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Thanks. A lot will have to happen to curb my travel! :-)

Maybe at one point I'll come back and fill in the bits on Israel. But here's what I have for the rest of the trip.

I was in Parma for a few hours (for the Correggio show), then I went to Israel for three days. Afterwards I flew to Paris via Budapest (a few hours stopover), spent one night and one day in Paris, then took an early morning train to London and spent two days there before flying home. Actually my second day I was mostly in Greenwich.

Here's a summary of the itinerary:

Day 1: Budapest/Paris
Day 2: Paris
Day 3: Train to London, London
Day 4: London/Greenwich, fly home

Trip #18 to Paris

Night of Arrival

My flight got in around 6 pm from Budapest. I took the RER to Gare du Nord, but there was a problem with the train, or maybe it was the tracks. The train took about one hour, and it was quite packed. I went to pick up my Eurostar ticket for London (I didn't want to take a chance with getting the ticket before I left on Friday since I had a 6:40-ish am departure). Then I checked in at the hotel and went to the Louvre and the Mantegna show, as I had written about. On Wednesdays, the Louvre closes at 10 pm.

I actually left before 10 pm as I wasn't feeling the greatest. I had some Japanese ramen near the hotel (the area on r. Ste-Anne near r. Therese is ramen central), and I went back to the hotel and slept early. Though I got up a couple of times in the evening, I slept quite well, and the next morning I was feeling better.

The next morning

So I went to the Grand Palais and stood in line for the Picasso show. It wasn't pleasant waiting in the cold, but fortunately the weather was Paris weather and not Budapest weather. After waiting nearly 2 hours I got in. The first thing I did was to go to the cafe and get some drinks. I got an OJ and a hot chocolate.

After the Grand Palais, I walked to Toraya near Place de la Concorde for lunch. I'm familiar with this place as there used to be a Toraya in NYC that closed and I also once ate in the Toraya in Paris. In June I tried to take my parents there, but there was a long wait. I was told the wait would be half an hour, and I decided to wait. The Parisians were taking their time with their lunches, talking to their lunch companions and occupying their tables much longer than I'd ordinarily expect. Finally I got to sit down and I ordered a salmon rice bowl set. It came with a miso soup and some Japanese pickles and a choice of a pastry at the end and also a choice between two teas (matcha or sencha) after the meal. Maybe there was something else too. In any case I think that was 23 euros or so. Since the euro is much weaker now, this looked a lot more reasonable.

After lunch I bought some chocolates at Hevin. It was already past 3 pm, but I decided to do something completely new.

I went to Montmartre!

I'd never been to Montmartre before. It's the heart of Amelie and Sacre Coeur. I figured this would be interesting, and I actually quite liked the experience, even though it was rather touristy, especially when there were so many people sketching tourist portraits on Place du Tertre. I took the funicular to ascend the small hill. I went inside Scare Coeur. I just walked around and felt lucky that I was in Paris again.

After this I went to Jacquemart-Andre. It's a house cum small museum, and there's a show on Van Dyck. I found neither to be especially interesting. The house's decor is lavish but also very frilly, and the paintings are academic and not particularly interesting. But now at least I can say that I've done this.

My plan was to visit Orsay Museum for the evening, as it closes at 9:45 pm Thursdays. I got off the Metro at Concorde since Orsay is a short walk away on the other side of the Seine. I decided to go inside Jeu de Paume first and I found that they were showing a film by Shinji Aoyama. The show started at 7 pm, so that didn't leave me much time for Orsay (probably about half an hour or less), but I decided to buy a ticket anyway as it was just 3 euros, and I didn't know anything about the director, so I could see something new. Plus there was a problem with the French subtitles so there was a note that the subtitles would be in English -- even better!

So after a quick visit to Orsay, I was back to see "Helpness." You can see that the reviews on IMDB aren't the greatest. Before the movie started, there were introductions in French (it was the first screening in an Aoyama retrospective). First a woman spoke briefly, and then this arty French guy spoke. For a long time.... His hair was long and hipsterish but as he spoke, he kept touching his neck and scratching his chest lightly now and then. I'm glad that he wasn't interviewing for a job on Wall Street. I tend to have some scary mannerisms at times, but though this guy was very attractive, someone should tell him that he should curb some of his mannerisms.

The movie was short so I was already having dinner 9-ish at a Cambodian restaurant near the hotel. Then afterwards I went out briefly. Since I didn't want to stress myself, I wasn't out too late. I was back at the hotel before 1 am.

A few hours later I dragged my bag off to the Metro station, but I discovered that the first train wasn't running until 5:50 am or so. That gave me about 20 minutes to make it to Gare du Nord (Eurostar checkin theoretically closes 30 minutes in advance) and I still had to make one change of Metros. So regrettably, I took a taxi instead.

I slept through most of my train ride to London. By the way I woke up, the train was pulling into St. Pancras. I did finish the six Hevin macarons I bought the minute I got on the train before sleeping.

Hotel

I stayed at Louvre-Richelieu, booked via RatesToGo, for less than $60 a night for a single with ensuite bathroom.

Trip #16 to London

Day of Arrival

First I followed yk's advice and bought an Oyster card. But this didn't turn out to be the smartest thing to do for this trip. I put 10 pounds on the card, but it turned out that I'd have no use for Oyster the next day.

After arriving I went to the Holiday Inn Express in Southwark, very near Tate Modern. I left my bag there, though not before asking for permission to be in the storage room a couple of time to get stuff that I kept forgetting. I must have annoyed the staff terribly.

Then I went to the British Museum to see the Babylon show. Afterwards I stayed and visited the other treasures of the Museum and also looked for the five contemporary sculpture pieces that were installed in various parts of the Museum. This proved to be a very interesting visit.

For lunch I decided to go to Canteen, a resaturant recommended by the Wallpaper City guide. I didn't know where it was exactly, so I had to look it up online in an internet cafe. I noticed my friend had also e-mailed me elaborate directions to get to her place tomorrow. So I sent some e-mails and printed out the directions, which unfortunately wasn't very cost effective. As you know, when you print something, you usually print out a lot of junk too, plus her e-mails had their sentences cut off by the printer. So I spent a couple of pounds on all this.

Canteen is near Liverpool station in Spitalfields Market. I didn't know this exactly from Google maps, and I was panicking that I couldn't find it. But fortunately it was quite easy to find. Canteen offers a lot of shared seating (like Le Pain Quotidien). It features organically sourced food. It all sounds great, but the food itself wasn't really that wonderful. I had a juice, a soup and the roast of the day (pork with greens) for about 25 pounds. Again, I was grateful the dollar is much stronger these days. I had to sit outside at first, and it was pretty chilly, so I finally asked for a warmer seat and was moved inside. Most of the other people there were in suits.

Since the Barbican was nearby I went there after lunch. By now, the skies were overcast and it looked like it might rain any minute. After the Barbican, I went to ICA to pick up my prints I had bought a few weeks ago. Since the weather wasn't the greatest, London was already dark around 3:30 pm. How depressing.

Then I went back to the hotel and checked in. I was too lazy so I took a taxi. I talked to my friend to make some plans for the next day. Then I went out again to the Tate Modern. Afterwards I headed off to Tate Britian. Since this was a Friday, both museums closed at 10 pm. But I decided not to stay that long at Tate Britain because I was interested in checking out the bar scene.

So a little past 9 pm, I found myself waiting for a bus to go to Trafalgar Square. It was really cold and the bus took forever to arrive. When it finally did, it looked like it was going to speed right past us!

I looked at my old Time Out London and there's an ad for Wagamama. And I saw that there's one in Leicester Square. Again I was panicking that I wouldn't be able to find it, and it was really freezing outside, so I wanted a bowl of hot noodles. But it was really easy. I hadn't eaten in Wagamama recently (I think I ate there about ten years ago, or maybe it was even longer), though I'd always thought of eating there. Having eaten so much ramen now, I realize that Wagamama isn't especially authentic.

My bar hopping didn't turn out that well. I went to one bar that was really crowded. Then I went to an internet place to see if I can find out more about where to go in London. I decided to give another place a try, but when I arrived, I found that the crowd was too mixed for me.

So I went back to the hotel.

Next Day and Day of Departure

The next morning I called my friend around 10 am and she wasn't quite up yet. So we decided on a change of plans. Instead of having lunch at her place, I'd join her and her husband for lunch in Greenwich. Since I was already up and about, she suggested that I visit Borough Market. This was a really fascinating market near the London Bridge station, where I had to catch a train for Greenwich. I decided to take my carry on and walk there (it's good to travel light!) so that I didn't have to go back to the hotel again.

Borough Market offered a lot of fresh produce, and one store even advertised for ostrich meat and other exotic foods. It was cold so I had some mulled apples, which wasn't quite the apple cider I was used to. I fantasized about living in London and shopping at Borough Market and cooking every day.

The train ride to Greenwich was very short. I had arrived early and first I waited in the train station, but that was just too cold. So I found a second-hand bookstore where I could hide for a while. I ended up thumbing through a coffee table book on the treasures of the Cairo Museum. Then I went to the hotel (Novotel?) next to the train station for a while.

Finally my friend and her husband showed up and we had lunch. They gave me some history of Greenwich (a palace was built there, then destroyed for the Naval College -- Greenwich is famous for its associations with the British Navy and it's a Unesco World Heritage site for this reason). I quite liked Greenwich. It'd have been nice to walk around more, but it was also cold.

After lunch, we went to their place for a cup of tea, and then they drove me to Heathrow. It took a good two hours or so as my friend's husband got a little lost along the way. During the ride they told me a bit about London's 33 boroughs. We had to skirt through some edgy neighborhoods. I asked about the murder of the two French students and my friend said that she'd be uncomfortable with that area (New Cross) at night, but apparently Goldsmith College (a famous arts college) is nearby. Actually they told me that one of the Royal Family members is attending Goldsmith.

It was interesting learning bits about London from a native's point of view. The South bank is traditionally poor. They told me that really only the northern edge is nice. The area around Borough Market is supposedly associated with a couple of Dickens novels.

Then we had some tea at the airport before I flew home.

Hotel

I stayed at the Holiday Inn Express Southwark that I reserved via Hotwire for less than $82 a night (all inclusive).