two days before!

Thankfully, on this trip I discovered that the pharmacy is the Starbucks of Paris. They are everywhere, on every street, on every block, with a bright, flashing green cross on the front so you can't miss them. One block from the Ibis, I went into a pharmacy and had probably my one and only True French Conversation of my Paris experience - one where I didn't forget my verbs and resort to Franglais and one in which the Parisian didn't ignore me or speak to me in English. 

Interesting fact about Paris - Parisians give no fucks about your desire to learn or practice French. If you can't speak it perfectly, they'll interrupt you in English. Because they just don't have the time to put up with you. And you know what? The more I learned about Paris, the more I empathized with the Parisians. Paris is the most visited city in the world and July is its peak travel time. If you've lived in Paris all your life, you kind of have to be rude (or at least brisk) and enforce boundaries if you want to live a normal life and maintain any kind of sanity at all in a city that is constantly being invaded by loud, needy strangers. 

ANYWAY, back to the pharmacy - I asked for cold medicine and kleenex in French and she handed me a box of pills called RhiAdvil and a huge-ass pack of tissues. She also explained to me how many times I should take the pills. I felt rather proud and French when I left, and even more French when I witnessed a Parisian letting her dog poop in the street and flouncing away. Paris!

I had just enough time to grab a cup of tea at the hotel restaurant before everyone had to get on the bus for our day trip to Versailles. Thankfully, I brought along a packet of PopTarts in my purse. Yes, PopTarts in Paris. Sue me. Also thankfully, the Abominable Australian had apparently gotten so drunk the night before that he stayed in bed and missed the bus. Unfortunately, in missing the fun at the French Irish Pub, I'd also missed seeing Anthony twerk. Curses!

After about half an hour, we arrived at Versailles. Versailles!

This was what I was hoping to encounter at Kensington Palace. The rooftops and fence posts glittered with gold leaf and the rough cobblestones wavered in 33-degree heat. Before meeting with our tour guide to explore inside the palace itself, we had an hour to explore the famous gardens.

I didn't do a lot of walking - the cold meds kept me alert and buzzed but physically I felt exhausted before I finished crossing that enormous courtyard. Mostly, I hung out with Lauren from Wisconsin and wandered amiably from shady spot to shady spot, soaking in the warmth, looking at the lovely flowers and shapes and existing while remaining upright.

After an hour, we wandered back to the entrance to begin the interior tour (a few other people decided to doze off their Franco-Irish hangovers on the lawn rather than join us). And that's when Versailles really wowed me.

Seriously, France left me with such a crick in the neck thanks to their gorgeously painted ceilings. Magnificent. Each of the public apartments had a theme based on their usage and the god or goddess painted on the ceiling. The Mars Room, the Diana Room, the Jupiter Room. A lot of it had been restored, but most of the furniture pieces were replicas (the real stuff had all been sold off during the French Revolution), but one of the chandeliers was original and so was the coverlet on Marie Antoinette's bed. It was here the tour manager informed us that queen size beds were actually always larger than king size - as the king was allowed to visit his queen as often as he wished, but not vice versa.

While crowded, there was plenty to look at and the tour guide set a nice pace (which was lovely, since Tour Manager Sophie confided that particular guide had been a bitch on wheels the last time). I just wanted to stare at all of it all day. The decadence, the grandeur, the artwork. Imagine living there all day - and in public. People would even be able to stare at the King and Queen as they ate breakfast. At the end of the trip, I picked up some postcards, magnets, and a large volume on Versailles' history. Gotta love those history books.

Once the tour finished, it was back on the bus. Next on the optionals was a trip to a French perfumery to see how their world-famous fragrances were created. I rejected this option as a) I was still caught up in a massive cold and b) perfume gives me headaches. A good half of our tour group did the same thing - probably because strong smells are not really conductive to overcoming massive Franco-Irish hangovers.

This left me without any serious plans for the rest of the day. I didn't want to spend all of it in my hotel room, and I wanted to socialize, so I followed Melissa and Lisa from Scarborough since they wanted to look at the grand Opera House.

A building, which was, admittedly, magnificent. The setting of The Phantom of the Opera is based on this building. It does have an underground spring. It does have a chandelier that fell and killed a person. Unfortunately, Melissa and Lisa only wanted to take pictures of it, not explore inside it. Well, okay. I could dig it.

Then they walked down the street to Starbucks. Starbucks ... in Paris. An almost ludicrously elegant Starbucks, to be sure (see photo above) - but still a Starbucks. And after that, they were planning on dashing down to the Champs D'Elysees to go shopping. Okay, so I did want to socialize and go with the flow, but I guess I'm an old soul at heart. An old soul who was not up to running, even though my foot was feeling strangely better. So I bid them farewell and went my own way.

But I still didn't have any other solid plans. I tried not to feel lonely and decided to just absorb the atmosphere. I bought a bottle of bubbly water and walked down the avenues back to the Louvre. I briefly contemplated slipping back in to catch a glimpse of Cupid and Psyche but I did not want to face the lines and crowds again. I just didn't want to deal with stress of any kind.

So you know what? I didn't stress out. I didn't tell myself that I had to see ALL the things in the hours I had left until we had to go back to the hotel for our Parisian supper. The heat was more than comfortable once I was in the shade, so I sat under the trees in the Jardin des Tuileries and wrote in my notebook and read my Versailles book for a few pleasant hours until I caught the bus back to the hotel.

On the way back, I asked Sophie what it was like to be a Tour Manager. The training involves a 66-city tour where you take all the options so you know what you're talking about, you never know where you'll be stationed next until four days before your current tour ends, you never see most of your coworkers until the big Contiki Christmas Party (which is always in a different country every year), and the recruitment process is brutal. Sounds like the opposite of a job I'd want, but Sophie loved it. My sister told me later that Contiki Tour Managers also get pushed out once they age past the Contiki limit (35!).

After a rest at the hotel and repacking my souvenirs, I got back on the bus with the others to go to our Parisian supper. The bus dropped us off in Montmartre, in front of an enormous set of stairs carved into a hill. Half our group braved the climb, while the other half (myself included) paid a couple of Euros to take a gondola. When we reached the top of the hill, we all took off for the restaurant.

The restaurant's vibe was ... enthusiastic. It was crowded, hot, and a woman sang "La Vie en Rose" and "Je Ne Regrette Rien" on a karaoke machine at an ear-splitting volume. The first ten minutes felt a bit like being at the France pavilion at Epcot, to be quite honest. It was clear this was a Contiki tourist hotspot - mainly because there was another Contiki tour group nearby taking up another table with an outrageously hot Tour Manager. This dude captivated everyone on our own tour as to his name and identity (Anthony: "I'd bend it like Beckham!").

Not pictured: obscenely hot Tour Manager.

We were then served by a waiter with a goitre the size of a cantaloupe on the back of his neck, who had to shout his orders so loudly to be heard over the singing that the veins bulged on his neck. I had escargot (I watched Christina eat it as my unwitting taster - if she didn't die, I wouldn't), boeuf bourguignon, chocolate cake, cheese, and delicious espresso afterwards.

However, about twenty minutes into the meal - all of us suddenly realized Lauren was missing! When last I'd seen her, she'd decided to fiddle with the gondola's ticket machine (despite it being in French) instead of paying for the tickets in person. She must have gotten on the second gondola, and by the time hers had reached the top, we'd forgotten and left without her! And none of us had known the address or even the name of the restaurant beforehand.

I felt ridiculously guilty - I'd hung out with Lauren a bunch of times over the course of the trip, but I'd totally failed to notice she was on the second gondola. All I could think of at the time was that if it had happened to me, and I'd been left alone, I would have cried all the way back to the hotel. I felt awful. Tour Manager Sophie bought a bottle of wine for Lauren, though, and told us the cost of the Parisian dinner would be refunded for her.

The dinner turned out to be quite pleasant - until the other girls started talking about the Goitre Waiter. As it turned out, he'd grabbed and touched a bunch of my tour mates in weird ways but none of them had spoken up about it at first because they figured, "It's just me, and it's probably just because he's French." Until they shared the stories at the end of the meal, discovered how many of us he'd creeped on, and realized he was actually just a disgusting handsy pervert who likely got away with this shit all the time with tourists under the guise of "when in France!"

Ugh. But after this, I FINALLY got to socialize with alcohol with the rest of the tour - albeit at the hotel bar. Yeah, with almost everyone due to catch a plane or a train the next day, none of us wanted to venture too far, so we stayed at the hotel. We met up with Lauren, apologized, and gave her the wine, and we just sat, talked, and drank. All very fun, although I still regret missing the Franco-Irish bacchanal after the Moulin Rouge.

At the very end of the night, I made two completely boneheaded realizations: a) the reason my foot felt miraculously better that day was because my French cold meds had IBUPROFEN in them (why hadn't I just taken that before?!), and b) my hotel room had a view of the Eiffel Tower the WHOLE TIME and I never realized it until I saw it lit up at night - by day it just looked like another ugly-ass crane. Ha!

Pictured: Ugly-Ass Crane

After that, it was au-revoir Paris, hello home! I am so glad I went on Contiki. I had no panic attacks or major depressive incidents at all, and I actually ate food! There was no stress because everything, including major meals, was arranged ahead of time. There were equal opportunities to see things in groups and to sightsee alone, and really just a fantastic group of people (Abominable Australian excluded).

If I had to be brutally honest - I adored London a million times more than Paris. I loved what I saw in Paris and I'm glad I saw it, but I'm in no great hurry to go back and see more. Meanwhile, I am in love with England (London and Bath, particularly), and I will definitely come back to explore that country more fully.

But that's the joy of Contiki - it's like a tasting menu for hesitant travellers. It gives you the highlights of amazing places within a safe group environment. I've been severely travel-phobic for the last couple of years, but this trip completely renewed my desire to travel to Europe and helped me deal with my anxiety. If you're between the ages of 18-35 and you're nervous about travelling (or at least travelling alone), I cannot recommend Contiki enough. 

I See London, I See France, Day 5: The Louvre, the Moulin Rouge, and the Contiki Clap

Our first full day in Paris was our free day to sightsee - but not before we all got in the bus and drove to the Eiffel Tower for our Contiki group photo. On the way, we had a very entertaining ride around l'Arc de Triomphe. It's known as one of the world's most dangerous roundabouts, and a common joke is that it's so dangerous no insurance company will cover a car accident that occurs in it.

Once we drove through it, we understood why. We watched from the relative safety of the tourbus as cars jammed into each other and brave citizens on narrow scooters darted through every available space like minnows, proper lanes be damned. I saw at least one motorist on the side of the road angrily scribbling his insurance information onto the hood of another man's car.

Once our picture was taken, roughly 70 percent of the group signed up for the Fat Tire bicycle tour of Paris, and the rest of us (myself included) decided biking in 30-plus degree heat through a crowded foreign city where most of its native motorists instinctively hate you was a terrible idea. 

Today was the day I was going to be a social traveller. I knew the main bits I wanted to see, but I wasn't as invested in seeing everything in Paris as I was in London. So I teamed up with Trudy, Franco, Romio, Anthony, Sophie (the roommate), and Michael and headed for the Louvre. After safely dodging two urchins offering the Charity Scam, we made it to the "secret door" of the Louvre our tour manager pointed out to us:

Ooooooh, secret.

There are several lines at the Louvre. There's a line just to get in, and then a line for tickets, and then an uncomfortable shuffle through a crowded lobby before you get to the actual art. That side entrance there? To the left of the glass pyramid? That lets you skip the first line. 

Once we got tickets, I discovered the main members of our group were only there for the "Mona Lisa Dash" - which involves buying a ticket, rushing straight to the Mona Lisa, snapping a picture, and leaving. Which is the stupidest, most wasteful, tacky tourist thing I ever heard. I'm being fairly hypocritical, since in England I rushed through the 1000-year-old Roman Baths like a flaming racoon was chasing me just so I could see the Pump Room at the end. But still. What's the point of saying you went to the Louvre if you only saw one thing in it? Hell, the Louvre is a palace - the ornate ceilings alone are works of art.

I get it - there's so much in Paris to see and only so little time. And no one's capable of seeing everything in the Louvre in a couple of hours. So we walked through the Italian art wing, past the Winged Victory statue which I had never heard of before that day because I am a philistine. I refused to crowd in to see the Mona Lisa. I got a glimpse of her from the end of the room, and looked at all the dozens of other perfectly awesome paintings instead. I didn't take too many pictures - it's not the point, really. You can Google Image practically everything these days. BUT, I did snap some of the funnier religious paintings:

The Prophet of Sass. Work it! "Jesus is coming and he is fierce!"

The "Sears Portrait" of Virgin Mary scenes. "Have you finished the picture yet?" They just both look so bored and depressed.

Baby Jesus does not give a fuck. "Peace be with you, or whatever."

At Mikey's urging, we also explored some Greek and Roman sculpture, which was lovely - got to see the Venus de Milo. After that, the group decided they wanted to get some lunch. I was torn - I wanted to be social, but I definitely wanted to see more of the Louvre before I went home. So I compromised - the others were planning on seeing Notre Dame after lunch, so I told them I'd stay at the Louvre for an extra hour (and secretly eat a granola bar) and meet up with them there.

I spent that extra hour in the French art wing. That seemed appropriate. Lots of David, understandably. I was blown away by the enormous Coronation of Napoleon painting, and really fell for this self-portrait of Marie Antoinette's favourite painter and her daughter:

I have a particular fondness for realistic portraits that demonstrate emotions we can still relate to hundreds of years later - such as loving one's mum. 

It was only after I left the Louvre and wandered into the gift shop (bought magnets and a notebook) that I realized one of my favourite sculptures, Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss by Antonio Canova, was part of the Louvre, but by then I had no time to go back in and find it. Oh well. I'm not well-versed in classical art, but I've always loved that sculpture - it's so dynamic. Plus the Cupid and Psyche myth is the prototype for the fairytales Beauty and the Beast, The Raven Prince, and East of the Sun, West of the Moon. 

From there I decided to walk from the Louvre to Notre Dame. This required strolling along the Seine in the sunshine, past the (soon to collapse) lock bridge, past sellers of antique and secondhand books, jewellery, artwork, and souvenirs. I overpaid for a bottle of ice water because I couldn't understand the water seller and bought a compact mirror from one of the kiosks. The only thing marring this idyllic afternoon was my foot, now smarting with a vengeance.

I managed to hobble my way (barely) to Notre Dame. 

Sophie the Tour Manager said there'd be no line - that was not true. But the line moved quickly, and just as I neared the front, the rest of my group arrived! 

Notre Dame was amazing, and I really wanted to linger for far longer than my group did, but my foot was hurting and I knew it was time to quit (after kneeling and saying a prayer for my mum, first). I bought a simple wooden rosary (the Swarovski crystal ones made me feel guilty) and all of us shared a few cabs back to the hotel - and I just caught a glimpse of the famous bookstore Shakespeare and Company as we passed by.

Back at the hotel, my roommate and I just chilled in the room. Honestly after all that heat and walking, it was nice to just rest, nap, and read a book in a cool, quiet room for a few hours. 

After that came the Moulin Rouge!

Now ... the Moulin Rouge was an altogether different experience. We were led into an enormous red-upholstered dining room and theatre and wedged into tiny tables - the space between the tables and the next row's railings were so narrow all the waiters had to crab-walk sideways. And of course I found myself wedged in between a metal railing and the Abominable Australian. 

While the lounge singers on stage went through songs so well-known and digested they were practically musical jello, my compatriots and I tried to eat off-tasting smoked salmon, decent steak, and a chocolate dessert without elbowing each other in the face. The staff provided us with two bottles of wine and a pitcher of water - I finished off the water in short time. I was suddenly terribly thirsty, and my throat was starting to hurt. 

The service at the Moulin Rouge was terrible. I had to ask four times, from four separate waiters for more water, and was ignored or lied to. Sophie (Tour Manager) managed to steal us one off a cart, and we made short work of that, but it wasn't nearly enough.

Then the waiters dropped off a bottle of Champagne, the dining room darkened, and the show began. The Moulin Rouge show is a burlesque, and it's very crazy and campy and random. Basically, gorgeous French women in showgirl costumes come onto the stage and dance through bizarre scenarios or skits while lip-synching to French pop songs. Either they'll all be topless, or the Three Obvious Starlets will be topless and the rest of them will wear diaphanous tops or jangling necklaces to make them look topless when they're really not (like Neytiri from Avatar). There were about a dozen male dancers as well (with an Obvious Hero sporting a square jaw straight out of a 1940s Marvel comic), but none of them removed so much as a stitch of clothing. A shame.

The scenes and skits were thus: pirate men seducing topless pirate women through dance, the patriotic can-can with a flexible but disappointingly fully-clothed male dancer doing high-kicks backwards and forwards, a 1940s boogie woogie number, an Arabian Nights number, a Kentucky derby number involving female jockeys in thongs leading real miniature horses around the stage, and a finale involving enough pink feathers to give Cher an aneurysm. I can only assume that Vegas showgirl performances are similar.

Of the two acts that stuck out to me, one was an Aztec Human Sacrifice number where a nubile girl was delivered up to the topless priestess by two topless guards in enormous headdresses. She stripped down to her nude thong, and as she did so, a clear swimming pool began to rise out of the stage. A clear swimming pool full of what looked suspiciously like live pythons. The girl dove into the pool, swam around the snakes provocatively (paging Dr. Freud), then Britney Spears'd herself a python necklace and climbed out of the pool to astounded applause.

The second was a circus number with a ballerina, a Conjoined Twin number (two girls wearing one dress), and a chorus line of topless female clowns. You read that right - topless female clowns. They wore the conical white hats and what I can only describe as the French lingerie version of saggy clown pants with suspenders. So if you're in the mood for the weirdest sex dream ever, this is the show for you.

In between the skits, a husband-and-wife tumbling act, a three-man tumbling act, and a French comedian would come out to give us a break from all the sequins.

I enjoyed the show, in a distant way, but I was distracted. I have a weird immune system. I don't get colds as frequently as other people do, but when I actually catch one, it hits me like a fucking freight train. And this cold struck me about five minutes after the show began. Within ten minutes, I developed a throbbing sinus headache, an overflowing runny nose, and I couldn't stop sneezing. I ran out of water and kleenex, folded as I was between an immobile iron railing and the Loudest Fucking Australian Ever, and unable to escape, I had to resort to snuffling and dabbing at my nose with the disintegrating remains of my table napkins.

When the show finally ended, I couldn't go out with the rest of the group to the Irish Pub directly next door (O'Sullivans). I'd planned to, I'd looked forward to it, but by the end of that show, I was a (likely contagious) wreck. Horrifically disappointed and embarrassed, I was the only girl to limp back to the bus and then the hotel. 

So maybe I had two low points on this trip - my 45 minutes at Westminster and this wretchedly painful and sleepless night, where I tossed and turned and imagined all the fun drinking shenanigans I was missing out on. My youngest sister (who's gone on numerous Contiki tours) describes this as the "Contiki Clap" - there is always one sick person on every Contiki tour who will spread their disease to several other people. In this case, I likely caught it from Meagan the Floridian Nurse. At least my cold caught me after London and allowed me to enjoy the Louvre.

I see London, I see France, Day 4: Crossing the Channel

Today, everyone packed their bags, ate their last English breakfast, packed everything onto the bus, and headed to Dover to catch the ferry to France.

There we ate some lunch, exchanged our pounds for Euros, and settled in on the enormous ferry. I spent most of the ride chatting with Lisa, Melissa, and Megan (a nurse from Florida who was sick with bronchitis) while suppressing my vague seasickness - but one of my tour mates won 70 pounds when he used his last pound coin in one of the casino machines!

As we drove through the French countryside (pockmarked by small villages, each with a sharp church steeple poking up into the sky), Sophie tried to give out the details for the Paris, Amsterdam, and Rome extensions for those on the tour who'd paid to tack extra days onto their trips - but she kept getting interrupted by the Australian. I won't say his name, but I dare say most of my tour mates who are reading this will know who I'm talking about.

He was big, bluff, Australian, and utterly obnoxious. How obnoxious? Even the other Australians disliked him (and a few found his Australian accent "off" or "funny-sounding"). His voice sounded like a foghorn designed by the Devil to punish hungover people, and he insisted on interrupting all of Sophie's announcements to make jokes lame enough to make dad-humour feel relevant. He'd already been to London before - and Amsterdam (he has family there), and couldn't stop himself from shouting his own recommendations and corrections and additions to Sophie's run-down of Amsterdam. Over and over.

Whenever he caught on to his own annoying behaviour, he'd chirp, "Sorry 'bout that. I'm an arsehole!" and treat this admission as a cleansing of the slate so he could start over again in his unbearableness.

Soon enough, we entered Paris, and that's when I felt my first stirrings of anxiety - not very much, but still. Paris is a very different-looking city from London. It's twisting and busy and hot and rife with graffiti. It also didn't help that the Contiki hotel (the Ibis Clichy) was this bland, rectangular structure set in the middle of nowhere. If I had to compare hotels, the London one beat the Paris one by a long shot - better looking, better location, better breakfast - not to mention the Ibis room only had two electrical outlets (thank God I packed a power bar). While the availability at the Imperial allowed me the luxury of a single room, we all got twinshares at the Ibis, and a bunch of the girls played magical chairs with their room keys so I wound up with a different girl - who turned out to be a very nice girl named Sophie (not the tour manager) from Australia who was enjoying a Contiki tour before meeting her friends for a month in Greece.

I also felt a little more anxiety about eating in Paris than I did in England, oddly enough. The "fanciness" of Paris food, as well as my uncertain French communication skills, made me much more nervous about what I was eating. And when we all sat down to eat at the Paris hotel, I wound up learning two of the coolest-seeming girls on tour also had fatal nut allergies and felt no compunctions about eating the bread at all. One of of those girls, Christina, actually experienced one of my absolute worst allergy nightmares - she remembers having an anaphylactic reaction in China after leaving her EpiPen in her hotel room and her tour guide had to rush through Shanghai rush hour to get it in time.

I can't imagine being so blasé about it, but I suddenly felt very ashamed of my food-avoidance issues. Not ashamed enough to actually try any bread or croissants or pastries in Paris, but enough to feel guilty and stupid about it.

Anyway, after an uncomfortable supper, we all got on the bus for the general tour of Paris.

Like Napoleon's tomb! Is was indeed fascinating to discover how planned and symmetrical a lot of classical Paris is.

After the tour, we were all dropped off by the Eiffel Tower. Now - I couldn't really care less about the Eiffel Tower. It's nice to look at, but that's about it. But I was determined to be social in Paris since I was far less interested in the city than my tour mates. I would just go along with what everyone else wanted to do.

Thankfully, I wound up with a cool group of women who did not want to wait two hours in line to go up the Eiffel Tower (thank God, what a waste of time). They bought ice cream, squee'd a bit about being in Paris in July in front of the Eiffel Tower, and we all sat in the grass looking up at it, waiting for 10:00 pm when the tower lit up and sparkled. Men came up every couple of minutes or so offering wine and cigarettes to sell. Afterwards, we shared a cab ride back to the hotel - but the cabbie dropped us off at the top of the avenue, a completely unrecognizable location, so we experienced a bit of an adventure as three girls trooped through the dark looking for our hotel. But find it we did, and I dropped off to sleep.

I See London, I See France, Day 3: London Hobbling

Day three of our trip was the "free day" in London. Nothing was scheduled except for the West End show at 6:45pm. We were free to sightsee however we pleased in the meantime, and Sophie gave us all London maps and Tube guides and had us circle the important spots we wanted to get to. Sophie and Jan took some of us onto the tour bus to drop us off at important places.

I tried to rest my foot as much as I could the night before (by ... not walking in my sleep), but the moment I stepped off the tour bus at Westminster, pain shot up my right foot. Yowch! I could barely rest any of my weight on it. It felt like I'd hurt a bone. I started to limp, than hobble, past the Houses of Parliament, towards the bridge I would have to cross to make it to the London Eye.

Not pictured: my painful foot.

I tried to stay cheerful. It was a beautiful day, I was surrounded by beautiful, iconic buildings, and so what if I was walking slowly? But the voracious traveller in me was determined to see ALL THE THINGS. I didn't want to take time out of my day to rest or see a doctor and as I was unfamiliar with pretty much all injuries caused by physical activity (due to me shunning it most of the time), I had no idea what to do. I asked a couple of questions to my Twitter followers on my phone and limped towards the Eye.

A very, very, very long walk.

I made it to the Eye, realized I'd only paid for the "regular" ticket and not the FastPass, looked at the 40-minute wait in the hot July sun and went, "Oh, HELL no." Several pounds lighter, I skipped the line thanks to my advanced pass and boarded the London Eye immediately.

I freaking loved the London Eye. Yes, it's a very touristy thing to do, but it's not as cheesy to me as, say, going up the Eiffel Tower because the whole point of the Eye is to look out over the city of London from 360 degrees. It's an excellent and creative way to see the city, and for a pound they'll give you a handy circular map that points out all the buildings you're seeing. It's about a 30-minute ride, perfectly timed.

Once I had one and a half working feet back on solid ground, I hobbled back to the bridge towards Westminster Abbey. My Twitter followers recommended rest (nope), ice (nope again), or wrapping it up in an ace bandage (okay!). I tried to Google the nearest chemist but the closest one was a kilometre's walk away, due to all the crazy-old and famous buildings getting in the way.

I loved my time in England, but if I had to pick a low point, it was probably the next forty-five minutes I spent in Westminster, hobbling in circles trying to find a cross-walk (hint: it is never where you want a crosswalk to be), ultimately deciding to nix Westminster Abbey due to a 30-minute line, and limping towards the nearest Underground station. I was by myself in an area I didn't know at all, where I couldn't walk very quickly or without pain, and had no idea what to do next. But still - I felt frustrated and angry, but not anxious, panicked, or depressed. Huh.

After a convenience store clerk's terrible directions led me on a laborious, failed trek to find a Boots, I decided to take a page from the Little Mermaid's book (the Hans Christian Anderson version). I'd simply walk through the pain. I wasn't going to miss London (particularly the parts I'd already paid for in advance). I wasn't going to die. I could always stay in bed during the Paris part. So I descended back into the Underground and took the train to the Tower of London.

Which turned out to be the best decision ever. A little background - I work with case managers in disability insurance, and a big part of their job is determining if the claimant is legitimately too ill/injured to perform their job, or whether they just hate their current situation too much to put up with pain they'd normally be able to. 

As it turned out, I was the latter - the moment I approached the enormous fortress of the Tower of London, the throbbing in my foot faded to a mere annoyance. I'll be honest - I was extremely ignorant of the Tower of London before I actually visited it so I didn't know what to expect. I certainly hadn't expected this gigantic walled edifice with towers (both authentic and rebuilt in the 19th century) and moats and a medieval palace. It's even more surreal and impressive since it's surrounded by ultra-modern skyscrapers such as the Shard and the Gherkin. 

I had a blast at the Tower. I cannot recommend it enough. Despite being there at the height of tourist season, I discovered it's such a large attraction that there weren't too many lines for anything except for the Crown Jewels (which I skipped - I'm not spending 40 minutes in the sun just to see sparkly things). 

I explored the medieval palace originally built for Edward the First, I saw the preserved graffiti of various prisoners (lots of Jesuits, Elizabeth I's tutor, and a man tried for witchcraft) and the Traitor's Gate. Also went into the torture tower (because of course I did) - my favourite replica was the Scavenger's Daughter, which functions as the opposite of a rack. You make a man fold himself into a ball then put an iron hoop around him and screw it tighter and tighter.

Another thing I learned? The yeoman warders actually live at the Tower with their families. Bit of a shock to see a modern deckchair and flower pots by these beautiful stone buildings just beyond one of the major walls. Some of the residences are actually on the green, with only a single chain and a sign to indicate they're off-limits to visitors. I can't imagine living at such a popular attraction, but then, it's still technically a functioning prison and the home of 2.5 billion Euros' worth of jewellery. 

Eventually, even the joy of exploring a royal palace couldn't keep the pain of my foot at bay any longer, so I walked outside, bought a whole mess of fish and chips (the chips liberally doused in brown malt vinegar!) and ate it next to the Tower in the hot sun. Blissful - and probably the meal I enjoyed the most out of the entire trip. 

I saw everything except the actual tower of the Tower of London - the White Tower, and while I felt a bit sad about that, I wanted to see more of London before the West End show. I limped back to the Underground and rode the train to High Street Kensington station. I should also note that I loved the Underground - so convenient and easy. And a billion times more accessible and visible than Paris' Metro. 

At High Street Kensington station, I found a Boots! I bought an ace bandage - then realized I had no scissors to cut it with. I dragged myself five more blocks to Kensington Park and finally, to Kensington Palace.

SEE ALL THE PALACES!

Kensington Palace was where Princess Victoria lived, and is the official London residence of Prince Harry and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. I'm still baffled as to why no one has bothered to write a sitcom around this idea with a fictionalized Royal Family. But whatevs! 

There are four historical routes through the palace - the Glorious Georges through the King's Apartments, William and Mary's life together in the Queen's Apartments, a tour through Queen Victoria's life, and a section dedicated to the fashions of Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret. I enjoyed it (particularly the Victoria parts), although the part of me that was expecting the building to be kept up in the Georgian style was disappointed. I was rather hoping to walk in and pretend I'd time-travelled back to Victorian Britain but only certain parts of the palace were kept that way. The rest is a museum - and an excellent, well-organized one, but no longer a palace. It certainly made me want to rewatch The Young Victoria, though! 

When I go back to England (and I will!) I'll be sure to explore what looked like fabulous gardens, but once I made it out of the gift shop (bought: a classy key ring, the souvenir guidebook, and a history book on the Georgians), I knew it was time to drag my excruciatingly painful, blister-ridden feet back to the hotel in time for the show.

I made it with 15 minutes to spare. Some of my tour mates decided to skip the show (even though it was already paid for in the tour price), but for me, a guaranteed two and a half hours sitting down sounded like heaven. The show was Mamma Mia, and honestly where else can you book 50 tickets only a month in advance? The only things remarkable about it were a scene where the heroine's boyfriend is forcibly stripped down to his skivvies (and the whole theatre squealed like the studio audience for Saved By the Bell) and the actor who played Bill's horrific excuse for an American accent. But I got to sit down, the music was nice, and I was in good company. 

During the intermission, I made friends with Lisa and Melissa (from Scarborough!) and Christina (from Long Island). After the show, I decided (again...) not to go out to the bar because I was completely exhausted and a bit worried about what state my feet would be in when I woke up again. 

I See London, I See France, Day 2: A Nice, Warm Bath

Slept pretty well at the Imperial - almost too well. Had to get up early, and barely made it in time for breakfast. Thankfully, the Imperial serves "English Breakfast" - which is protein, protein, protein, raaaarrrr bacon and eggs and beans! Hell yes! None of this stale pastry and fruit nonsense.

After gulping down a tiny cup of tea, I left for the bus. True to my sister's word, many of my tour mates slumped against their seats in a fug of evaporating alcohol fumes, just as many from jet lag, and several Australians from both. Poor Sophie tried to get us to try a "speed-dating" exercise where everyone on an aisle seat switched seats every two minutes to sit with someone else, but no one was having that. We settled for introducing ourselves with alliteration - I impressed the group by announcing myself as "Enigmatic Elizabeth." Go go English degree!

Before leaving for our day trip to Somerset, Sophie had our Dutch driver, Jan, drive us around the sights of central London as she explained their significance and dropped interesting facts. Like how everyone confuses the Tower Bridge for London Bridge. And how Londoners actually have to pay to drive their cars into the City part in order to ease congestion. Pictured above is the infamous laughingstock of the London skyline - the skyscraper dubbed the "Walkie-Talkie" with the curved glass front that actually set fire to cars and rugs on the street opposite and now has to be covered with a tarp/screen thing.

After the tour, we set out for Stonehenge. I wound up paying to see it, because there was only one tour bus so it was either pay to see Stonehenge or wait on the bus for two and a half hours until we left for Bath. The air was pleasantly cool, overcast without being rainy, and the stones were lovely, but not the most interesting things in the world. They're mainly fascinating because we still have no real idea who built them and why. I spent most of my time there making Spinal Tap jokes and judging which of my tour mates were cool enough to get the reference. Apparently a practising Druid was there that day, but I missed her while I was staring at irrelevant doodads in the giftshop (do I want a sparkly pink pen that says Stonehenge on it? Nope).

After a quick bite to eat at the Stonehenge cafe, it was back on the bus to Bath! This was what I had been waiting for. I shivered with impatience as the bus lumbered through the increasingly beautiful and sunny English countryside. We would only get three hours in Bath, and I had to make those hours count. Sophie handed out extremely helpful maps before we arrived.

By the time we got there, the clouds had cleared up completely and the trees parted to display a glorious, golden city bathed in sunshine.

Seriously. The entire city is a Unesco Heritage Site, and the main architects who designed the city hundreds of years ago used soft, yellow Bath stone - and so now you can't build so much as a gas station without using it, in order to preserve the view.

Soooooo pretty. While Sophie went in to the Roman Baths to secure our booking, we were left to wait in the courtyard in front of Bath Abbey - a splendid church with fascinating carvings of Jacob's Ladder on the front (complete with carved angels climbing up to heaven). Sophie recommended we make use of the 45-minute audio tour of the baths, but I was having none of that. I had three hours to stuff with as much Georgian-Regency goodness as I could! I whisked through the Baths, enjoying the statues and the 1000-year-old paving stones and the murky green water everyone was warned away from as it was untreated and likely contained Ye Olde British Diseases.

The secret ingredient is kryptonite.

I did taste the waters, from a special treated fountain, and found it tasted like a warm pocketful of spare change. Unsurprising. After that, I caught a glimpse of the Pump Room (now a restaurant, but also the setting for many a Jane Austen adaptation) and from then on - it was time to explore.

I traipsed over as many of the golden cobblestones in my flat, unsupported sandals as I could. The air echoed with laughter and bird calls - a peddler was selling bird whistles by the marketplace. I bought the cheap plastic kind you fill with water, but he also sold the weird U-shaped whistles you put on your tongue. When you go "shhhhhhh" it makes a chirping sound! My foot started to ache but I had no time to slow down. Using Sophie's map, I made a bee-line for the Jane Austen Centre.

Yes, the Jane Austen figurine is fake, but the footmen who open the door for you are real! It was all set in this narrow house that would have been very like the one Jane Austen and her family lived in. Of course, Jane Austen wasn't very happy in Bath, and did most of her writing in Chawton (where the major Austen museum is), but Bath is a setting in many of her novels (like my personal favourites Northanger Abbey and Persuasion) and also home to the Jane Austen Festival in September. They showed a video of it in the reception room as I waited for the presenter, and it looked like a lot of fun.

I raced through the exhibits, trying to take everything in. I gazed at the dresses, tried on some bonnets, and even saw the new waxwork sculpture of Jane that had been sculpted using forensic science, portraits of her siblings, and first-hand descriptions of Jane from her relatives' letters. Half of the giftshop was given over to "I Heart Darcy" rubbish (I like the guy well enough but he's insanely overhyped and besides have you never heard of WENTWORTH?), but I bought a lovely teacup and saucer, a leather bookmark, and a book on all the real estates used as settings for Jane Austen adaptations.

I felt a bit guilty in Bath, even as I was enjoying every minute of it, because I felt I couldn't afford to spend too much time on any one thing for fear of missing something else. After this, I ran (limping now, because my foot hurt) through the grand Georgian Circus. It's a bit startling to see cars parked in front and potted plants in the gardens. Yes, people actually live here - although from what I can gather the cost is astronomical. 

Next, on I went to the Royal Crescent. The beauty of this city is simply overpowering. The glorious Crescent looks out over a verdant lawn, with trees and hills and fields in the distance. Several tourists and locals were lounging about and picnicking on the green. 

On the way back, I stopped at the Georgian House on Number 1 Royal Crescent, but I didn't have time for the tour - just for the gift shop, where I snagged several postcards containing more stunning photographs of the city than I could ever hope to take. 

I had one more stop before meeting up with my group - there's a special bookstore that was recommended to me by a fellow blogger, Ana S. of Things Mean a Lot. A magical bookstore. And I knew I couldn't visit Bath without seeing it - Mr. B's Emporium of Reading Delights, listed as one of the U.K.'s best independent bookstores.

You guys. It was like a miniature Willie Wonka's - only with books and no child maiming! 

Set inside this beautiful little house, it was so charming and beautiful and well-organized - with personalized recommendations, a staircase wallpapered with Tintin cartoons, and a cozy little reading room on the second floor (right next to a shelf with Mr. B's World Cup reading list). Their website boasts a TON of author events, book groups, recommended reading lists, book subscriptions, and something called a Reading Spa (THERE IS CAKE INVOLVED). It made me want to live in Bath, which would probably be only slightly less expensive than regularly flying from Canada to Bath to see the store again! 

Of course, one doesn't just visit a famous bookstore and not buy anything - so I bought two books. Cuckoo Song by Frances Hardinge (because she's a British author) and a hardcover of Jane Austen's Persuasion (my own copy is a public domain eBook) which takes place in Bath and is my favourite of her novels. For an extra pound, they wrapped my books! 

LIKE THIS! IT'S SO PRETTY!

The adorable red wax seal survived the trip home, I'm delighted to say. I still haven't opened the package. To be honest, I'm waiting until the tape dries out and I can safely unwrap it in one piece and KEEP it. 

What a delight! I clattered down the cobblestones of Bath under a blue sky with a beautiful brown-paper-wrapped-package under one arm and shopping bags in the other, listening to bird calls both real and fake. I met up with my friends in front of Bath Abbey once again. Anthony remarked on the address of the Jane Austen Centre (Gay Street and Queens Square) and said it was a perfect missed opportunity for a gay bar.

Sadly, it was time to go, and I hauled my exhausted self back onto the bus for the long drive back to London. After storing my things, I decided it was time to be social, so I paired up with Trudy (another Canadian), Franco (from the Philippines), Anthony, and Mikey to look for a place to eat. Unfortunately, most of the bars were packed because - who knew? - it was the World Cup final! Thanks to a misunderstanding, I got separated from Trudy and the others and wandered disconsolately back to the bar closet to the hotel. There I met some of my American tourmates from Arizona. I ate some of their fries but really wasn't in the mood to order a whole meal, especially as there weren't many seats.

I wound up standing at the bar, watching the World Cup final with three strangers who, while not unkind, knew each other much more than they did me and so unintentionally excluded me. But since I didn't want to walk back to the hotel by myself at night (with a foot I could barely put any weight on at this point), I forced myself to watch the entire, incredibly boring, World Cup final match. Football, it just isn't for me. 

After that, I was more than ready to sleep.