After one of the most eventful and best weekends of my life, it was time to leave Paris and head home. Jeana and I both set our alarms bright and early to ensure we made it to the train station in plenty of time. As this was our last opportunity to use the Euros we had, we were going to stop and get some bread from a bakery but it was close when we got there sadly.
We ended up getting to the train station about an hour early, so we looked around for a bakery. Our tickets said it was only necessary to allow for a half an hour so we had time to spare. We kept checking the board for our train’s arrival but it didn’t have anything listed. We assumed this was because our departure time was still a while away. Since we had plenty of time to wait we searched for some seats but found none. Instead, we decided to sit down next to a large brick column in the middle of the station where we had a good view of the board.
Time slowly clicked by and we were getting more and more confused as to why our train was not showing up. Mostly we did not know why they wanted us there 30 minutes early when the train hadn’t even showed up and it was 20 minutes before it was supposed to depart.
I had been holding onto our tickets the whole time we were sitting there, which were simply printed on two pieces of paper. How the next few minutes played out can only be credited to the fact that someone up above was watching out for us. While sitting there folding and unfolding the pieces of paper, a man came up to us and asked if we were waiting for the Eurostar. We said yes, our train was set to depart in 15 minutes. At first I was leery of this gentleman because I thought he was thinking we were bums and going to kick us out of the station (my brain was all over the place after the weekend we had).
Instead, he told us we had better run because the Eurostar was located upstairs and we still had customs and security to get through. Jeana and I never went into “we’re on a mission” mode faster. We scrambled up the stairs we had never even seen before with a clear Eurostar signed in front of them. I think we filled out our boarding cards in less than a minute (good thing by now we were used to doing this and had our address memorized) and rushed to get in the baggage line. We knew if we waited in the line we weren’t going to make our train, so while Jeana jumped in the back of the line, I approached these two middle aged men who seemed nice and explained our train was leaving in less than 15 minutes. They were so helpful and said it was no problem we jumped ahead. They said they had been in similar situations and calmed us down convincing us we would make it as long as we got through quickly.
Luckily we ran into no baggage issues. We grabbed our bags and speed walked to the man who took our tickets. When he saw them he told us which way to go and to run. The Eurostar does not wait for anyone. We took his advice and took off. Of course I book us in the family section which was the last coach on the train. The good news was there were clocks all along the platform so we k new the minutes were ticking down. We could have gotten on any coach and walked through all the doors, but it would have taken us half the trip home to go through them all before making it to our coach so we simply booked it.
We made it to our coach, sat down and the train departed. At that point we could finally digest the whole situation. Those were definitely some of the fastest 15 minutes of my life. I really feel there was no more fitting way to end our Paris adventure. It was a weekend I will not soon forget! It’s funny, most people say the French are rude and hate Americans but overall they were extremely helpful and without them we might not have made it home!
We spent the Eurostar ride napping for the most part; having the past few days catch up on us. The adventure didn’t quite end once we got back to London though. As usually on the weekend, half of the tube lines were down so we had to figure out an alternate route. We made it halfway home, only to find out our line was part way shut down. That meant it was time to find a bus. A station worker helped us locate on and we went in search of the bus stop. We were not on our best game as we just really wanted to be back at our flat and were tired of traveling.
We searched everywhere and found at least five wrong bus stops before figuring out where we needed to go. We crossed the street and saw the bus we needed pull up to the stop about 200 yards away. I wanted to be on that bus. I was in no mood to wait fifteen minutes for the next one so I took off in a dead run and desperately tried to flag it down. I was positive it was going to leave without us but I think the bus driver saw the desperation and waited for us.
The bus took us most of the way home. When we got off we had a bit less than a mile to get home. I welcomed the walk knowing we were now so close to home and wouldn’t run into any more bumps along the way :) It probably comes as no surprise that after our crazy day we simply spent the rest of the day unwinding, sharing our adventure, and hearing about everyone else’s weekend!
No comments:
Post a Comment