A reflection about my trip to London and Paris

I am sure that if anyone would mention the following words London, Paris, trip, and fun in one sentence, you would be sure to listen. Well, I sure did and I got excited about it. I first heard about the London / Paris Leadership Tour when I came back to school after summer break. I was one of the first to sign up. This was one of those opportunities that you wouldn’t want to miss.

A day before I had to leave for London, many impressions were going through my mind. I was thinking about immersing myself in the European culture, music, and people. I was really excited and I was looking forward to meeting new people and connecting with them through our differences and similarities. I love exploring different cultures and increasing my knowledge of diversity. My mom had asked me, “David, are you excited to go London and Paris?” I told her, “Of course I’m excited, but I won’t be really excited until I am actually standing in London at the airport.” Standing on the soil of another country is truly what I was waiting for.

After some bad weather, a little trouble, and the grace of God we arrived in London safely. I was ready to explore one of the highest-rated cities in the world. I will not go into too much detail of what I saw during our many walks and underground rail trips, but I will say that London is a very large, zestful city, full of history. What amazed me was the diversity in London. I noticed there are a majority of colored people. At the airport, it seemed that our group was a minority. Throughout the days in which we traveled the streets of London, waking up early and getting back late, it seemed to me that London is always active in all parts. The architecture and environment is amazing throughout London. There are many buildings that are old and the churches are just simply extravagant. On the other hand, the technology is definitely up-to-date. They have everything that we have in America and more. While exploring the richer part of the city, I noticed many expensive stores and automobiles. The automobiles that I saw were mostly Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Porsche, Volkswagen, Audi, and Lexus. The rest of the makes of cars I had never heard of such as Citreon and Peugot. They had few American vehicles, such as Ford Taurus and Jeep Cherokees. What was shocking to me was that they used the $70,000 - $80,000 Mercedes-Benz as simple taxis. In Kingsbridge, which is the richest part of London, I saw many Rolls-Royces and Bentleys. The hotel cars were actually Bentleys which were abundant amongst the major hotels. A typical driveway in London would include either a Porsche or a Benz or both. The air quality I thought was actually a little better. Maybe that was because there were no large gas-guzzler automobiles. The stores all around were amazing. I learned that you had to bargain your products before you paid for them in the street shops. You never want to pay the price on the ticket because there’s always a better deal you can get. If I were to move to a European city, London would be at the top of the list. Their high-style of living and laid back environment makes for an exciting society.

The second city listed on this trip would make any person that loves to travel blush and put a big smile on their face. The journey to the great city of Paris was exciting because I learned that we were going to go under the English Channel. The only thing is that when you are on the train, you have no idea that you are under water, so it turned out to not be exciting at all. This was the only time that week that I was able to take naps. When we got to Paris, a tour on a bus was waiting for us at the Blackston Hotel. This is one thing that I was anticipating, but if you didn’t notice, Paris is in France and France’s primary language is French. I do not speak any French. Depending on other people who either spoke English who are French or people in our group who spoke a little French, was something I wasn’t use to doing until I went to Paris. The language barrier was just something I had to deal with. I found myself using a little Spanish that was similar to many words in French to figure out what things said all around Paris.

Consequently, traveling all around Paris on our own was very strenuous. No one in our group wanted to get lost. I know if I had gotten lost, I would have a large sign over my head saying “Lost Tourist”; also I would be trying to find my way back to the hotel. One of the strangest things was that we were in Paris for 3 days before we encountered any other Americans. The first Americans I saw were in front of Notre Dame. I was so excited to see more Americans that I took a picture of them. After Notre Dame, they seemed to have stuck with us as we discovered a nice little café a couple streets up. The one place you want to go to when you go to Paris is the Eiffel Tower. Of course, this sounds obvious, but I really mean it. You can see the Eiffel Tower from everywhere in Paris. The view from the top is more amazing than looking at it from the bottom. I could see everything I wanted from the top. I even saw the Louve which is the largest museum, and also houses the Mona Lisa, possibly the most popular portrait ever. If I were to sum up Paris in two words, they would be “Historical Extravagance”. The reasons I chose these words were because Paris is full of history and it is noticeable in the buildings, the artwork, and the culture. I was told by the tour guide that there are many buildings that were hundreds and hundreds of years old. Everything in Paris is just extravagant and when people say, “a picture is worth a thousand words”, that changes when you are in Paris. “A picture is worth a million words in Paris”.

London and Paris were two cities that anyone would love to visit. There are tourists from all across the world seen all around at the many tourist attractions in these cities. The native people who live there are distinct in their ways. The conclusions I have drawn about the English people from my experience in London were that the majority of them smoke, no one is obese and they love their football, shopping, and rap/jazz/pop music; most of them do not go to college, and they are compulsive readers.

The French people had similarities to the English. Their environments at least in Paris and living styles are very similar. Contrary to popular belief that Paris is the “City of Love”, I only saw a minority of things that would make this true. You will just have to go for yourself and see if the city is romantic. The countryside of France was actually more romantic to me. Sitting with a woman, with a glass of red wine, on a nice train ride, through the countryside would be blissfully romantic. French college students were actually transfers from other countries, which was really exciting because they spoke more than three languages. In general, many people in France definitely speak more than two languages. I know this just because I heard many French people speaking English and it was just a relief. That is all I can say about my educational week in Europe without writing a book. Taking around 880 pictures for those days totals up to billions of “visual words”. With them posted on my website, “Kooldave.com”, I will have these memories forever.

The food was great, the views and attractions were great, and this was the best overseas experience I will probably ever have in such a short period of time. Nothing beats two European cities in one week!