Train to Paris - more mishaps and confusion of a new city

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Today we travel from London to Paris by the Eurostar. This train goes over 180 miles per hour and goes under the English Channel. How cool is that!

Last night we packed up everything so we could take it easy this morning.

Kelsey, Megan and Alton got up early so that they could go take a picture at Abbey Road and see the 9 3/4 train (Harry Potter) at the King's Cross train station that is at the same place where we catch our train to Paris.

Me, Jeff, the boys and mom all just hung around and took it slow. Ok, maybe we took it a little too slow because after going through the underground we were almost late to catch our train. Opps.

I thought the train station would be just like the train from Edinburgh to London. Um, no. This train station looks like an airport. There are shops and it is a way more sophisticated check-in process.

As we are scanning our tickets Kelsey comes up to Jeff and tells him that Alton had to go check his golf clubs. He wasn't able to take his golf clubs with him. On the trains you do not check your luggage you just take it with you and find a place at either end of the carriage to store it. It's a fun game of luggage jenga as the stewardesses just watch you. Good times. Anyway, in this case Jeff needed to check his golf clubs.

After about 3 minutes of us trying to figure out if we should leave the clubs or get another train Jeff gives me all his luggage and back pack and starts running. To where we don't know. He didn't know. So now I have mom's luggage, Jeff's luggage and his back pack, my luggage and my back pack. I look like a pack mule! The fun part is all of this has to go through the scanner. I understand that these fellas see crazies like me every day but you would think they could help me get the 50 pound bag of luggage from the floor to the conveyor belt that at this point seems to be above my head. I'm sure there is some policy against touching luggage. The conveyor was actually waist high but it might as well have been 5 miles over my head. I throw Kirby's, mom's, Jeff and mine on the conveyor. I almost rip off Timmy's jacket and then throw whatever back pack is around through the scanner. We make it through all that and I start yelling at everyone to grab a bag.

Next we have to go through customs. What?! I was not prepared for this. I dig out the passports and hand them out. French custom dude starts to get sassy with me and I nod and smile. I am a sweating, disheveled pack mule who is trying to get all this stuff together. Give me a minute, sir! Ugh!

At this point we now need to get to the train.

We follow the signs to our train with Kelsey and Megan in tow. We have absolutely no clue where Jeff and Alton are.

We get a little reprieve on the escalator up and I tell Kirby to just start praying. My little boy shut his eyes and said a silent prayer. God love that kid!

We got to our carriage and played luggage jenga and then find our seats. I am a sweaty mess and I don't get any credit for my hustle and weight lifting abilities because my FitBit died. #firstworldproblems

We are sitting on the train and we still do not know where the boys are. Just shake my head and silently wonder if they will be serving alcohol on this train. I don't know what we are going to do if they do not make the train.....and then, they appear and take their seats. Hallelujah!

The train ride is a smooth one. We did not know we were going through the English tunnel but the steward (Nicholas) told us after we got out. It was actually a very short time we were under the tunnel.

Again on the train they fed us snacks and a meal. The seats were cool because they reclined way more than on the airplane. They really laid back. Before we knew it we were in Paris.

We got off the platform and the boys went on a search for their clubs. After everything was together we took two taxis to the apartment that we rented.

The apartment was a 4 bedroom 2 1/2 bath apartment. I was told it was on the first floor and had a/c.

Ok, lessons in Parisian (or overseas) lingo....they start counting floors at zero. So, our first floor is actually floor 0. The second floor is #1, third floor #2. Also, Parisians do not believe (I am sure it has something to do with the old buildings etc) in a/c so the a/c in our apartment is a fan in every room. Happy day!!!

The girl greets us at the apartment and fortunately she speaks very good English. We have to walk through two doors just to get to the lobby and then we get to the stairs. Thank goodness there is a tiny lift (elevator). It fits about 3 bags of luggage so it takes about 3 or 4 trips for us to get all of our luggage up.

I won't go through everything that is wrong with this apartment but if I had it to do all over again I would not have picked this place. You felt like you couldn't talk or walk too much because the floors were so creaky. The girl informed us that 'French people do not really like noise'. Oh boy, we are screwed!! I'll be surprised if I see this deposit back.

Girl leaves us, we get settled and we decided to try to find the metro and the Eiffel Tower.

We head out of the apartment and we hit the streets. With my handy dandy map I ask people to point to where we are on the map and no one can. Joy! I really should have listened to the French CD closer. If I would have known just a couple of phrases I think that might have changed everything. We will chalk that up to a lesson learned. We ask a couple more and just keep walking.

We finally find the metro (subway) and the gentleman working the counter tells us how to get to where we needed to go. Our Paris Pass included a 2 day metro pass so we were all ready to go.

The metro has great signage so it was very easy to find our train and then switch over. We totally have this subway thing down pat!

We get down to the Eiffel Tower and we found a restaurant to eat at. We get a glass of wine and are finally able to start taking Paris in. The waiter was cool and we were able to buy a bottle of wine and take it out to the Eiffel Tower.

As you walk along the sidewalk to the Tower there are street vendors and tents lining the streets. It's like a fair atmosphere. I liked walking through all the vendors and looking at everything they were selling.

After you pass the vendors you come by a little park and you can see the Eiffel Tower. It is HUGE! At this point it was dark and the Tower was lite up. It was really a pretty sight. We all took pictures, drank our wine and decided to head back to the non air conditioned quiet zone apartment so we could start our first full day in Paris.

We determined tomorrow that we would climb the Eiffel Tower first thing in the morning, ride the Big Bus tour, see Notre Dome, put a lock on a bridge, see the Arc de Triomphe and get a macaroon from Laduree.

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