"Crazy"
Trip Start
Dec 16, 2007
1
22
42
Trip End
Feb 24, 2008
London,
United Kingdom
Monday, January 14, 2008
Research on my phone the previous night indicated that we needed to catch the S Bahn from Frankfurter Strasse at 7:09 to have enough time to grab breakfast at the Hbf before departure. We left the hotel a few minutes later than hoped and thus had to move at a very brisk pace to the station, fully laden with heavy bags. On the platform we huffed and puffed, happy that we made it on time but saddened that the train was late, thereby rendering our rushing redundant.
The Thalys trip was the same as the 2 prior, with slow single line working on the Belgian border due to track upgrades. It was an easy connection at Brussels but we almost ran into troubles due to a lack of luggage space on the TGV
Looking Back
. Other passengers in our car were piling their bags up to the roof (literally) in the non-platform doorway because the tiny rack at the doorway was full. Conscious that other platforms may be on either side of the train and thus doorways should be unobstructed Belinda and I had a look and easily found space for our bags in the larger luggage rack just inside the adjoining carriage. It was funny to watch the other passengers transfer the mountain to the opposite doorway upon our arrival at Charles de Gaule airport.Next stop was then Disneyland Resort Paris, on the LGV (Ligne a Grand Vitesse), where we disembarked with our bags. It was decided that we utilise the services of the resort shuttle bus to ensure that we make it to the right hotel (there are 11 on property!) and this took a good 10 minutes to arrive but was hotel-specific, thus travelling to our hotel quickly.
The Sequoia Lodge is a large wooden-clad hotel set in a Californian forest, with a large surrounding gardens. Check in was quick and easy except for the explanations of the parks etc and making of breakfast reservations, which chewed up 15 minutes. When the process was complete we were informed that the room wasn't ready, to leave our bags and return for them when we had a room after 3pm
Spice Girls Stage
. As such we explained to the staff that we were leaving for a concert overnight and that if we didn't have a room we'd need to leave our bags in their care overnight. The staff shared their thoughts on how we were crazy, laughed with us and then very helpfully set about solving the problem of luggage storage closing at 11pm. Eventually they managed to allocate us a room, even though we could hear from their French conversations that this "isn't possible."Time was running away from us so we hurried to our room, via a wrong turn down the opposite wing of the hotel. As we reached the door we thought we were safe but soon found that our key cards would not open the door! After considerable nervous and stressed laughing we tried again and were granted access.
Bags dumped and the toilet used sums up our stay in the room for today as we left very quickly on foot with our overnight bags for the gare (train station) once more. Although we had missed our intended RER (Paris outer urban train) into Paris we did make the next one, some 10 minutes later.
Stepping from the double deck train at Chatelet our connection to another train to Gare du Nord was easy to find, just across the platform
The O2
. Once at Paris Nord we tried to retrieve our Eurostar tickets from the SNCF ticket machines but they only accepted credit cards with chips and thus we were unable to get them with Belinda's antiquated card, which had been used for the purchase. After a little more searching we found Eurostar specific machines that accepted magnetic strip cards so we got our tickets from there and proceeded to check-in to the train.What can I say about the Eurostar? Same as in my past experiences except that Gare du Nord has been improved and that my Orangina was tasty. This time in London we were still staying at a Travelodge but a different one to before, closer to King's Cross and St Pancras Stations. We snagged it for just £29 and found it to be nicer than the other, having been more recently refurbished.
As far as we knew the Spice Girls concert was starting at 6:30pm, with no time printed on the ticket we had nothing to really work with. To be sure we took the Tube to the O2 Arena in North Greenwich, arriving around 6:20pm. As it happened the doors were opening at 6:30, so that is when we entered.
Once seated (in floor seating just beyond the catwalk stage) it wasn't hard to take in the impressive nature of the facility with a continuous screen running around the arena playing ads and showing Tube and ferry information. There was no support act and the concert didn't start until 8:30pm, but once it did things really got going.
Nicely book-ended by 'Spice Up Your Life' the concert took us on a musical journey through our childhoods, with each girl having a solo part of the gig as well. It still seems all a bit unbelievable that after all these years this big kid from Perth has seen those 5 famous girls up close and in the flesh! The only downside of the concert would have to be the never-ending screaming from the audience, making it hard to hear properly sometimes.
Our return to the hotel was weary though we were able to get a seat for part of the journey thanks to the North Greenwich Tube station having a siding platform for special events trains.
