Day 1: London to Paris

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As far as my actual route, here is what my past 26 hrs have looked like:

1/9-16:30 (CA time): left SFO on my flight to London Heathrow. Really bittersweet. Sad to be leaving the people I love back in the states for a while, but excited for the adventures ahead.

1/10-11:00 (London time): With a 10 hour flight, a short delay, and the time change, I lost about half a day, but its OK, I'll get it back. The flight was pretty standard- I sat next to a nice family from London. Everytime thhey spoke I felt like I was in a Geico commercial. This was the first time I flew Virgin Atlantic, and it was nicer than I was anticipating, so that was nice, but I still wasn't able to sleep like I was hoping. After landing anf going through immigration (Yay for my stamps in my passport!) and customs, I got my baggage, and was directed by a very nice man to the St. Pancras train terminal in downtown London via the Underground (which is London's mode of public transportation- similiar to the BART in the Bay Area). I was on the Underground for about an hour, arrived to St. Pancras at about 13:30.

14:00- I bought my (overpriced) train ticket to London, and was on the train for a little less than 3 hours, most of which I slept- finally! I woke up and was in Paris at about 17:00! After leaving the train terminal, I knew I had to get to a different terminal across the city in order to catch trains going to Italy. I had directions for how to use the city busses to get there, which would have only costed 2 euros. But, I could not find the right bus stop, was tired, had way too much heavy luggage, and it was getting late and dark, so I caved and got a taxi. Much more expensive, but at this point in my travels, and with little sleep, convenience definitely won over cheap.

18:00- The very nice taxi man looked up the train schedules for me, and confimred there were no more trains to Italy tonight, as I suspected. So instead he helped me find a hotel within walking distance to the train station, and at a somewhat reasonable price. Once I checked in I was exhausted and asleep moments after I laid down. And now, because I fell asleep so early, here I am at 3 am- wide awake. YAY for jet lag and time changes! I guess it is good though because it is giving me a chance to update all of you. I will be catching my final train to Italy in about 4 hours, and plan to walk around Paris for a bit this morning as soon as it gets lighter so I can to take some photos before I leave.

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