Monday 15th - Friday 26th March
Astute readers of this blog will realise that this entry is for two weeks. There are two main reasons for this; 1) Not a lot really happened in the first week (what did will be explained in this entry!), and b) I'm too lazy to write two separate blog entries in one afternoon, so thought I'd include the few things that I did in the first thing with the week in Jena! Those of you with nothing better to do than read this (Hi Dad!), will also realise that, as usual, this entry is late! I could come up with some excuse about being eaten by a hungry lion rampaging through the streets of Chippenham, and having had to wait to pass through its digestive tracts before I could get on the laptop, but you might find it lacking in plausability, so I will therefore just tell the truth, I forgot about it!
So, without any further ado, let's look at what happened in the first week of this double-barrelled entry! It is, in fact, so long ago that I'm writing this with my diary beside me to try and remind me what I did! It would appear that I taught some lessons on topics as varied as: Classroom Phrases, Weather Words, Holiday Words, Corrupt MPs and their slightly dubious expenses claims, and using question words as connectives. And I did my washing and tidied my room in preparation for my trip to Jena! Saturday was spent packing, being generally lazy, accompanied with a bit more cleaning! So, that was the first week of this double barrelled entry, this one wasn't very long, (continuing the shotgun metaphor), consider it a warning shot for what is about to come!
Then we come to Sunday, which is the day of my departure from Saarbruecken. My train doesn't leave until 14.30, but being me I'm up ridiculously early, so spend the morning in bed, lolling around, and double checking I've got everything, and then double checking the double checking! The majority of the trip was made by ICE, which is just as well really, as Jena is almost as far away from Saarbruecken as it's possible to go in Germany! Now, for those of you who don't know ICE is the very Germanically named, Inter-City Express; they're sleak, white with a red stripe down them, pretty comfy and can reach speads of up to 300 km/h. They are the pride of Deutsche Bahn, and I'm sure the only reason they run them to Paris is to show the sill people at SNCF how silly their rectangular TGVs look! But, as Ronnie Corbett was famed for doing during his monologues, I appear to have digressed slightly! I got on the ICE in Saarbruecken to Frankfurt am Main Hauptbahnhof. This journey took about 90 minutes - although we did experience delays of about quarter of an hour because of engineering works. I'd like Network Rail to note that the trains ran DESPITE the engineering works, and experienced only MINOR delays, no rail replacement was required, no-one really minded, after all it was a Sunday, no-one goes to a meeting, or work on Sunday in Germany! Anyway, in Frankfurt, I got on another ICE, this time to Weimar (more about this historical city later!).This trip took about 2.5 hours, and I'd be lying if I said I was pleased to get off, if only for the opportunity to stretch my legs properly! Before I go further than Weimar, I'd like to refer back to my description of the ICE, where I said it can reach speeds of 300 km/h. Neither of mine got anywhere near this speed - the second ICE never got above 160 km/h, which, as those who are good at maths will notice, is only 100 mph. Now I'm not one to complain (stop that sniggering) but the train I catch from Chippenham to Bath normally manages about 125 on the way, and they date from the 1970s. Needless to say I felt a little bit disappointed that DB hadn't built high-speed lines to where I wanted to go (how damned inconsiderate). Anyway, back to Weimar Hauptbahnhof! I got on a Regional Express, semi-fast stopping service, to Jena (only 2 stations away) and was picked up by Christin, my former German Assistant, at the train station. As it happens, that despite engineering works on most parts of my journey, I still reached my final destination on time, punctually, as is to be expected from Deutsche Bahn.
So, Monday morning comes around, not too early, thankfully, and I'm able to fully appreciate where I'm staying in Jena. When you look at the window of her flat, which is on the 7th floor, you see equally tall tower blocks of flats, all built in the same style - a project of the former GDR Government; that said, they do the job they were intended for, and unlike the Palast der Republik (now, thankfully, demolished) in Berlin, they're not riddled with asbestos or any other such toxin! After a leisurely breakfast, I left Christin to write some of her uni work and agreed to meet her on the train to Weimar around lunchtime. I spent the morning wandering around the city of Jena itself. Jena is a city, which has been built up around the university, which was in fact the main reason there's a city there at all! walking through the city it is possible to see the difference between the old town and the new town. Later in the week I did a walking tour of Jena, so I'll talk more about it then!
After a stroll around Jena, I made my way to the train station, and caught the train to Weimar, where I would meet Christin. The train was made up of three separate DMUs without corridors between them, so rather than try to guess which one she would have got on, it seemed to make mroe sense to just meet at the final station! We thought it would be nice to do a walking tour of Weimar, as this way you can be have some of the interesting buildings explained to you, as well as the history of the city itself. Weimar is an important city for people with all sorts of interests. Its most cultural claims to fame are that both Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller lived in Weimar for a substantial part of their lives. For those of you who haven't heard of Goethe or Schiller - they are possibly the most famous literary masters from the whole of Germany, so, quite rightly, Weimar is proud to celebrate them! They also have a plaque for J.S. Bach who spent a short time in Weimar. Bringing it more up to date - thinking primarily about the immediate post World War One time, Weimar was chosen as the seat of the new Government. Why Weimar instead of Berlin? Bascially the people from Weimar weren't as troublesome and prone to protesting and rioting as their Berlin counterparts. The Theatre was chosen as the new Parliament building, and so began the foundations of democracy in Germany. Out of this new political world, came the Bauhaus movement, which was, in it's day, revolutionary. Bauhaus influenced not only architechture, but interior design, and furniture amongst other othings. Bauhaus was banned and the Bauhaus Insitute in Weimar was closed down upon Hitler's accession to power, as it was seen to be not German enough! Hitler was also keen on spending time in Weimar, despite its links to the detested Weimar Republic! So, after a very pleasant afternoon in Weimar, we headed back to Christin's flat in Jena!
So, Tuesday was the trip to Leipzig. The good thing about Jena is that it was pretty central for all the places we wanted to visit (perhaps that's why we went there!). Leipzig was about an hour's drive from Jena. Now I should say I have been to Leipzig before, but only to the train station and an italian restaurant to have some dinner, so I may have missed some of it! We started off by visiting the Panometer in Leipzig. I ought to explain the concept of a Panometer - it's basically a decomissioned Gas Store which has an exhibition inside it, but more impressively a circular 30ft high photographic quality artwork of a certain theme. The one in Leipzig is of the Rainforest, and the lighting there was done to reflect different times of day and weather conditions, and there were sound effects too; it wouldn't be too much of an exaggeration to say that if you shut your eyes you really could imagine that you were in the Amazon. You may not have really understood quite what it was by my explanation, so here's the website (unfortunately the German one only as English one doesn't seem to work at the moment!) The website does have a slideshow of some pictures of the one we visited. Click Me After spending a good two hours walking round there, we headed into Leipzig and undertook another Walking Tour. The guide was very enthusiastic about Leipzig, and full of interesting pieces of information, and stories about Leipzig. Leipzig started as a crossroads of the fur trade, and grew out of the fur industry. The station in Leipzig used to be the biggest, in terms of numbers of platforms, in the whole of Germany (now, following renovation of Leipzig - losing them two platforms, Frankfurt am Main now holds this record).
Following a nice afternoon in Leipzig we headed over to Altenburg where Christin had her dance training in advance of her competition at the weekend. After that, we went on to her parents' house in Goesnitz, where we would spend the night.
On Wednesday, Christin's Dad, Dieter, took me for a walk around Goesnitz, which is a relatively small town (about the size of Corsham for those of you from my neck of the woods). It also has the longest station platform in Germany, and is a changing point for several different trains. The afternoon saw our return to Jena, where Christin had Private Tuition in the afternoon. While she did some more of her uni essay, I did the walking tour of Jena, which told me more about the history of Jena. Jena developped out of the foundation of the university, the city was quite badly destroyed by the allied bombing during World War Two. The city was generally rebuilt in the post war, GDR era including a shiny glass tower in the middle of they city built in the 1970s, which complements the less aesthetically pleasing tower blocks built on the outskirts. After the tour, I went to Christin's Private Tuition where I helped a bit. In the evening, after having something to eat, we went back to Christin's Parents' in preparation for our trip to Dresden on the following day!
So, as I said previously (one sentence previously in fact!), Wednesday saw our trip to Dresden. Christin's Dad accompanied us on this trip. We did a double decker bus trip of the city; for two main reasons, primarily because it saved us having to drive around it in a car, and it told us more about the places in Dresden than we would have been able to find out from just driving around. Following the 90 minutes we spent on the bus, we then went on a walking tour which lasted about another 90 minutes. The walking tour took us around the Zwinger, the Opera House, and the Parade of Saxon emperors. Following the guided tours, Christin's Dad and I went for a walk by the river, and looked at the Frauenkirche, which was severely bombed out by the allies in the Valentine's Day raid of 1945. It was left as rubble by the GDR as a monument to comemorate the people killed in the bombing raid. There was another reason for this; the Government didn't have enough money to replace it. Following the fall of the East German Government it was decided that it would be rebuilt. It was rebuilt using a lot of the rubble from the original cathedral. They used a complicated computer programme to work out where the blocks came from on the original Cathedral, and replaced them in their original places. You can see this in my pictures, for which I'll post the link later! After a very nice day in Dresden, we went back to Christin's Parents' and I made sure I'd packed everything I needed for the flight back to the UK on the following day.
So Friday arrived, and was my last day in the Federal Republic before the Easter holidays. I was to fly back from Altenburg with Ryanair. I will comment on Ryanair later, but first let me describe Altenburg airport. To put it into context, Saarbruecken has 4 gates; A-D, Altenburg has 1, not called A, or 1; instead simply called The Gate (except in German, obviously!). The taxiway to the runway seemed to be poorly laid concrete slabs, slightly uneven, and in need of a little bit more cement in places! This stems from the days when Altenburg was a Soviet Airbase, which was closed off to the population from the area. Now back to Ryanair! Now I'd heard horror stories about Ryanair, mainly from the press, and watching Rhod Gilbert too much! That said, they met all three of the compulsory conditions which I require from an airline; 1) They took off [on time], 2) the plane stayed in the air, 3) the plane landed [in the right place], and what's more my luggage arrived in Stansted at the same time as me! So, I can't really fault them.
From Stansted, I caught an Easybus, which is an orange minibus, which cost me more to pay by credit card, than for the ticket itself! The journey took me to Baker Street, from where I went to Paddington and left my luggage in the left luggage office. From there I went to the British Museum, because it was open until late, and free, and then about half seven I returned to Paddington, collected my case, got some food, and then boarded the First Great Western train to Chippenham, and by 22.00 I was back in Chippenham, and 15 minutes later I was at home!
So, as I promised, here's the link for my photos from this trip. Click me. There will be another blog entry next week about my relatively painless journey back to Saarbruecken, and my first week back at school! See you soon!
Showing posts with label London. Show all posts
Showing posts with label London. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Chapter 17 - Back to Germany
The return train journey to Saarbruecken
Saturday 2nd January 2010
Well, as regular readers of this blog will know, I'm not very good at updating punctually! So here, albeit a week late, is the story of my journey back to Saarbruecken. The good news is that it wasn't quite as eventful as the homeward journey. So, sit back, relax and enjoy the ride...
First off, I should make a mention to my sister whose birthday it was on the 2nd - annoying though it was to travel back on this date - it was better than travelling on Sunday where certain places' public transport is somewhat lacking on the day of rest! My train was due to leave Chippenham at 07.55, but because, as I found out later, the driver couldn't release the brakes at Bristol, the train left Chippenham at 08.12. This wasn't a problem in itself because I had 2 and a half hours in London to get from Paddington to St. Pancras International. The journey to London was relatively painless - we stayed about 15 minutes late, which was about as much as I'd hoped for!
Now it's worth pointing out that Transport for London (TfL) had decided that this weekend would be a good weekend to undertake some engineering works on some of the lines - i.e. the Circle Line and Hammersmith & City Lines in particular; which as Londoners will know are the two direct lines between the termini I wanted. Thus, I had to catch the Bakerloo line to Oxford Circus, and come back up to Kings Cross/St. Pancras on the Victoria line. This part of the journey was actually problem-free; although I did feel like I'd walked most of the way by the time I got out of the Tube station at St. Pancras.
Seeing as I like to turn up at somewhere in plenty of time; I made my first port of call the check-in hall for Eurostar; which was substantially easier to find than its Parisian counterpart. The first thing that struck me was how busy it was! There were hundreds of people in the check-in hall, and no real sense of what one was supposed to do. It turned out that check-in opened an hour before the train left, so seeing as I was there 90 minutes before my train left, I hid at the back of the hall and read my book, and then joined a queue exactly an hour before my train left - i.e. 10.32. The check-in seemed slightly chaotic, to be honest; everyone was queued up together irrespective of what train they were catching, and the people on earlier trains were then being lassooed out of the queue by Eurostar staff and ushered to the front. I did eventually get to the head of the queue where once you have put your ticket in the machine, you find you find yourself immediately thrown into the security zone. The first thing you have to do is take off coats, fleeces, scarves, gloves, hats. All these, along with your luggage, go through the X-Ray machine, while you walk through the Metal Detector. Now, despite wearing almost the same clothes back to Germany as I wore home, I didn't buzz as I went through! The next stage is the PAF (see last entry for explanation) who had a cursory glance at my passport. There were also UKBA officers loitering with intent around the terminal area. Once I'd got through all those I found a seat and waited for embarkation to commence at 11.12 (20 minutes before scheduled departure time) - however, embarkation was to be delayed because the train had arrived late. We were only delayed by about 12 minutes in actuality and left St. Pancras at 11.45.
The journey to Paris was OK, I read my book, ate my lunch, looked out the window, changed my watch and phone times. Some 2 hours 45 minutes later we pulled into Paris Gare du Nord. Prior to coming back, we'd arranged that we would meet up in Paris. Esther was on an earlier Eurostar than me, so met me at Gare du Nord, from where we walked to Paris Est and used the left luggage facility there, so as not to have to carry our suitcases all around Paris. Then we purchased a carnet of tickets for the public transport network in Paris. From Paris Est, we took the Metro to Louvre, which I'd only seen in Tricolore (for the young'uns reading this - it was the book that we used before Metro!) beforehand. From there we walked in a random direction across the Seine, from where we walked through the cultural heart of Paris - Saint Germain des Pres. Then we walked over to Notre Dame, and looked at it; we didn't go in because the queue was quite long. We then ambled past the Hotel de Ville (where the Mayor of Paris works - somewhat more architecturally pleasing than the Ghurkin in my opinion), before catching the Metro back to Paris Est where we waited and met up with Claire and Harriet who had flown into Charles de Gaulle.
After we'd met up, and Esther and I had retrieved our luggage, we headed off to board the train to Saarbruecken (or Sarrebruck as the French call it). The train left promptly but then because of the snow, the line through Lorraine (or Lothringen as the Germans call it) had had its speed reduced meaning that we would be about 15 minutes late into Saarbruecken. This would make the connection to the bus very tight, and indeed when we arrived into the Hauptbahnhof we had 3 or 4 minutes to get to the bus stop. Luckily the bus hadn't arrived when we got there, and we managed to get on the faithful 121 home. I eventually got in about 22.00 before realising that I also needed to make my bed and unpack quite a lot of stuff before I could go to bed!
So, in the next installment I'll be talking about the first week back in Germany...
Saturday 2nd January 2010
Well, as regular readers of this blog will know, I'm not very good at updating punctually! So here, albeit a week late, is the story of my journey back to Saarbruecken. The good news is that it wasn't quite as eventful as the homeward journey. So, sit back, relax and enjoy the ride...
First off, I should make a mention to my sister whose birthday it was on the 2nd - annoying though it was to travel back on this date - it was better than travelling on Sunday where certain places' public transport is somewhat lacking on the day of rest! My train was due to leave Chippenham at 07.55, but because, as I found out later, the driver couldn't release the brakes at Bristol, the train left Chippenham at 08.12. This wasn't a problem in itself because I had 2 and a half hours in London to get from Paddington to St. Pancras International. The journey to London was relatively painless - we stayed about 15 minutes late, which was about as much as I'd hoped for!
Now it's worth pointing out that Transport for London (TfL) had decided that this weekend would be a good weekend to undertake some engineering works on some of the lines - i.e. the Circle Line and Hammersmith & City Lines in particular; which as Londoners will know are the two direct lines between the termini I wanted. Thus, I had to catch the Bakerloo line to Oxford Circus, and come back up to Kings Cross/St. Pancras on the Victoria line. This part of the journey was actually problem-free; although I did feel like I'd walked most of the way by the time I got out of the Tube station at St. Pancras.
Seeing as I like to turn up at somewhere in plenty of time; I made my first port of call the check-in hall for Eurostar; which was substantially easier to find than its Parisian counterpart. The first thing that struck me was how busy it was! There were hundreds of people in the check-in hall, and no real sense of what one was supposed to do. It turned out that check-in opened an hour before the train left, so seeing as I was there 90 minutes before my train left, I hid at the back of the hall and read my book, and then joined a queue exactly an hour before my train left - i.e. 10.32. The check-in seemed slightly chaotic, to be honest; everyone was queued up together irrespective of what train they were catching, and the people on earlier trains were then being lassooed out of the queue by Eurostar staff and ushered to the front. I did eventually get to the head of the queue where once you have put your ticket in the machine, you find you find yourself immediately thrown into the security zone. The first thing you have to do is take off coats, fleeces, scarves, gloves, hats. All these, along with your luggage, go through the X-Ray machine, while you walk through the Metal Detector. Now, despite wearing almost the same clothes back to Germany as I wore home, I didn't buzz as I went through! The next stage is the PAF (see last entry for explanation) who had a cursory glance at my passport. There were also UKBA officers loitering with intent around the terminal area. Once I'd got through all those I found a seat and waited for embarkation to commence at 11.12 (20 minutes before scheduled departure time) - however, embarkation was to be delayed because the train had arrived late. We were only delayed by about 12 minutes in actuality and left St. Pancras at 11.45.
The journey to Paris was OK, I read my book, ate my lunch, looked out the window, changed my watch and phone times. Some 2 hours 45 minutes later we pulled into Paris Gare du Nord. Prior to coming back, we'd arranged that we would meet up in Paris. Esther was on an earlier Eurostar than me, so met me at Gare du Nord, from where we walked to Paris Est and used the left luggage facility there, so as not to have to carry our suitcases all around Paris. Then we purchased a carnet of tickets for the public transport network in Paris. From Paris Est, we took the Metro to Louvre, which I'd only seen in Tricolore (for the young'uns reading this - it was the book that we used before Metro!) beforehand. From there we walked in a random direction across the Seine, from where we walked through the cultural heart of Paris - Saint Germain des Pres. Then we walked over to Notre Dame, and looked at it; we didn't go in because the queue was quite long. We then ambled past the Hotel de Ville (where the Mayor of Paris works - somewhat more architecturally pleasing than the Ghurkin in my opinion), before catching the Metro back to Paris Est where we waited and met up with Claire and Harriet who had flown into Charles de Gaulle.
After we'd met up, and Esther and I had retrieved our luggage, we headed off to board the train to Saarbruecken (or Sarrebruck as the French call it). The train left promptly but then because of the snow, the line through Lorraine (or Lothringen as the Germans call it) had had its speed reduced meaning that we would be about 15 minutes late into Saarbruecken. This would make the connection to the bus very tight, and indeed when we arrived into the Hauptbahnhof we had 3 or 4 minutes to get to the bus stop. Luckily the bus hadn't arrived when we got there, and we managed to get on the faithful 121 home. I eventually got in about 22.00 before realising that I also needed to make my bed and unpack quite a lot of stuff before I could go to bed!
So, in the next installment I'll be talking about the first week back in Germany...
Monday, December 28, 2009
Chapter 16 - Homeward Bound
Coming home on the 18th December
Firstly, may I apologise for the tardiness of this entry - this is due to a number of reasons; Christmas, fatigue, having a poor memory and working long hours filling Morrisons' shelves with alcohol. But it's here now, and I hope that you had a wonderful Christmas, and as we hurtle towards 2010 (already a tenth of the way through a century!), let me wish you a very Happy New Year! So, if you're sitting comfortably, I shall begin...
The journey home was to take about 10 hours from start to finish, about 5 of which would be spent on trains, and the rest loitering without intent. Was it a simple and straightforward journey....err...don't be silly - when does anything go as smoothly as I plan it?
I had planned on getting up at 5.30 in the morning, but for some reason I decided at 5 o'clock that 5 would be fine! My train didn't leave until 8, but I had to catch the bus to the train station at 7, so had to leave my house about 6.45. I still had a few odds and sods to get finished in the morning ; packing the last few things, sorting out my bedding, basically making sure the room was completely clean. Having completed all of my pre-departure jobs, and checked I still had my tickets, passport, keys, and suitcase (although I'd have to be rather muppet-like to forget this!), I left the house and walked to the bus stop. The first thing that struck me, as I stepped out of my house for the last time for a couple of weeks, was...how bloody cold it was! It was truly freezing! Whilst waiting for the bus I kept walking around to try and warm up a bit - it didn't really work, but it may have helped minutely! The bus was, as per usual, a few minutes, which was the reason I had caught the one an hour before my train; which would give me 40 minutes at the station instead of ten. Nevertheless, about five minutes later I saw the trusty 121 ambling up the hill, winding its merry way to the Hauptbahnhof (which is a word I've used so many times during this blog, that even non-Germanists will understand what it means!).
The bus arrived at the Hauptbahnhof a mere three minutes late; such is the combination of the skill of the driver, and, more importantly, the fact that only two other people got on all the way to the station. This meant that I had about 35 minutes at the station, which meant I had enough time to go and buy a coffee; somewhat necessary considering the time I got up in the morning. At the station I met up with Claire and Lucy who were both catching the 08.00 ICE from Saarbruecken to Paris, calling at Forbach (which is possibly the least important town in France to be served by a TGV station!). At Paris we were all going back by Eurostar, but we'd managed to book 3 different ones!
The journey to Paris started with a sense of foreboding tardiness...the train was to be about 10 minutes late into Saarbruecken, which wouldn't be a problem as we all had at least 45 minutes in Paris to travel to the Eurostar Terminal. On the train, I exchanged a "bonjour" with a member of the Police Aux Frontières (PAF for short; French Border Police arm of the National Police), as they walked through the train looking for anyone who looks to be both un-French, and un-European! The PAF alight at Forbach and, I presume, wait for the ICE going the other way and do the whole thing again! The journey to Paris started OK, but as we got further into France, the snow thickened, and the snowfall was increasing. Both of these combined meant that our train had to cover substantial parts of the journey at a reduced speed. (I suppose that it's difficult to clear thick snow off of the windscreen at 230km/h, and braking may be slightly impeded by the ice too!)
It was on our way to Paris that I found out that we would overtake Harriet on our journey home. Harriet had left on Thursday, and had planned to fly from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, however the snow had a much more catastrophic effect on planes and airports than on trains. As such, she didn't fly home until the Saturday; so in effect her journey took 3 days. So, whilst snow might look nice and pretty, and you might dream of a White Christmas; please spare a thought for those who are travelling and who may be stranded!
As we approached our scheduled arrival time in Paris an announcement came out over the tannoy explaining that we would be about 30 minutes late arriving into Paris. This was reassuring, because at 09.50 (the scheduled arrival time), we were still in the middle of the countryside...and I've only been to Paris a couple of times, but I remember it wasn't that green! Their prediction did prove to be relatively accurate, and the train did pull itself (for you grammar freaks; note the inappropriate use of a reflexive verb there - and then note the uncaring look on my face!) into Paris Est at about 10.20. This wasn't too much of an issue for me because my Eurostar didn't leave until 12.15. Claire had even more time, so was going to explore the French Capital a bit before she went home; so we sorted her out with maps, and a day ticket for the public transport network (not all of which was on strike surprisingly; given the proximity to Christmas!).
The journey from Paris Est to Paris Gare du Nord was a journey that, according to Google Maps, was 600m long. This meant it was walkable; indeed walking was a damn site more preferable than heaving my case down to the underground metro station, forcing my way onto a train filled with Parisians and then heaving it upstairs again about 2 minutes later. For the sake of 5-10 minutes I walked; with my hand-drawn map - which looks like I was drunk when I did it...which I wasn't!
Arriving at Gare du Nord, I had forgotten something else that is quit prevalent in Paris; beggars, who try and guilt-trip you into donating - by asking first of all - "Do you speak English?". In all honesty, it was easier to reply to them in German than English anyway - their English may have been at an equal standard to mine. Leaving them behind, I strode confidently into Paris Gare du Nord station. In the words of Jeremy Clarkson, "How hard can it be?" - I've been to train stations before, I've crossed national borders before, I've caught trains across international frontiers before, I've even caught the Eurostar before (about 6 years ago and from Waterloo to Lille)...so given that I had accomplished all four of the above criteria I imagined it wouldn't be very hard....I was wrong! My first mistake had been striding too confidently into the station - it turned out, later, I had walked right past the Eurostar ticket office. The queue for which was loooooooong and had only one cashier working it! I wasn't entirely sure this was where I wanted to be, so I waited for a bit, in a stationary position, before digging out the relevant paperwork from my bag, and reading through the whole blurb accompanying the booking reference. The blurb directed me to check-in, where I would find some automatic machines for collecting my ticket. So, I left the queue, not that I'd gained any space, and headed off in search of the check-in. This, I found eventually, after walking aimlessly for a bit, in search of a Eurostar logo. The check-in procedure itself is not too time-consuming. You hand in your ticket to the person at the counter, who then waves you through to more PAF (my second lot today), who had a rather thorough look at my passport, who then wave you onto to the UKBA (or whatever they call themselves these days!), who, after a much briefer passport check, wave you onto the Douanes. Regular readers of this blog will know that I've had a couple of encounters with the Douanes already. I was about to have my third! After passing through the UK Border Agency control, you have to walk through a metal detector and put your bags through an x-ray machine, but you're not allowed to have the following things on your person: mobile phone (I had 2), MP3 Player, Cameras, Keys, Memory Stick, or coins - all of these had to be put in your bag...which, if you're like me, was pretty full already! Nevertheless I complied with these regulations and walked through the metal detector, which buzzed, so I took off my coat (metal poppers) and walked through again - I buzzed again. The Douane at the detector suddenly had an evil glint in her eye - out comes the wand (that genuinely isn't a euphemism!) and then I have it waved over me to try and pinpoint the metal - which narrows it down to my belt (which, I wasn't planning on removing). Still, not entirely satisfied, she decides that I need to be frisked, which she does while I look do my best star impression. After this search reveals nothing, I'm allowed to continue. Why didn't I put up a fuss I know you're thinking to yourself - the answer is very simple - I was in France, she was a French person in authority - you should never rise up against them...they like nothing more than to be more annoying and disruptive than is actually necessary, which they will do if you argue with them.
So, after surviving yet another encounter of the less than pleasant kind on the French frontier, I head to waiting room B, where there are no seats left. This isn't a problem - having lived in Germany for four months, the next thing I do is almost natural now. Seeing there were no seats, and that we were scheduled to embark in about 20 minutes, I went along to the door to the station and waited until it was time! After about 15 minutes an announcement comes over the PA system informing us that embarkation will be delayed by about 15 minutes because of the late arrival of the train. Ah, well, I had about two and a half hours in London to get from St. Pancras to Paddington - I wasn't too concerned. Indeed, after about 15 minutes we were allowed to get on our trains. It's worth boring you with one fact about the Eurostar - the whole train is about 1/4 mile in length - which is fine, unless, like me, you're in coach 3 - which felt like it was pretty much in Lille anyway! Still, having eventually got on the train, and found my seat, I got into my book and waited for departure. We left about 15 minutes late (at least Eurostar are consistent), and were told that we would probably have another 20-25 minutes added onto our journey because of speed restrictions that had been imposed because of the bad weather.
We left Paris in a northerly direction and were soon heading out towards St. Pancras International racing through the gloriously white French countryside. All was well, or so I thought! All of a sudden the train started braking quite sharply - not at an emergency stop level, but still quite sharply; the train had developped a fault, which the driver would attempt to fix. After about 20 minutes of lights flickering and being passed by TGVs in the opposite direction we set off again - with the total delay now running at about 35 minutes. Still, we managed to make it to Lille, then on to Calais, Sangatte and into the Channel Tunnel. Now you will almost certainly have heard about the horrendous problems that Eurostar were experiencing on this Friday in the Channel Tunnel - something to do with ice getting in the air vents or something - which caused the trains to break down in the tunnel; where it's dark and not a huge amount of fun to be stuck for hours. Luckily, I managed to avoid these delays. We made it through the Chunnel (as it's affectionately known among anoraks) in a pretty average 28 minutes, before heading off towards St. Pancras International. We'd been told we'd be in London about 40 minutes, which, whilst eating into my transfer time, left it in a pretty healthy condition. This was until we had to make an unscheduled stop in Ashford International - because they had to pick a member of the train crew up! Quite why they couldn't catch a conventional train to London is beyond me - I don't flag down Morrisons lorries on my way to work if I'm running a bit late...
Anyway, we arrived into St. Pancras International about 50 minutes late in the end - leaving me 1 hour and 40 minutes to travel across London to Paddington Station. Now I've not been to London a huge number of times, and I've used the tube twice before this journey (both on the same day!) - but as in Paris, I thought, I've caught trains before, I've used public transport before - I had the added advantage that whilst I don't quite have the London dialect down to a T I can make myself understood by using my mother tongue (and maybe not too many Rs)! As it happens it was a very easy journey to make - the underground trip was very easy - even with a suitcase. There were very few people on the carriage, and I was only on it for about 10 minutes.
On arrival at Paddington I realised what Esther meant when she talked about the steps....there were lots of them, and no real organised system to go up/down them - perhaps I expected too much! I had some time to kill in Paddington, so I sat down, topped up my UK phone, read a book, and waited until they announced which platform my train would leave from. At about 15.53 they told us the platform, from which the 16.00 was leaving. This train left on time, and was not held up by any snow; and there was some until about Didcot where it just became wet! The train pulled into Chippenham at 17.08 - running a couple of minutes early, where I was met by my parents in the car and whisked away!
As you can tell, a lot happened on this journey, but I was very lucky, and I'm very grateful for that. Whilst I had some minor inconveniences they were nothing compared to those of Harriet and Jack who were stuck in Paris, and the Channel Tunnel respectively for very long periods of time. So, whilst I may seem like I'm complaining - I'm really not! I actually enjoyed it - it was an adventure, and whilst I'll miss being at home, I'm looking froward to the journey back - simply because it's an adventure - and yes, I'm a child at heart!
The next instalment will be done after I get back, hopefully a little more promptly than this one was! As I said at the beginning, have a fantastic 2010, whatever you're doing! Thanks, also, to the people who have left kind words on my blog, and my Dad, who has left sarcastic ones!
See you in 2010!
Firstly, may I apologise for the tardiness of this entry - this is due to a number of reasons; Christmas, fatigue, having a poor memory and working long hours filling Morrisons' shelves with alcohol. But it's here now, and I hope that you had a wonderful Christmas, and as we hurtle towards 2010 (already a tenth of the way through a century!), let me wish you a very Happy New Year! So, if you're sitting comfortably, I shall begin...
The journey home was to take about 10 hours from start to finish, about 5 of which would be spent on trains, and the rest loitering without intent. Was it a simple and straightforward journey....err...don't be silly - when does anything go as smoothly as I plan it?
I had planned on getting up at 5.30 in the morning, but for some reason I decided at 5 o'clock that 5 would be fine! My train didn't leave until 8, but I had to catch the bus to the train station at 7, so had to leave my house about 6.45. I still had a few odds and sods to get finished in the morning ; packing the last few things, sorting out my bedding, basically making sure the room was completely clean. Having completed all of my pre-departure jobs, and checked I still had my tickets, passport, keys, and suitcase (although I'd have to be rather muppet-like to forget this!), I left the house and walked to the bus stop. The first thing that struck me, as I stepped out of my house for the last time for a couple of weeks, was...how bloody cold it was! It was truly freezing! Whilst waiting for the bus I kept walking around to try and warm up a bit - it didn't really work, but it may have helped minutely! The bus was, as per usual, a few minutes, which was the reason I had caught the one an hour before my train; which would give me 40 minutes at the station instead of ten. Nevertheless, about five minutes later I saw the trusty 121 ambling up the hill, winding its merry way to the Hauptbahnhof (which is a word I've used so many times during this blog, that even non-Germanists will understand what it means!).
The bus arrived at the Hauptbahnhof a mere three minutes late; such is the combination of the skill of the driver, and, more importantly, the fact that only two other people got on all the way to the station. This meant that I had about 35 minutes at the station, which meant I had enough time to go and buy a coffee; somewhat necessary considering the time I got up in the morning. At the station I met up with Claire and Lucy who were both catching the 08.00 ICE from Saarbruecken to Paris, calling at Forbach (which is possibly the least important town in France to be served by a TGV station!). At Paris we were all going back by Eurostar, but we'd managed to book 3 different ones!
The journey to Paris started with a sense of foreboding tardiness...the train was to be about 10 minutes late into Saarbruecken, which wouldn't be a problem as we all had at least 45 minutes in Paris to travel to the Eurostar Terminal. On the train, I exchanged a "bonjour" with a member of the Police Aux Frontières (PAF for short; French Border Police arm of the National Police), as they walked through the train looking for anyone who looks to be both un-French, and un-European! The PAF alight at Forbach and, I presume, wait for the ICE going the other way and do the whole thing again! The journey to Paris started OK, but as we got further into France, the snow thickened, and the snowfall was increasing. Both of these combined meant that our train had to cover substantial parts of the journey at a reduced speed. (I suppose that it's difficult to clear thick snow off of the windscreen at 230km/h, and braking may be slightly impeded by the ice too!)
It was on our way to Paris that I found out that we would overtake Harriet on our journey home. Harriet had left on Thursday, and had planned to fly from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, however the snow had a much more catastrophic effect on planes and airports than on trains. As such, she didn't fly home until the Saturday; so in effect her journey took 3 days. So, whilst snow might look nice and pretty, and you might dream of a White Christmas; please spare a thought for those who are travelling and who may be stranded!
As we approached our scheduled arrival time in Paris an announcement came out over the tannoy explaining that we would be about 30 minutes late arriving into Paris. This was reassuring, because at 09.50 (the scheduled arrival time), we were still in the middle of the countryside...and I've only been to Paris a couple of times, but I remember it wasn't that green! Their prediction did prove to be relatively accurate, and the train did pull itself (for you grammar freaks; note the inappropriate use of a reflexive verb there - and then note the uncaring look on my face!) into Paris Est at about 10.20. This wasn't too much of an issue for me because my Eurostar didn't leave until 12.15. Claire had even more time, so was going to explore the French Capital a bit before she went home; so we sorted her out with maps, and a day ticket for the public transport network (not all of which was on strike surprisingly; given the proximity to Christmas!).
The journey from Paris Est to Paris Gare du Nord was a journey that, according to Google Maps, was 600m long. This meant it was walkable; indeed walking was a damn site more preferable than heaving my case down to the underground metro station, forcing my way onto a train filled with Parisians and then heaving it upstairs again about 2 minutes later. For the sake of 5-10 minutes I walked; with my hand-drawn map - which looks like I was drunk when I did it...which I wasn't!
Arriving at Gare du Nord, I had forgotten something else that is quit prevalent in Paris; beggars, who try and guilt-trip you into donating - by asking first of all - "Do you speak English?". In all honesty, it was easier to reply to them in German than English anyway - their English may have been at an equal standard to mine. Leaving them behind, I strode confidently into Paris Gare du Nord station. In the words of Jeremy Clarkson, "How hard can it be?" - I've been to train stations before, I've crossed national borders before, I've caught trains across international frontiers before, I've even caught the Eurostar before (about 6 years ago and from Waterloo to Lille)...so given that I had accomplished all four of the above criteria I imagined it wouldn't be very hard....I was wrong! My first mistake had been striding too confidently into the station - it turned out, later, I had walked right past the Eurostar ticket office. The queue for which was loooooooong and had only one cashier working it! I wasn't entirely sure this was where I wanted to be, so I waited for a bit, in a stationary position, before digging out the relevant paperwork from my bag, and reading through the whole blurb accompanying the booking reference. The blurb directed me to check-in, where I would find some automatic machines for collecting my ticket. So, I left the queue, not that I'd gained any space, and headed off in search of the check-in. This, I found eventually, after walking aimlessly for a bit, in search of a Eurostar logo. The check-in procedure itself is not too time-consuming. You hand in your ticket to the person at the counter, who then waves you through to more PAF (my second lot today), who had a rather thorough look at my passport, who then wave you onto to the UKBA (or whatever they call themselves these days!), who, after a much briefer passport check, wave you onto the Douanes. Regular readers of this blog will know that I've had a couple of encounters with the Douanes already. I was about to have my third! After passing through the UK Border Agency control, you have to walk through a metal detector and put your bags through an x-ray machine, but you're not allowed to have the following things on your person: mobile phone (I had 2), MP3 Player, Cameras, Keys, Memory Stick, or coins - all of these had to be put in your bag...which, if you're like me, was pretty full already! Nevertheless I complied with these regulations and walked through the metal detector, which buzzed, so I took off my coat (metal poppers) and walked through again - I buzzed again. The Douane at the detector suddenly had an evil glint in her eye - out comes the wand (that genuinely isn't a euphemism!) and then I have it waved over me to try and pinpoint the metal - which narrows it down to my belt (which, I wasn't planning on removing). Still, not entirely satisfied, she decides that I need to be frisked, which she does while I look do my best star impression. After this search reveals nothing, I'm allowed to continue. Why didn't I put up a fuss I know you're thinking to yourself - the answer is very simple - I was in France, she was a French person in authority - you should never rise up against them...they like nothing more than to be more annoying and disruptive than is actually necessary, which they will do if you argue with them.
So, after surviving yet another encounter of the less than pleasant kind on the French frontier, I head to waiting room B, where there are no seats left. This isn't a problem - having lived in Germany for four months, the next thing I do is almost natural now. Seeing there were no seats, and that we were scheduled to embark in about 20 minutes, I went along to the door to the station and waited until it was time! After about 15 minutes an announcement comes over the PA system informing us that embarkation will be delayed by about 15 minutes because of the late arrival of the train. Ah, well, I had about two and a half hours in London to get from St. Pancras to Paddington - I wasn't too concerned. Indeed, after about 15 minutes we were allowed to get on our trains. It's worth boring you with one fact about the Eurostar - the whole train is about 1/4 mile in length - which is fine, unless, like me, you're in coach 3 - which felt like it was pretty much in Lille anyway! Still, having eventually got on the train, and found my seat, I got into my book and waited for departure. We left about 15 minutes late (at least Eurostar are consistent), and were told that we would probably have another 20-25 minutes added onto our journey because of speed restrictions that had been imposed because of the bad weather.
We left Paris in a northerly direction and were soon heading out towards St. Pancras International racing through the gloriously white French countryside. All was well, or so I thought! All of a sudden the train started braking quite sharply - not at an emergency stop level, but still quite sharply; the train had developped a fault, which the driver would attempt to fix. After about 20 minutes of lights flickering and being passed by TGVs in the opposite direction we set off again - with the total delay now running at about 35 minutes. Still, we managed to make it to Lille, then on to Calais, Sangatte and into the Channel Tunnel. Now you will almost certainly have heard about the horrendous problems that Eurostar were experiencing on this Friday in the Channel Tunnel - something to do with ice getting in the air vents or something - which caused the trains to break down in the tunnel; where it's dark and not a huge amount of fun to be stuck for hours. Luckily, I managed to avoid these delays. We made it through the Chunnel (as it's affectionately known among anoraks) in a pretty average 28 minutes, before heading off towards St. Pancras International. We'd been told we'd be in London about 40 minutes, which, whilst eating into my transfer time, left it in a pretty healthy condition. This was until we had to make an unscheduled stop in Ashford International - because they had to pick a member of the train crew up! Quite why they couldn't catch a conventional train to London is beyond me - I don't flag down Morrisons lorries on my way to work if I'm running a bit late...
Anyway, we arrived into St. Pancras International about 50 minutes late in the end - leaving me 1 hour and 40 minutes to travel across London to Paddington Station. Now I've not been to London a huge number of times, and I've used the tube twice before this journey (both on the same day!) - but as in Paris, I thought, I've caught trains before, I've used public transport before - I had the added advantage that whilst I don't quite have the London dialect down to a T I can make myself understood by using my mother tongue (and maybe not too many Rs)! As it happens it was a very easy journey to make - the underground trip was very easy - even with a suitcase. There were very few people on the carriage, and I was only on it for about 10 minutes.
On arrival at Paddington I realised what Esther meant when she talked about the steps....there were lots of them, and no real organised system to go up/down them - perhaps I expected too much! I had some time to kill in Paddington, so I sat down, topped up my UK phone, read a book, and waited until they announced which platform my train would leave from. At about 15.53 they told us the platform, from which the 16.00 was leaving. This train left on time, and was not held up by any snow; and there was some until about Didcot where it just became wet! The train pulled into Chippenham at 17.08 - running a couple of minutes early, where I was met by my parents in the car and whisked away!
As you can tell, a lot happened on this journey, but I was very lucky, and I'm very grateful for that. Whilst I had some minor inconveniences they were nothing compared to those of Harriet and Jack who were stuck in Paris, and the Channel Tunnel respectively for very long periods of time. So, whilst I may seem like I'm complaining - I'm really not! I actually enjoyed it - it was an adventure, and whilst I'll miss being at home, I'm looking froward to the journey back - simply because it's an adventure - and yes, I'm a child at heart!
The next instalment will be done after I get back, hopefully a little more promptly than this one was! As I said at the beginning, have a fantastic 2010, whatever you're doing! Thanks, also, to the people who have left kind words on my blog, and my Dad, who has left sarcastic ones!
See you in 2010!
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