Early
morning! We woke up at 5:00 and
packed. Then we went to Oval
subway station and took the tube to Kings Cross / St. Pancras international
train station. The subway ride was
thirty minutes and after our gaffe in Brussels we didn't want to flirt with
missing another train. At the stop
after ours two young guys got on the train – one had a broken umbrella with a
wooden handle on one end. He wobbled
onto the train using the 'cane' like an elderly person. Very funny.
We
got to St. Pancras at 6:45. We
grabbed a quick latte and croissant at the train station and then onto bullet
train. It would be our last high
speed train through Europe. A
little bitter sweet as it’s always exciting to travel via train in Europe (sad)
but it also signals the more luxurious part of our vacation (happy). In both Paris and Iceland we're staying
in well-regarded hotels so our adventures with Airbnb (the service to rent out
flats from denizens of the countries we) are done.
As
we were speeding along the French country in the bullet train my attention was drawn to what
looked like an airplane-shaped kite hanging in the sky. As we got closer I realized it wasn’t a
kite – it was a real airplane…a small one-engined Cessna or something. Normally when you see a plane you watch as the plane gradually disappears into the
horizon – but we were going so fast in the train that we gradually passed it. We were going faster than a plane...in a train.
Very cool.
We
got dropped off in the Gare du Nord station and made our way back to the St.
Germain section of Paris which is where our hotel is located. The hotel is nice but the walls are paper thin. The couple next to us is, umm, quite active…ahh…romantically
speaking.
It
reminded me of a quote from my favorite comedy of all time, Dumb and
Dumber, “This is the life. Cold
beer, a hot tub and paper-thin walls.”
:)
After
unpacking our stuff we set off to buy Christmas presents for all our friends
and family. The front desk at the
hotel suggested we go to Galeries Lafayette as we’d, “be able to satisfy all
our shopping desires there.”
We
took a subway out to the galleries and it was basically like an American
mall. Spent five minutes there and
then decided to head for Champs-Élysées where we had seen a bunch of small
vendors selling authentic French goods during our first stay in Paris.
We must have imagined the vendors because there was basically nothing
there for us to buy. Exhausted we
headed back for our hotel room, showered and then headed to Le Petite Prince
for dinner (one of my friends had recommended it).
Most
Parisians don’t eat until late and we got to the restaurant at 7:00.
“We
don’t open until 7:30.” The maitre
d said to us. “Do you have
reservations?”
“No.”
“Hmm. Okay you can sit and wait until 7:30.”
We
sat and waited...hungrily.
Finally we were able to order…gnoshed on spiced shrimp and a rack of
lamb. It was delicious but we were
exhausted and returned to our hotel and passed out.
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