European work adventures

I spent last week in London and Paris for work, which was so great. I love that I get to go to these amazing places for my job and get to experience different cultures. I took the red eye last Sunday night as I was suppose to have school visits on Monday, which ended up getting canceled. So, I decided to make the most out of my free day and be a tourist. I grabbed breakfast and then took a long walk down Picadilly, by the National Portrait Gallery, down to Big Ben and Westminster, and then through Green Park back to my hotel. My room wasn't ready so I decided to be adventurous and go for a 4.5 mile run around Hyde Park, which was simply the best! Not only did I feel so much better, especially after flying on a red eye, but I got to see the Park on a gorgeous, sunny day. Doesn't get much better than that...oh wait, it does if you conclude your afternoon with afternoon tea :) I enjoyed tea and scones while listening to a harp player in this beautiful sitting room. I then relaxed for a few hours before heading to dinner with some of my colleagues. It was a pretty spectacular day and I've got some photos to prove it!

Watching guard

Love these phone booths

Big Ben

Buckingham Palace

Gates at Buckingham Palace

We had meetings in the London office on Tuesday and then headed to East London to where the conference was. The conference is the largest educational conference with more than 35,000 attendees. It's always so great to attend these events, but it sure is exhausting! Following the conference, I headed back to London with some of my team for the night before we headed to Paris on Saturday.

We woke up early on Saturday and took the Eurostar to Paris, which was pretty fun. I love riding trains and don't get to travel longer distances that way all that often. We arrived in Paris in the afternoon and then spent the early evening exploring and dinning at a cute cafe with amazing French onion soup. Sunday, I finally got a chance to sleep in and headed out to explore with a colleague. We walked to the Arc de Triomphe and walked down the Champs-Elysees to breakfast at Laduree. From there, we walked to the gardens at Louvre and then spent several hours exploring the Louvre. We then walked to Notre Dame and had a late lunch at a cafe nearby before making the walk back along the Seine to the Eiffel Tower. I think it total we walked ~8 miles and saw a big chunk of the city!

I was pretty tired from walking around and started getting caught up on life when I saw the epic storm brewing on the east coast. I called Delta and sure enough they recommended I move my flight up one day. Thankfully I did because my flight as well as 7,000 other flights were canceled. I believe we were one of the last flights to actually land on Monday. While I was sad to have to cancel my meetings in Paris, I was relieved to not get stuck, especially since I have to be in DC on Wednesday.