Paris

Our hotel in Paris was quite nice. Not overly spacious, but clean and in an excellent location,right off the RER (like the Metra in Chicago) stop that went to Charles de Gaulle Airport and to Paris Norde, where our Eurostar train to the UK would leave.
The first night we headed over to Notre Dame Cathedral, then walked along the Seine to the Eiffel Tower. This is about an hour worth of walking, or an hour and twenty minutes including the time to and from our hotel. So we stopped along the way to grab a coffee from a cafe on the plaza of the Sorbonne, a glass of wine and a small snack at a brasserie on the way to the tower, and then dinner in a fondue restaurant in a rather tourist-y area north of our hotel. After checking with any of the guidebooks I had brought, it turns out we ate in the rather infamous "Bacteria Alley," where only the most foolish of the tourists eat. Not great food, but it was at least slightly better than fair.
The next morning (late morning) we got up and having missed Paris breakfast and being tired of non-free refills, we went to the Breakfast in American Cafe, featuring bottomless cups of coffee.
We walked around the neighborhood, found a bar with cheap beer and wine that had a pool table. However, it was a french pool table, so there were no solids and stripes, it had red balls and yellow balls plus a black ball. Played for a bit, wandered around a bit more, then went back and took a nap and watched some TV. When we headed out for dinner, apparently the places within our area were all closed, so we found a friendly Tibetan restaurant, with only a moderate amount of comprehension. In other words, we had an interesting dinner; however, it was not quite what we thought we had ordered (mostly done by pointing at the menu).
The next morning we grabbed an early lunch from a nearby bistro before heading to the Louvre. Though we decided to sample the cheese platter for desert. I learned that there is only so much cheese I can eat in one sitting.
Regarding the Louvre, the shear size of this museum was impressive, as was its holdings. In the solid half-day that we spent walking around in it, we only saw about half of the museum. After which we grabbed a quick snack and glass of wine on the way back to the hotel for another break before heading back out.
We looked through the different neighborhoods and chose the neighborhood that was primarily an Orthodox Jewish and gay neighborhood. The thought of these two groups living in a small district of Pars was a little too much to pass up, so we headed up the the neighborhood, and wandered around to find a nice cafe to eat at. We found a very nice cafe and had some excellent burgers, great fries, and tasty beer. An excellent last dinner in Paris.
The next morning we packed up, grabbed some breakfast at a bakery nearby, and took the RER to Paris Norde to grab the high-speed train to London. We had stopped at a market on the way up to the station to grab some cheese, crackers, soda, and wine. As this train was going directly into London, the two countries had set up a customs post in the train station. And since the UK is part of the EU but not part of the Shengen Zone (which means that you do not need to present your passport to travel over borders), so we had to submit landing cards and have our passports checked and stamped (for me only the 3rd check since landing in Amsterdam but the first stamp). However, this meant that when we reached London, we could just walk off the train into the city.
We sat across from a very friendly older couple from a few hours north of London who were over visiting a friend of the wife's from when she studied for a year in France. She had been a teacher for blind children and he had spent 35 years as a programmer for IBM. Very nice and friendly and gave us some pretty good advice for London and a travel book as well.
After this pleasant conversation, we arrived in London and headed over to our hotel.