This time it was different. For the first time… and I booked a lot on Airbnb. For the first time, you know, I had the feeling, when I arrived, of saying to myself: “Hm, this is not quite what I had seen in the pictures”. So, already, it seemed… not only did it seem much smaller or, in the pictures, it seemed to be much bigger, but it was also much, much older.
The first thing, when we arrived, Tom opened the vo… the curtains, sorry. There were curtains in a room. And everything fell down, that is to say, there was a metal bar holding the curtains, which fell down. And then, we had problem after problem. It started with the boiler. So, when we arrived… No, it started with the internet. The wire to the internet box was cut. So, we were asked to use the neighbors' wifi. Then, there was no hot water, so, we took a cold shower, the first day. A bad surprise, especially for the children. And so, it was fixed after 24 hours.
And then, on the second day, disaster. Emma, she closed a door, but just the door to their room, she just closed it… it just closed itself, eh, the door. And there was a… I don’t know exactly… a lock and the door was locked, but we didn’t have the key. So, that was at the end of the day. By the time I warned the owner, etc. he said: “Well OK, we’ll see tomorrow”. And finally, I had to sleep on the sofa, so, which is a very small sofa, where my feet were sticking out. So, I’m not tall, I’m 1.72 meters, but my feet were sticking out, because I left, we left the room… So, Céline and Raphaël were in one room and Emma and Tom in another, and I slept on the sofa.
So, in short, it wasn't a great experience. We gave feedback to Airbnb, which was very, very professional and said, "OK, we'll refund part of your stay," so we got 30% refunded, because clearly it wasn't worth it... the price we paid was too high compared to the apartment. But we were very happy.
because I told you it was this summer, it was the Euro final, so Spain-England. And that's cool, because being in the country, when there's the final, well it gives a little bit of a nice atmosphere. So, we went to a restaurant with the family. I would have liked to go to a pub, but I said "it's going to be too noisy with the family", and anyway, everything was full.
So, we went to a small restaurant, quietly, we ate as a family. There was a television and we were able to watch the match. So, Céline, Emma and Raphaël went home to bed a little earlier, but Tom and I… I think they left at half-time, and Tom and I spent the second half watching the match. And it was nice because there were English italy whatsapp number data people in this restaurant. It was a bar-restaurant, after all. There were English people who were, of course, very happy when England scored a goal. They saw that Tom and I were applauding. So, one of them came over, high-fived me. So, there was a really nice warm atmosphere, and… that's it.
I know Tom was very happy and I think he'll remember it for a long, long time. And Spain won. They deserved it. They deserved to win against France in the semi-final. They deserved to win against England in the final. But it was a very, very good night.
We also did family pubs. So, I wanted to go to pubs to have this slightly Anglo-Saxon atmosphere, the atmosphere of pubs, and it was really cool. So, I chose pubs that were more family-oriented. And it was really cool to be able to eat fish and chips, to drink draft beers. I like draft beers. Céline drank draft cider. It was, again, the setting, the fact of being in a pub. We went to a pub not very far… not very very far from… I think, it’s roughly opposite Downing Street. In fact, you can feel that there’s history in these places and it was really great.
We visited Madame Tussauds, which has reconstructions of different celebrities. The children really liked it. There was a section on Marvel, with lots of heroes, which my son Raphaël also liked. So, everyone was very interested.
We obviously visited the Harry Potter museum, so, the Warner Bros. Studio. And that was really fantastic. So, it's a big expedition huh. We went there by transport, by bus, etc. so, it was quite long, but it was worth it, really. The atmosphere is great, everything is well done. And once again, to think that the film was shot in this place, 'well, the films were shot in this place, it's splendid. So, they did an extraordinary job at all levels. And we really enjoyed looking at what was in this very beautiful museum.
Of course, we had previously done the exterior visits of Westminster, Buckingham Palace, obviously, Tower Bridge. We went up in the London Eye, so, this big wheel on the banks of the Thames, which is really nice too. We watched the changing of the king's guard, so, the one on which there are horses. That was really nice too, Raphael loved it, and I have a little anecdote on the subject.