Jour Trois - retour à la maison
Thanks to my room mate it was an early start today. A late night realisation that he had booked a train for the 11th of May rather than March (I always get those two confused) meant Alistair had to hastily book the first Eurostar of the day to have a chance of getting home in time for his mum to cook him a mother's day lunch. I did find it quite funny when he realised his mistake, then less so when the alarm sounded at 06:15.
A poor nights sleep was compounded by the room having about the same temperature as the planet Mercury, which as they told us at school, is so hot a tin kettle would melt on its surface. Opening the window for a bit enabled me to doze for a while but the prevailing high temperature when coupled with the inexplicable lack of a clock in the room meant quality sleep was hard to come by.
Following a hotel breakfast I decided the best course of action was to bid my friends goodbye and enjoy a leisurely walk in the Paris sun to the North Station. This enabled me to break my pledge and actually do a bit of sightseeing, at one point I caught a glimpse of the Sacre-Cour down a side street. I also stopped for a picture outside the famous Moulin Rouge (Red Mill). Older readers may remember the UK version of the Moulin Rouge which was called the Pink Windmill and was featured in a series of documentary programmes hosted by the late Rod Hull.
The Moulin Rouge is located in the Paris equivalent of Soho with an abundance of Sex shops. The most interesting product which I saw was a 10" sculpture of La Tour Eiffel (the Eiffel Tower) with the top observation gallery looking a lot more spherical than I remember it being. The streets in this particular area smell of pi*s.
I also picked up some high quality table wine which was 2.35E per bottle. I will save this for a special occasions, that is to say I will take it as a gift to my hosts if I am ever invited anywhere for dinner. I won't be drinking it myself.
The team responsible for security at the station are the same crew as at the stadium, which is my roundabout way of saying it was a shambles designed for maximum inconvenience. A clear illustration of the dangers of a nationalised railway system. That said in defence of the French their leg of the journey has better WiFi coverage than the UK side.
On arrival at King's Cross I found the next train back to St Neots was not for an hour so I sought out some food from a nearby branch of Five Guys. This would not normally be worth mentioning but there was an amusing incident involving the sacks of potatoes that Five Guys use to decorate their restaurant. Behind me in the queue were two chaps who didn't seem to be quite the ticket. When they had received their food one them put a sack of potatoes (for those unfamiliar they are not small sacks) over his shoulder and legged it. None of the staff seemed bothered by this or made any effort to give chase. The message being if you ever need any potatoes........
A poor nights sleep was compounded by the room having about the same temperature as the planet Mercury, which as they told us at school, is so hot a tin kettle would melt on its surface. Opening the window for a bit enabled me to doze for a while but the prevailing high temperature when coupled with the inexplicable lack of a clock in the room meant quality sleep was hard to come by.
Following a hotel breakfast I decided the best course of action was to bid my friends goodbye and enjoy a leisurely walk in the Paris sun to the North Station. This enabled me to break my pledge and actually do a bit of sightseeing, at one point I caught a glimpse of the Sacre-Cour down a side street. I also stopped for a picture outside the famous Moulin Rouge (Red Mill). Older readers may remember the UK version of the Moulin Rouge which was called the Pink Windmill and was featured in a series of documentary programmes hosted by the late Rod Hull.
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| Not as good as the Rod Hull and Emu show |
The Moulin Rouge is located in the Paris equivalent of Soho with an abundance of Sex shops. The most interesting product which I saw was a 10" sculpture of La Tour Eiffel (the Eiffel Tower) with the top observation gallery looking a lot more spherical than I remember it being. The streets in this particular area smell of pi*s.
I took a few moments out of my stroll to visit a branch of Monoprix (mono-price) and pick up some of my preferred brand of chocolate. In 1984 the Yeats family went on its first holiday abroad, during which we toured the Poulain chocolate factory, since then our loyalty to the brand has been unwavering. The lesson here is if you are reading this and own a chocolate factory then operating tours will pay dividends that last several decades.
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| Poulain (poo lane) |
On arrival at the Station I had to hastily change my plans, I had just refreshed my supplies of hand grenades and artillery shells only to find I was not allowed to take them on the train. As I didn't want to waste them I lobbed a few at passing taxis then proceeded to board.
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| No guns either - spoilsports |
The train was quite late leaving but was a lot less crowded than the outbound trip so I could catch up on a bit of sleep, using the timer on my 'phone to capture the following image:
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| luckily not visibly drooling |
On my return home it looked like my flat had been burgled, then I remembered I left it in a right state on Friday and in fact all was well. A quick nap and next off to the pub quiz.
Next Travelogue Blog will be next time I go somewhere and hopefully do some stuff that is more interesting to read about! For now Au-revoir
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