A twenty year adventure and more

Oh man! Well, some days you’re the windshield, some days you are the bug, or you try to figure out your Eurail pass with significant issue.

Turns out that Eurail Passes are not as easy to use as one would believe, and our inexperience lead us to currently be on a plane to Paris, arriving 10 hours later than we were supposed to, and with October 21st having a good laugh at our expense. As it was, we were unable to book train tickets to Paris from London on the app. Some glitch said that while there were seats available, we couldn’t book them online (and Eurail has no customer service phone number – why??!), so as the plan was to go to the station we realized we had to carryon and book when we got there; so off we went!

The day started out fine enough; sunny, warm, a true Fall beauty! We all slept reasonably well, and headed out for a nice English breakfast at a cafe around the corner from our hotel. We then rented bikes (which took some figuring), and biked from Paddington along the Regent’s Canal to St Pancras- fun aside from huge crowds, and a few unexpected detours. This was also the original plan, but ideally with a departure ticket in hand and a train as our destination.

The plan was to stop at Camden Market along the way, which we did, but it was a total zoo! Standing room only, and shoulder to shoulder everywhere you went. We got an eye on some decadent doughnuts, but couldn’t manoeuvre through the crowd to buy them, so onwards we went with some learning under our belts: don’t go to Camden Market on a sunny Sunday!

Next stop was St Pancras International station to get our unbookable tickets.

At the Eurostar desk the lady informed us that we couldn’t book as there were no seats left to Paris on our preferred train. Wait, what? Nor were there any seats on any trains to mainland Europe. Wait, what??! …for two DAYS! Wait, what???!!!!! Oh but actually, there are still seats that you can book. Great! It’ll be £948 (roughly $2500). Oh shit.

Okay, so what happens next?

Well, after much grumbling about the app saying there were seats when there were none, some deep dives into busses and one way car rentals, we finally settled on a 7:45pm discount carrier flight from Gatwick to Orly. It was a substantial extra cost (even on a discount carrier), but the alternative was to forfeight the next two days in Paris entirely. Tourist tickets pre-bought – gone. Vacation rental well past it’s cancellation window – gone. Plus staying two extra days in a City that is currently sitting at an exchange rate of 2.5ish:1? No thanks. Get me the Hell out of here!! It was time to literally jet.

With hours to burn, we decided to walk from St Pancras to Victoria Station, where the train to Gatwick could be found. The walk was long, but lovely, and took us by chance past a number of sights that we would not have otherwise seen, including the Entertainment District with its spectacular historic buildings, and Buckingham Palace.

Also, much to my surprise and wry humour, past a protest over the current situation in Gaza. The irony of course being that my Father, bravely wishing us well on our trip, expressly discussed his fear of us encountering any protests, which as we all know, can go very wrong, very fast.

We had rounded a corner at Trafalgar Square and came upon a mob of bodies. Google Maps told me I had to go through, so we began trying to part the hoard. A short way into the crowd I noticed a theme of flags and signs and banners. Oh crap! We were right in the middle of a protest! Literally 48 hours after I promised my father we would NOT be in a protest while away (we aren’t really protesters at home either, so I thought it would be an easy promise to keep – haha, fate will show you Amy)!

Very quickly we about-faced, and headed back the way we had come, going further South to avoid the crowd. Google Maps rerouted, and we got to Victoria station with very little time to spare to catch our train.

After a few more hijinx, the day has currently slowed down its craziness, and we are at present sitting on the tarmac waiting for liftoff.

Needless to say, we’re quite grateful for the variety of travel options in Europe, our availability to figure this all out at the slip of a web search, and our kids adventurousness and adaptability.

We’re also grateful to have seen parts of London that we would have otherwise skipped; but certainly would have preferred that everything just go according to plan. Small bonuses I suppose.

Next stop, Orly and we’re going to splurge on a cab to Versailles. If we’re lucky, we’ll be in bed by midnight. Tomorrow is a day in Paris… I hope. Let’s see what happens next…