My Europeon Travels! (Part 1)
I will try my very best to relay everything that happened during my trip to Europe to visit Chris, though I'm sure I've forgotten a lot, so I'll probably need some help remembering some of the details. (*ahem* That means you, Chris)
Friday, April 3rd: I drove home after work this day in prep for leaving the following day. Oddly enough, before I left work a car started on fire in the JCPenney parking lot, so that was kinda neat. Can you imagine getting that page over the mall intercom?
Saturday, April 4th: Left in the mid-morning from my house to get to O'Hare at a reasonable time for my flight. We (of course) parked at the wrong terminal (this has happened both times I've had to fly out of O'Hare), so we got out of the ramp, paid the $2 and then re-parked at the right terminal. I checked in my baggage, got my instructions from the desk official and hung out with my parents for a bit before going through security. Nothing special, really.
My first flight was from Chicago to Montreal, then I had about a 50 minute layover in Montreal until I flew out to London. I sat and waited for the first flight, asked about my layover time (is it enough? They said yes), played my DS and listened to some music. Heard some French around me, which was to be expected. It was gorgeous outside, perfect day to fly, really. Sunny, barely any clouds.
Plane came in about 15 minutes later than expected, but we got on alright, and they boarded and left fairly quickly. That means, we only sat on the tarmac for about 30 minutes. I swear, the one main difference between China and the U.S. is the waiting time on the tarmac. In China if you sit longer than 10 minutes on a runway, the old Chinese men start to complain and attack the flight attendants. Needless to say, on none of my flights in China did we sit on tarmac for more than 10 minutes.
Flight came in about 15 minutes later than normal, changing my layover time to about 25 minutes (somehow the flight time changed before I got there, too). I had to go through customs, but I went through an expedited line for connecting flights. None of the attendants at the desks seemed remotely interested in anything I had to ask, or about my frantic questions of where the gate was. One vaguely pointed out past a glass wall, but didn't really look in my direction or confirm anything. I figured I'd find it on my own. And find it I did. Montreal is a really tiny airport, so luckily it wasn't more than a few hundred feet from where customs pushed me out from. Fortunately, they were boarding all passengers by the time I arrived, so I quickly scooted onto the plane. I got a great window seat next to a pretty nice fellow from England/Canada/Australia. He was a Canadian born in England who had lived in Australia for a good period of his life with some family. Figure that one out. He also was going to school on the East Coast of the U.S. getting his doctorate in something. He was very familiar with the Madison area, especially State Street, since one of his projects so far had taken him to this area. So we chatted about that quite a bit, enjoyed the on-flight food, had a nap, then arrived in London.
Sunday, April 5th: Our plane arrived at around 7:45am. Then we had to go through customs. I had few carry-ons, so I quickly made my way to the line, which was long. That's an understatement. I also had my US passport out, which made a lot of people around me stand and stare. No idea why. Most around me had Canadian or middle eastern passports, which seemed odd. Huh, whatever.
Made it to the official and she asked me a few questions about my stay, nothing serious. I answered as truthfully as I could and flashed a smile. She seemed skeptical, but let me pass. Onto the baggage claim!
Our flight, unfortunately, came in at the exact same time as another two flights (one from Abu Dhabi and another from Toronto), so we shared a baggage claim machine with those two flights. After waiting for my one checked bag for about 1/2 hour, I decided it was time to start asking some questions. I asked both attendants nearby who were extremely unhelpful. Both had no idea my flight was even at this machine, even though it was being digitally displayed on the menu. Whatever. So I went over to the Air Canada baggage claim desk and waited for another 20 minutes for the woman in front of me to stop screaming/crying hysterically at the man behind the desk. Then I had my turn.
"Oh, no one told you about your bag?" "No...why?" "Well, it got on the wrong flight. It's in Toronto, but set up for the next flight to London. Should be here by 1pm." Urg. Of course this always happens to me. I think I just have bad luck with luggage when I travel. Anyway, I got all the info sorted out so that my bag would eventually reach me in Paris, which is where Chris and I were taking the EuroStar to. He gave me a $100 allowance for interim purchases and assured my bag would be at the hotel by that evening, especially since flights to Paris were frequent from London. I hoped for the best and went on to meet Chris, who would obviously be somewhat worried about me at this point, since I was supposed to meet him about a half hour ago.
I stepped out from the baggage claim area into the mass of waiting people. I saw the meeting point sign and then looked through the crowds for Chris. There he was! I was so excited I had to hold back tears, really. We hugged for a long time and kissed a few times, then moved away from the masses. We got our stuff together, said more hello's then got our stuff together and went down to the subway to get tickets to the St. Pancras station. Few slight problems with the tickets then we were on our way!
We got out at the St. Pancras station and made our way to the EuroStar office and got our tickets. We barely made the train on time, but we got right through all the lines and such, so it wasn't too much of a problem. We had good seats and were ready for the ride! I gave Chris his necklace I purchased from FringeLore on Etsy.com, and he liked it! I was pretty worried about a necklace as a gift, but I'm happy he liked it. I thought it was pretty steampunk, and therefore pretty much his style, so yay! He gave me earrings he purchased in Wales when he was there with his parents. Since we wouldn't be able to go together, he figured he'd get me something from there. How sweet. :)
I was dirty and disgusting at this time and really just needed some sleep. So I tried my best and watched some scenery and before we knew, we were in Paris! We got out of the station and tried to determine the subway schedule to get to our hotel. Unfortunately the signs weren't very helpful and we couldn't find the road it was on and everything was confusing, so we opted for a taxi instead. On the way we had to stop for a parade of rollerbladers being police escorted down a major thoroughfare, so that was interesting. Something about environmental conservation or something, I'm told. We made it to our hotel shortly, though, and without too expensive a taxi ride. We were staying at the Hotel Marignan, a very small bed and breakfast where we had the only room with a bathroom attached. We had two beds!
The area the hotel was situated in was a pretty nice neighborhood with lots of shopping and food places nearby. We were very close to Notre Dame and many other attractions, so it was perfect for walking nearly everywhere we needed to go. We relaxed for a time, then explored the city for awhile, walking around Notre Dame and some other buildings a few times testing our navigation skills. We chose to eat dinner at a restaurant in the Pletzl, the Jewish district. They offered a few plate options; we chose the 10-helpings one that we would share: you got to choose 10 options from a long menu of items. We had pastrami, cheeses, bread, tomato and fennel salads and couscous, among other items. Not too expensive for our first Paris meal and we were stuffed! We stopped at an amazing bookstore (Shakespeare's) run by an American and another British woman and asked her if she knew where we could find contact solution (I hadn't bought any with the allowance money and had no way to store my contacts overnight). She suggested a pharmacy across the river again (from where we had just came), so we wandered back only to find them closed. We wandered back to our hotel, used some plastic cups and my eyedrops as a makeshift contact case and solution, and went to bed, exhausted. (My luggage never came - when we told the desk staff about the fact that it would be coming, the man laughed and told us we would never see it. The woman explained that people always had a hard time getting their luggage since the desk closed at 10pm and the delivery companies always came after 10 to deliver it. We knew this was probably going to be an ordeal....)
__________
I'll continue the travels tomorrow, when I'll finish up Paris and take us onward to Bristol!
Friday, April 3rd: I drove home after work this day in prep for leaving the following day. Oddly enough, before I left work a car started on fire in the JCPenney parking lot, so that was kinda neat. Can you imagine getting that page over the mall intercom?
Saturday, April 4th: Left in the mid-morning from my house to get to O'Hare at a reasonable time for my flight. We (of course) parked at the wrong terminal (this has happened both times I've had to fly out of O'Hare), so we got out of the ramp, paid the $2 and then re-parked at the right terminal. I checked in my baggage, got my instructions from the desk official and hung out with my parents for a bit before going through security. Nothing special, really.
My first flight was from Chicago to Montreal, then I had about a 50 minute layover in Montreal until I flew out to London. I sat and waited for the first flight, asked about my layover time (is it enough? They said yes), played my DS and listened to some music. Heard some French around me, which was to be expected. It was gorgeous outside, perfect day to fly, really. Sunny, barely any clouds.
Plane came in about 15 minutes later than expected, but we got on alright, and they boarded and left fairly quickly. That means, we only sat on the tarmac for about 30 minutes. I swear, the one main difference between China and the U.S. is the waiting time on the tarmac. In China if you sit longer than 10 minutes on a runway, the old Chinese men start to complain and attack the flight attendants. Needless to say, on none of my flights in China did we sit on tarmac for more than 10 minutes.
Flight came in about 15 minutes later than normal, changing my layover time to about 25 minutes (somehow the flight time changed before I got there, too). I had to go through customs, but I went through an expedited line for connecting flights. None of the attendants at the desks seemed remotely interested in anything I had to ask, or about my frantic questions of where the gate was. One vaguely pointed out past a glass wall, but didn't really look in my direction or confirm anything. I figured I'd find it on my own. And find it I did. Montreal is a really tiny airport, so luckily it wasn't more than a few hundred feet from where customs pushed me out from. Fortunately, they were boarding all passengers by the time I arrived, so I quickly scooted onto the plane. I got a great window seat next to a pretty nice fellow from England/Canada/Australia. He was a Canadian born in England who had lived in Australia for a good period of his life with some family. Figure that one out. He also was going to school on the East Coast of the U.S. getting his doctorate in something. He was very familiar with the Madison area, especially State Street, since one of his projects so far had taken him to this area. So we chatted about that quite a bit, enjoyed the on-flight food, had a nap, then arrived in London.
Sunday, April 5th: Our plane arrived at around 7:45am. Then we had to go through customs. I had few carry-ons, so I quickly made my way to the line, which was long. That's an understatement. I also had my US passport out, which made a lot of people around me stand and stare. No idea why. Most around me had Canadian or middle eastern passports, which seemed odd. Huh, whatever.
Made it to the official and she asked me a few questions about my stay, nothing serious. I answered as truthfully as I could and flashed a smile. She seemed skeptical, but let me pass. Onto the baggage claim!
Our flight, unfortunately, came in at the exact same time as another two flights (one from Abu Dhabi and another from Toronto), so we shared a baggage claim machine with those two flights. After waiting for my one checked bag for about 1/2 hour, I decided it was time to start asking some questions. I asked both attendants nearby who were extremely unhelpful. Both had no idea my flight was even at this machine, even though it was being digitally displayed on the menu. Whatever. So I went over to the Air Canada baggage claim desk and waited for another 20 minutes for the woman in front of me to stop screaming/crying hysterically at the man behind the desk. Then I had my turn.
"Oh, no one told you about your bag?" "No...why?" "Well, it got on the wrong flight. It's in Toronto, but set up for the next flight to London. Should be here by 1pm." Urg. Of course this always happens to me. I think I just have bad luck with luggage when I travel. Anyway, I got all the info sorted out so that my bag would eventually reach me in Paris, which is where Chris and I were taking the EuroStar to. He gave me a $100 allowance for interim purchases and assured my bag would be at the hotel by that evening, especially since flights to Paris were frequent from London. I hoped for the best and went on to meet Chris, who would obviously be somewhat worried about me at this point, since I was supposed to meet him about a half hour ago.
I stepped out from the baggage claim area into the mass of waiting people. I saw the meeting point sign and then looked through the crowds for Chris. There he was! I was so excited I had to hold back tears, really. We hugged for a long time and kissed a few times, then moved away from the masses. We got our stuff together, said more hello's then got our stuff together and went down to the subway to get tickets to the St. Pancras station. Few slight problems with the tickets then we were on our way!
We got out at the St. Pancras station and made our way to the EuroStar office and got our tickets. We barely made the train on time, but we got right through all the lines and such, so it wasn't too much of a problem. We had good seats and were ready for the ride! I gave Chris his necklace I purchased from FringeLore on Etsy.com, and he liked it! I was pretty worried about a necklace as a gift, but I'm happy he liked it. I thought it was pretty steampunk, and therefore pretty much his style, so yay! He gave me earrings he purchased in Wales when he was there with his parents. Since we wouldn't be able to go together, he figured he'd get me something from there. How sweet. :)
I was dirty and disgusting at this time and really just needed some sleep. So I tried my best and watched some scenery and before we knew, we were in Paris! We got out of the station and tried to determine the subway schedule to get to our hotel. Unfortunately the signs weren't very helpful and we couldn't find the road it was on and everything was confusing, so we opted for a taxi instead. On the way we had to stop for a parade of rollerbladers being police escorted down a major thoroughfare, so that was interesting. Something about environmental conservation or something, I'm told. We made it to our hotel shortly, though, and without too expensive a taxi ride. We were staying at the Hotel Marignan, a very small bed and breakfast where we had the only room with a bathroom attached. We had two beds!
The area the hotel was situated in was a pretty nice neighborhood with lots of shopping and food places nearby. We were very close to Notre Dame and many other attractions, so it was perfect for walking nearly everywhere we needed to go. We relaxed for a time, then explored the city for awhile, walking around Notre Dame and some other buildings a few times testing our navigation skills. We chose to eat dinner at a restaurant in the Pletzl, the Jewish district. They offered a few plate options; we chose the 10-helpings one that we would share: you got to choose 10 options from a long menu of items. We had pastrami, cheeses, bread, tomato and fennel salads and couscous, among other items. Not too expensive for our first Paris meal and we were stuffed! We stopped at an amazing bookstore (Shakespeare's) run by an American and another British woman and asked her if she knew where we could find contact solution (I hadn't bought any with the allowance money and had no way to store my contacts overnight). She suggested a pharmacy across the river again (from where we had just came), so we wandered back only to find them closed. We wandered back to our hotel, used some plastic cups and my eyedrops as a makeshift contact case and solution, and went to bed, exhausted. (My luggage never came - when we told the desk staff about the fact that it would be coming, the man laughed and told us we would never see it. The woman explained that people always had a hard time getting their luggage since the desk closed at 10pm and the delivery companies always came after 10 to deliver it. We knew this was probably going to be an ordeal....)
__________
I'll continue the travels tomorrow, when I'll finish up Paris and take us onward to Bristol!