20 Mar 06 Retourné de Paris
Just arrived home and read about the riot in Paris while on the Eurostar back to London. We had no idea this was going on during our trip, so yes we’re safe (for those who wondered) and it appears to have been isolated violence amongst a very large but mostly peaceful national protest by students.
I’ll write all about the trip once I’ve had a sleep, but I’ll say now that Paris the city was quite wonderful, surprising and exhausting! And our French was pathetic, though our efforts to speak it were much appreciated.
Goodnight :)
16 Mar 06 “City Break” to Paris!
We booked what they call here a ‘city break’ to Paris over at lastminute.com and leave this evening on the Eurostar train from Waterloo Station. It’s about a 3-hour journey and we arrive quite late at Gare Du Nord. Our hotel, the Metopolitan Paris looks quite comfy, but most importantly it’s very central for us to wander about in the city.
We’ll likely do some standard things tourists do, like head to the top of the Eiffel Tower and visit the Louvre. We’ll just try to absorb as much essence of Paris as possible in four days, plus a little shopping, good food, music… oh and our muddled grade 7 French could come in a bit handy.
2 Jan 06 First
We’ve arrived in London! On the first day of the first month of 2006, and at Toronto airport we were upgraded courtesy of British Airways to travel in the First Class cabin! What a fantastic New Year’s Eve gift that was… these seats normally cost above CDN $6000. At Toronto airport we waited in the BA World Club lounge where they served a buffet dinner that included sea bass. Had a drink of wine there and a coffee with liqueur - a fine way to relax while waiting for a boarding call. We boarded in the express line then met with our ’sleeper’ seats which extended to full beds for the trip. Service included a late dinner with champagne and an early breakfast with fresh fruit and croissants. We also made use of the personal DVD players - I watched the Skeleton Key, a voodoo thriller based in New Orleans starring Kate Hudson. The whole thing was unforgettable really, so big thanks to that sweet BA ticket agent at Pearson Airport!
Perhaps the best feature of the first class trip was receiving a ‘fast track’ immigration voucher which meant we spent only a few minutes at the customs counter at Heathrow, and our bags were the first spit out on the conveyor. Yeehah!
Warning to our future visitors - don’t take a taxi from Heathrow into central London as it will cost CDN $180. Not a cheap lift by any stretch. The express bus is considerably cheaper at about 15 bucks ;)
Yesterday was simply exhausting with the jetlag, and we took turns napping through the day. There was the New Years Day parade happening along Piccadilly, but we had no energy to enjoy it, unfortunately. We called it a night at about 10PM then slept through this morning until 11:30AM. That may have cured the lag though as today we felt quite normal.
Today we walked from our hotel near to Trafalgar Square over to Canary Wharf to meet a physics colleague of Matt’s. We thought it might be a neighbourhood where we would want to live but changed our minds when we discovered the area is very carefully guarded to deter terrorists. In the nineties there was an IRA bombing there. Also Canary Wharf is primarily a business/banking district with few services such as grocery stores. At night it’s deserted.
The walk along the Thames was lovely, and reminiscent of the seawall in Vancouver. We passed the Tower of London, London Bridge, Tower Bridge and saw the Tate Modern on the southside which is in a former industrial warehouse.
On our way back to the hotel we ate dinner on an outdoor patio in Covent Garden, a lively market area. The weather is mild, but not much sun to be seen so far. All in all we walked at least four hours today, which felt terrific after all the travel and sitting we did through the holidays.
And we feel quite like locals already! As we passed by the throng of tourists at the Tower of London we found ourselves trying to avoid them and maybe even cursed at a few ;) It’s such a bustling city though, and it doesn’t seem so foreign right off as we expected it might.
Tomorrow morning Matt starts work at 8:00AM, so it could be a challenge for him to wake up on time. I’ll start hunting down lettings agents looking for a flat, but other that that we feel quite at home and ready to immerse ourselves in this new adventure!
GET FED: