Eurostar

I woke early this morning to say goodbye to Hilary who had to go off to work. It’s a bit sad seeing as we hadn’t seen each other in twelve years and only really had three days together. Let’s hope our next meeting isn’t that far away. I fell asleep again before Justine and I organized our packing to catch the Eurostar train from London to Paris at noon. We stumbled out of the house into the taxi leaving one case behind, full of souvenirs and keepsakes to be retrieved later. Lucky Hilary.

We caught the train to East Finchley station before catching the tube in peak hour traffic to Kings Cross, where we then walked to St Pancras. We were there an hour and a half early wanting to make sure we didn’t have any trouble with getting through baggage control; which apparently, we didn’t. Then it was onto the Eurostar for the two hour train ride to Paris. I slept through the tunnel and am not disappointed about this.

Upon arriving at Gare du Nord we caught a taxi to the Little Hotel where we were staying. The taxi driver got lost, so we got charged extra while he sat there looking at his map. Not good. When we checked into the hotel and headed to our room (206) we noticed that the staff hadn’t finished cleaning it. A bit strange we thought. We were told (in French so not so quickly!) that we were to move up to room 406 which had been cleaned. So we dumped our things on the floor and slept.

I woke up at 5.50, remembering that Daniel and Dean were going to be meeting us in the lobby of our hotel at 6. So I messaged Daniel to come up to our room instead, thinking they’d be angry having traveled all the way to our hotel if we weren’t ready. A few minutes later they were there, having come from only two stories below us in room 206!

We eventually got out of bed in search of dinner where a very friendly man (I think he may have been Greek) ushered us into his restaurant. Seeing as it was Australia Day we opted for the lamb, which he didn’t have. Instead, Daniel had the “quack quack” (Duck as the man was calling it) and Dean, Justine and I had beef. When we tried to get up to pay the bill our new friend wouldn’t let us leave, insisting that we have apple pie, ice cream and peppermint tea, all on the house. He was a very nice man.