Busy day, with mixed reviews. We were sorry to leave Paris. The weather was a bit uncertain in Paris, but each day the weather became sunny and warm. We walked everywhere. And everywhere we went it was beautiful. Everyone was in a holiday mood and we met with delightful Parisians who were courteous and did their best to help us in any way they could.
Sadly we left our hotel a 9 a.m. after a lovely breakfast. The cab took us to a very large train station: Rue du Nord, where we picked up the Eurostar. Unhappily I had left our camera in the cab, which our driver said he would return to our Hotel. I think it really helped that Bruce gave a huge tip to the driver. So, several days from now we should be getting new photos taken.
The Eurostar trip was without incident. We had spacious comfortable seats and were able to take all of our luggage onboard. Surprisingly they served a tasty brunch with wine and coffee. We had a nice conversation with a young German girl who was interning in marketing. Her grandmoher had fought in the resistance and she mentioned that the French were very prejudiced against the Germans, lumping them all in one category. She was taking a business trip to London and appeared quite excited about it. She had difficulty in making her connections because her train in Germany had been cancelled. The next train was so crowded, she had to sit on the floor the whole way to the Rue du Gard. There was nice scenery throughout the French counryside, but nothing spectacular. The arrival station, Pancras Station in London was the same as Harry Potter used when he went to school, very impressive, but I wasn’t quite sure how they set it up for the movies.
We walked to the hotel: A busy street in the business district full of men and women in black or charcoal suits...very uniform, bustling and intense. The sky was grey and the day cool. The buildings around us were modern and made of glass. Bruce expressed his disappointment and desire to have stayed in Paris. Our hotel is lovely, but not the wonderful intimate hotel we had in France. We had to wait to check in, wait 2 hours for our room and the front desk was bustling, but not too friendly.
The room is quite nice, though a bit small. Everything has an extra price except breakfast. They want 18.00 Pounds for a day of internet and 53 British Pounds for 25 hours of premium tv. We’ll go to the wifi cafe to get our internet.
After me having a long nap, we left the hotel after buying an umbrella. We had to walk a bit, but found a very satisfactory restaurant with friendly waiters who found us a quiet seat. ( Most of the restaurants and pubs were packed with locals, no tables to be found. We were a little suspicious of those restaurants which had few or no patrons.)
We ordered salmon and braised beef shanks. The food was delicious and not too expensive. During the meal we spoke to the 2 women sitting next to us, asking for advice and directions. They were delightful: one is a tribunal who helps decide medical wrong-doing and parent-child conflict cases; the other is a counselor at a college. The latter spoke with me and we talked shop. Bruce had a good time speaking with the other woman, who spoke of racism in the UK as there are only 3% Blacks in the UK population. The two women have been friends for over 30 years and were willing to share their brief time together with us. So sad that life has to have such brief meetings.
They oriented us towards our hotel and we said goodbye and swiftly walked back to our hotel glad for a better orientation to the new town. Tomorrow we get our metro tickets and learn to navigate this more complicated city.
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