2nd Step-Through the Chunnel to Paris!

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  Paris, Île-de-France, France
Monday, September 22, 2008

Bonjour from Paris!! 

Being the disconnected traveler that I am I had not even heard about the fire in the Chunnel last week!  Which of course, affected my trip through the Chunnel to get from London to Paris on Saturday.  When I found out about it on Friday night (the night before I was supposed to leave in the morning) I was a bit of a wreck worried about it, but it all worked out in the end!  I arrived at the St. Pancres train station early and was the 2nd to LAST person to board the 9:25 departure!!  They are running on a reduced level of service still and the next train wasn't until after 1pm.  The trip was still quick and easy, but with trying to find a cash machine and wanting to talk to the tourist information for a map and getting my Eurail reservation questions answered, I spent about an hour in Gard d'Nord.  Once I finally made it out to my hostel it was quite a relief.  And this St. Christophers is much different, and much nicer than the one I was staying at in London.  It is new and very much like a hotel in a lot of ways.  Nice rooms with curtains for each of the beds!  Privacy, blokes out the light, and maybe a little of the noise!  It is much more quiet as well with the bar not directly below me.  I'm much happier here!  And there are lots of other solo travelers around too!

Paris is really a wonderful city.  Luckily the weather has been coorporating with my travels.  The past two days have been beautiful and sunny, but quite chilly which I wasn't expecting.  I guess I thought it would still be a bit warmer, but the sun helps.  Even London on my last day was just gorgeous!

Lots and lots and LOTS of walking on this trip.  I've probably already lost about 5 lbs.  I walked all over my last day in London going to Buckingham Palace, the travel office(more questions!), Houses of Parliment and Big Ben, then back to the British Museum to actually see the things I missed when I was walking around trying to find Amy on the day I arrived.  The Rosetta Stone was fascinating.  I have to admit that one of the reasons I went back there was to find out what it really was, because I didn't even know exactly!  I'm very glad I saw it; the hieroglyphs next to the Egyptian language, next to the Greek...it was great.  The other reason I went was to see the objects from the Parthenon in Athens.  I was really intrigued to see them in London before going to Greece later in my trip.  I felt a little bit strange though.  There is a debate about whether the items belong in Athens, and I think I'm on the side that says that they should be, back where they belong.  But I also read about the great number of people that come through the British Musuem every year make it worth them staying there so that many people get the chance to see them...hmm...I think I'll wait until Greece to give my final opinion.  I went out on a 'fin' this evening and had some Fish and Chips!  I know, I know...its pretty shocking, but I was in London and I was hungry, and I thought why not!?  It wasn't bad... :-)  Back to veg only now.

Here in Paris there is much to see and even though I have been here before it is still so wonderful to see all of these things again and some things I definitely didn't see before or not in the same way!  Last night I went on an evening tour to Montmarte which was quite nice and a good intro to part of the city.  Today I went to the Louvre.  I'm pretty sure the Monna Lisa is in a bigger room now then when I saw her before.  Her eyes still followed me around the room from her perch on a huge display wall all to herself, but the crowd was even bigger! 

I spent a few hours there and got seperated from the group I went with (we had planned for that to happen), so I walked to the Eiffel Tower, but didn't have time to go up because the walk was so long.  Went back to the Musee d'Orsay instead which is in an old train station, quite a wonderful setting for an art museum!  Then I met Shannan, a girl from outside Brisbane, Australia who was staying at this hostel that I met on the tour the night before.  It was her birthday and she asked me to join her to get dinner and I was happy to.  It was great to have someone to eat with and talk to out and about in France!  I felt more comfortable at the restaurant trying to pretend I knew any French with another person doing the same.  And it was her birthday so I was glad to join her!  Meeting friendly people at hostels isn't too hard afterall and you learn so many different stories about where people are going and why they are all traveling, but I think its great!  Lots of Aussies so far!  That is one travelin' nation.  Looking forward to going there myself. 

Ok...I must get some rest...it is quite late, but I wanted to share my stories!

Oh...I'm sorry there aren't any pictures.  I am not sure when and if I'll be able to put many up.  These hostel computers either cover the USB ports or say not to download.  I have taken a few hundred already, so I'll try to get some highlights to you sometime along the way!

Miss you all and much love from Paris!!

Ali / Althea

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