Postcard: Paris

We thought that the rail strikes would be over, but of course when the time came to go to Alison's house in London, our train to Lille to pick up the Eurostar was cancelled. At the last minute, we were wondering if we were going to make it to not only to enjoy Alison's first Thanksgiving, but her first Thanksgiving as an expat in London, and her first Thanksgiving as a married woman. It promises to be one of those lifetime events, not to mention that when I explained the train situation to Mother, who was coming from the states, she said: "If you don't come..." pregnant pause... "I'll be crushed". So the pressure was on.

Loic managed to get someone on the phone at Eurostar and they said if we could make it to Paris, we would have a seat on a tunnel train to London. With the strike, there were about 3 trains leaving Lyon, all to Paris. The problem was getting on one. Loic had the master plan, we'd get up at 4 and be at the station early enough to catch the first train out.

Because I forgot my gloves, we missed the bus, and by chance a taxi cruised by. We managed somehow to get tickets and on the train within the 5 minutes that remained before the train took off. Upon arrival to Paris, we realized that all public transit there was on strike, so we had to walk from Gare de Lyon to Gare du Nord.

Luckily, we passed by the Marche des Enfants Rouge and had a nice Japanese meal about halfway there. I forgot how much I love walking in Paris. We boarded the train to the new Pancras station. The Eurostar took literally 2 hours on its own dedicated track all the way through, not the 3 or 4 hours it used to take when it switched rail systems and went slow through England. The newly rennovated Pancras station was gorgeous, a picture of Victorian beauty.