We
left Amsterdam early, grabbing a coffee and yogurt from our hotel on the way
out. We were traveling from
Amsterdam to London. This required
a train change in Brussels. The
ride from Amsterdam to Brussels was pretty uneventful, although our train was a
little late (got in at 10:23 instead of 10:08). No biggie. We
walked down into the train station, identified which track our next train was
on (track 2) and got some food.
While
we were walking I turned to Mena, “Our train travel has been flawless so
far. What a great way to travel.”
“Don’t
jinx us!” She said.
How
right she was…After getting baguettes, hot chocolate and Belgian chocolate we
walked back to the main board showing the trains and their corresponding
tracks. Our train was nowhere to
be found. I had a bad feeling in
my gut. We walked to where our
train was supposed to be and ran to
the woman at the desk.
“Hi
we’re supposed to be on the 10:56 Eurostar train to London.”
“You
missed it.”
“But
its only 10:50?”
“Eurostar
trains require you go through security a half hour before the train
departs.” She said. “Look at your ticket.”
Arrgh…whoever
reads all the fine print! We’d
taken two Thalys trains where you only needed to be on the platform two minutes
before the train arrived. Eurostar
was completely different. Who
knew….
The
woman was nice enough and she booked us tickets on the next Eurostar train to London which was leaving two hours
later. Normally a two hour delay
isn’t a big deal, but it was unfortunate in this situation for two
reasons. Number one we were only
in London for one and a half days and number two we were supposed to meet with
the people we were renting our flat from at 1:00 and now we wouldn’t even be
getting into Paris until 3:00. I
was able to get on Wifi at the Brussels train station to email the people to
let them know we’d be late…but we didn’t get a response so we had to get on the
train without knowing whether they’d be there to meet us at the flat and hand
over the keys.
Airbnb
(the service we’re using to short-term rent flats from people) is great because
it allows you to experience what its like to live in these cities (as opposed
to just plopping down into a hotel) and you also meet locals who can give you
great suggestions. The negatives
are the logistics…coordinating key drop off times…figuring out where to
meet…doing all this without a cell phone or WiFi in many instances.
Additionally,
when something goes sideways (as it did when Mena accidentally broke a picture
in London), it makes resolving the issue difficult. The ‘picture’ that we broke in Paris was a poster in a cheap
frame. The whole thing literally
couldn’t have cost more than $10.
When it broke Mena and I cleaned up the glass shards and threw them out
as we didn’t want to leave a mess for the proprietor.
I
received this email yesterday from the person we rented from:
hi Joseph
i'm sorry to tell you
there is a frame was broken and the picture inside was disappeared during you
stay. also because that picture is the
old paris photo post and its my friend's picture. and now i'm talking with
the Airbnb Customer Service to figure out how to fix this problem.
best
lu
Here was my response:
Hi Louis -
We didn't have wifi in
our hotel in Amsterdam so just responding to this now. Unfortunately as we were
walking out of the door to catch our early morning train my girlfriend knocked
the poster off the wall with her backpack. The glass shattered and cut the
poster. We didn't want to leave the shards of glass so we cleaned it up and
threw it out across the street. The poster and glass frame looked very basic to
us and we figured we'd work with you and Airbnb to figure out a reasonable
solution. Obviously we are sorry for the last minute accident and would like to
make sure you are compensated for our mistake. I guess I'll wait to hear from
you or the Airbnb customer support.
Sorry again,
Joe
It
seems as if the person we rented from is trying to make it appear as if the
cheap poster in a simple glass frame was expensive. Oh well…we’ll see what happens.
When
we arrived in London we took the Northern Subway line to our stop Oval. We ate lunch at a crappy Middle Eastern
place and waited in a café for our two hosts to show up. We had to wait till 4:30.
They
showed up at 4:30 and they were both very nice people and it was a relief to
deal with nice people after such a messy day. The flat is…how can I say it…crappy. At least from the outside it is. It’s an industrially zoned building
with a hallway imbued with all sorts of weird stains. The flat itself is decent enough – small and humble, but all
in all okay.
After
we got settled we followed our host’s advice and took the subway to the South
Bank of London. We walked along
the Thames River and saw a German street festival, the London Tower, the London
Tower Bridge and a slew of other buildings (that I don’t know the name of) all
lit up beautifully in the night sky.
We
came home at night and went to a local pub near our flat called Fentiman
Arms. We ate the obligatory fish
and chips and I drank some beer and we had a wonderful time.
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