The Chunnel

London to Paris... what a freakin adventure. So, as it goes, I had to get out of London early. Most of the trains to Paris were already booked, and in order to get it cheaply, you either have to leave early, or really late. I would rather get to Paris in the daylight, personally... Also, since I was on a limited schedule in Paris, I needed to make the most of every day there.

My train was set for 5:45 AM. Oh yes... you read that correctly. Again, if you know anything about me, you know that I would rather stay up all night and see dawn than wake up in the dark of morning. But that's not the worse part. The tubes don't operate that early, so I had to take the night bus. I set my alarm for 3 am; I set two alarms, in fact. It's a good thing, cause I would still be in London right now. I completely ignored the first one.

I was already packed and dressed; even wearing my shoes, so I could be out the door quickly. I had pulled up the buses I needed to take online the night before. There's a nifty little travel tool on some website for London. You say where you are, where you're going, and when you want to do it. They tell you how. At 3:30 in the morning, my route was 2 buses, and about 15 minutes of walking. My thought was, I should get to the train station with about an hour to spare.

So I set out to the N1 bus stop near the hostel. It was about a 10 minute walk. Definitely wasn't feeling very safe at this point. I was suspicious of every single person on the road. But there's an interesting thing I've noticed since being here. People look at me as if I'm going to mug them, which I find quite ironic. :) But that's ok, it works.

There were quite a few suspicious cars that would stop about 100m away, and just sit there for a while before driving off. A few people walked around, but they kept their distance. Again, I think I was probably the more intimidating person out. I sat at that bus stop for 25 long minutes before the bus finally came. It was dark, and there's just something creepy about an old English town at night.

I had committed to memory every detail of the trip to the train station, and saved pages on my laptop just in case I needed to refer to them. I passed the time debating on whether I should have brought a portable printer, and decided it would have been more trouble that it was worth. But once I got on the buss, I really had only the slightest idea where I was going, but I know the N1 ended it's route and I would have to find the N10. My biggest fear would be that we would shoot right past my stop. There's no real indication, so if you are completely uninitiated, you're SOL. You see, when you're riding the bus, you're either in the know, or you don't get where you're going. The bus won't stop at each stop, and there's no real indication of the route on the bus itself. Every time we'd wizz past another bus stop, I'd strain to read to sign. This guy seemed to be in a hurry. The sign post at the bus stop actually had a (not to scale, jsyk) route map. I should have snapped off a picture of it before the bus got there.

That's something else I've noticed about traveling. These people make a lot of assumptions. Assumptions that you have the slightest idea how any of this works. Assumptions that you know exactly where this train is going, and are familiar with every stop in between... I suppose we probably do the same in America, but I've always been on the other side of the assumptions until now. :)

So I managed to find the next bus, which was about a 5 minute walk, but this one had a different system. You have to buy a ticket at a little kiosk before you can board. Of course, the kiosk was broken... Swallowed half a euro before I realized I wasn't getting anything out of it. The bus came, and tried to get on. The guy told me I needed a ticket, I told him the machine was broken. He gave me a sour look, and waved me past. Phew...

You see, I can understand the British accent for the most part. But when you're dealing with an angry, tired Brit at 3:30 am, you might as well just throw it all away. It really felt like I was speaking a different language.

We finally made our way to the train station. I knew, according to the website, that it should take 10 minutes to get there, so I kept an eye out on my watch. Also, I figured it would be a very popular stop. Right on both. My reasoning skills were remarkable for being 4 am in the morning...

It was a small hike to the train station, and there was already a fairly decent queue waiting to check in. Apparently they don't let people in until about 20 minutes before the train leaves, so I queued. The English, they know how to queue. No one else here seems to, however. That's another story, tho.

So I get up to the check in desk, and doh, I don't have my ticket. Word of advise, GET YOUR BOARDING PASS FIRST. So I ran over to the e-ticket kiosk, but no love. My credit card doesn't seem to work too well over here. So I ran to the desk, where I queued, again. I kept a frantic eye on my watch as I slowly progressed to the nice girl behind the desk. Finally, I get to her. She finds my reservation, but... problem with the credit card. Sigh... Another word of advice, WRITE DOWN YOUR BOARDING CONFIRMATION NUMBER. I could have used that at the kiosk and saved 20 minutes. She tried a different computer, this time with success. Looked at the watch, still got time...

Well, finally, with ticket in hand, I run over to the check in. Guess what... I missed the train. I still had 5 minutes, but they wouldn't let me through. Fortunately, they said I could take the next train, which left in about an hour and a half... Sigh. Fortunately I could go ahead an check in.

So after going through security, showing my passport to the Francs inside of the station, I finally was able to sit down and rest. Final hurdle... After a short wait, I was on the train, and was out cold. It's a shame. I mean, I rode in a tunnel under the English Channel, and I slept through the whole thing. I stayed awake as long as a I could, but the train went so fast you could barely see anything anyways. Ah well. At least I can say I did it, even I don't remember any of it.

Arrived at Paris, and bought a tube ticket. My first real test with the French. Apparently, tho, I didn't buy the right ticket, because it didn't work on the rails that I needed, only on half of them. I had studied, and studied, and studied some more the tube map and city map in Paris before I left. I knew once I got to the city, I wouldn't be able to read anything, so I wanted to learn as many names as I could in case of any contingency. (such as this one)

So, I began the long walk to my hotel. It wasn't far, as I had checked, so I wasn't too concerned. Probably should have gotten a taxi, but I didn't want to deal with it. I'm fairly comfortable walking long distances now, and I figured it proper penance for flubbing the rail ticket.

My hotel wasn't in the nicest area of town, which didn't help my already long day of anxiety. I eventually found it, with a little bit of luck. I knew it was between two rail stations, Anvers and Pigalle, but I couldn't find the road that I knew it was on. With a sudden burst of good fortune, I opened my Mac and discovered that it had auto-saved an email confirmation with directions to the hostel. I was only about 2 minutes away.

The last couple of turns down essentially two alleys made me question my choice of place to stay. All of the hostels were booked in Paris, so I picked this hotel. I finally got settled about 1:30pm, Parisian time. But other than feeling my cold really starting to take hold of me, I had plenty of sleep, and I knew I couldn't waste any time in Paris.