What to expect when taking the the Eurostar from London to Paris... on a bank holiday

Maybe you are planning a trip for an Easter weekend in the future. For those in the US, this is a glorious four-day weekend that seemingly everybody gets off (in Europe?) and maybe you've planned to do your first bit of international tourism, like I have. Suppose you are having questions about the experience. Well, my friend, let me tell you all about it by way of my many errors (or, errata.)

First, chaos is what to expect. If possible, embrace it. It is going nowhere, the rest of this trip is going to be in a foreign language and that will probably also feel quite intimidating. Try to avoid that feeling and just go with the flow.

As detailed in my last post, I missed my first train. But let me get to more logistical notes for anyone really wondering how this will all play out.

1. If you miss the train for any reason, call customer service immediately. In my case it was good that my train hadn't actually left yet so I could rebook. I was too afraid to ask what would happen if I wasn't so lucky with the timing. They were able to rebook me on a much later train: options were 1:30pm for £130 and 2:24 for £80. £80 is $100, so okay 2:24 it is.

2. When I got  to the station, I first had only slight difficulty figuring out where to go. I found signs that pointed me to "international," since I'm traveling internationally. I thought I had the luxury of extra time and was keeping an eye out for Harry Potter, but it never jumped out at me, and with a heavy bag and uncertainty about the future of my trip, I didn't look for it very much.
So 2 is really: find signs for international trains, and go there.

3. Ticketing
There is a line/queue of people waiting to talk to humans. Behind that, there are kiosks. The kiosks don't have a line, the humans have a super long one, and more so the humans don't look very interested in expediting their service. If you aren't sure, go straight to the kiosk. I cannot emphasize this enough. Don't lose valuable time.

4. Get used to poor customer service.
Surely this is not reflective of every Eurostar employee, but the situation was apparent that they aren't overwhelmingly interested in solving your problems. Do you have troubleshooting skills? Try to use them.

5. Okay so you have your ticket, this is where you'd expect to find security at an airport. Not yet, it is in reverse order here. First you queue for your train, which for me was very easy to find, and actually started queuing basically when I got there even though it was so far in advance. You slowly proceed on this line, a few steps forward here and there followed by pausing, your standard line experience. This meanders TO security. You scan your ticket to get through to security.

5. Scan your ticket
In my case I didn't have an assigned seat, so I had to go talk to a human, but fortunately he was close by and there was no line. He just told me that I don't have an assigned seat, so I'll have to go talk to the guy on the train. Okay cool whatever.

7. Border control/security
I had a bottle with a small amount of water in it. This is me at most airport checkpoints, getting my last chugs in since you cannot have liquids with carryon. So I did that here, but there was not one sign explaining if that was necessary or not. I looked, a lot! Got through that without having to remove shoes.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is where I got my first passport stamp!!!!!!
Or second because maybe I got one in arrival to U.K., probably but I can't remember.

8. Waiting area: same as gate for airports
This is a confusing place because it doesn't feel like the destination. But it is! This is the place you can chill until they board your train. Have a seat. Even on this bank holiday I was able to get a seat, mostly since I got there right after they boarded the train for Brussels.

9. Boarding
They will announce this overhead and there are also electronic status boards. I had my doubts upon sitting down, like that maybe I would miss this train due to not understanding the system, but it was not a problem. It was loud when they announced boarding, and very obvious by the huge crowd of people exiting onto the escalator. Relatively straight forward, all in all.

10. Getting a seat
Okay so I got to the guy at Carriage 15 and they're telling me the train is overbooked. I asked if that means I'm not guaranteed a seat? And they said you're not. I asked what happens if there are no seats? And they indicated there are these foldable seats in the emergency exit vestibule. Okay, for me the threat is no longer a threat. My concern is getting to this Moulin Rouge show at 7pm, I don't really care what seat, though a real one would be nice. You know, you put forth money to do things and then you fuck up the alarm setting so you lose hundreds of dollars in tickets, it's not a good feeling. I'm getting on that god damn train.
Survival skill that would be useful here: flexibility. No joke. Trying to not lose your shit is more for yourself than those around you. The men telling me the train was overbooked: it's not their fault! Not at all. They are train managers and they didn't engineer the system that overbooked the train. They may be responsible for getting things running, but it's not going to help to give them a hard time-- for you more than for them. Don't waste energy. It is what it is.

About 20 minutes into the train ride, during the writing if this post, I was upgraded to an actual seat. Now I have back support and am sitting at a comfortably reclined angle.

And I'm going to freaking Paris!!! Finally!!!

How to handle missing your train

I missed my 7:55am train to Paris this morning. I woke up at 7:45 very aware of all the natural light pouring into my bedroom, way too much for the 5:45 wake up I had planned. Knowing what's done is done, l  called the Eurostar customer service and worked on Plan B.

Plan B: for £80 I can get the 2:24 pm train, arriving at nearly 6pm. We're seeing Moulin Rouge at 7, so it'll have to do. This is a $100 fare upgrade, not wonderful. But not he worst thing ever. The trip isn't annulee, the way ours was in 2005 when our high school French class had a planned trip.

In a word, it sucks. But I think it's really important to not let it ruin everything. What is lost, besides money and time? (Haha.) Here is how I went about the rest of my morning, scheming to make the most of my extra time at home and not let this get me down. And you can, too!

1. Audited my packing. While Friday is basically out for mass tourism, that means I wear one less outfit and go straight to moulin rouge in fancy dress. I'm wearing a casual outfit I could rewear later on in the trip. While that's unlikely since I know I have the right number of shirts for the rest of the time, but good to have? I really tried to calculate exactly how much I would need, and not being more than one or maybe two shirts in excess. A more well traveled packer might cut it closer to the bare  necessities, but the shirts are small so it seemed ok.

I do think I removed an unnecessary pair of pants, struggling to recall what else. Somehow I went from 3 to 2 internal bag organizers, so I had a small feeling of progress.

2. Remind yourself that you are still going on a really cool trip!!!
All is not lost, you miss a, well, half or full day of awesome and amazing tourism, but you're still going. And for that you are very, very lucky. Be grateful, not sad. And if you love Paris (like I think I will), I'll just have to go back.

3. Yoga
I just completed day 3 of Adriene's 31 day yoga challenge. I missed a day, or two? And it is a helpful use of time to help you make time for self care, but the thing is you have to *make* time for self care. As in do the exercises.

4. Podcasts
I just finished season 2 of Serial, only about three years after it came out! Super engrossing, completely different topic than season one which I just finished a day or two before. This has been playing in my flat all day long for this past week, so I don't know if it counts as something I did to maximize my extra time at home, but I did enjoy it and it did enhance the experience. If you are pissed about suddenly having a few hours on your hands, by all means, dive into a podcast. Extra points if it was super popular and you missed the boat a few years ago!!

I also recommend looking up podcasts related to your travel. This serves a practical purpose *and* an emotional one, in that you get to stay the course of excited for your trip and hearing about what you might see. I downloaded and enjoyed Rick Steve's walking tour of the Louvre and Museum d'Orsay. both were excellent for orienting myself to what I'd like to see in the small window of time I'll have at each of them, and they had pictures!

5. Eat food and drink coffee
You know what's heavy? Water. I enjoy traveling with a big water bottle but it adds extra poundage. Guess what: if you drink before you leave, all you have to do is find a bathroom! No need to be weighed down by the liquids externally... just internally! And food at all airports and transportation centers is costly. As someone who just spent $100 because she set the alarm to PM instead of AM, I'm not trying to go out of my way with expenditures. I ate breakfast, packed granola bars and drank a bunch of coffee, rosemary water, and hot water with lemon. All I had to worry about when I go to London St. Pancras/Kings Cross was finding the nearest loo.

6. Get ready
You know what I don't do, is leave myself any time to appropriately get ready for things. My life as a maximizer has always squished as much content, love, and happiness (not so much preparation) into my limited moments. This gave me an opportunity to rethink my outfit and put an extra dose of makeup on. It's Paris, after all!

7. Leave early!
I am headed to Paris from London on a bank holiday, and I've never taken an international train before (or been to continental Europe, for that matter.) I missed one train, I'd rather not miss another, not to mention lose out on the small fortune we spent to get to see Moulin Rouge. I have a 2:24 train, they suggest an hour for security and an hour to get there, which would mean leaving at 12:30. I left at 11:30 to be safe (expect issues), and I'm glad I did. I thought I had to wait on line for customer service, and easily lost 10 or 15 minutes standing on an unmoving line when I actually could have just gone to a kiosk. Chatting with the folks around you on line sometimes helps to avoid these foibles, which is what helped me here. It's good for me to be aware of that and make better practice of being friendly rather than shy to those around me.

Also, since it is a bank holiday, it is totally disorganized and chaotic here. I wouldn't have wanted to be showing up just now, even though that would be fine. I would just be stressed. 

Kegels when you're angry

Just the idea of this subject line is making me crack up. It's my first truly great idea in a while. Think of all the kegels you could do while doing anything frustrating! Sitting in traffic, being blocked by someone/thing at work, finding out you need to buy more things in order to get wifi set up at your apartment, lots of things!

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Today is about getting as many chores done as possible. I visited the GP (doctor) and signed up for NHS (big chore), picked up additional ingredients for slow cooker dark meat chicken, and found out they definitely just don't have onion powder here. Medium sized chore. Got an onion to substitute, and it was only £.13 compared to £1.75 for all of the other spices. Went to the post office, mailed the twins' London newspaper from the day they were born, bought David Bowie stamps. Not a chore.

Cut up the chicken to remove bones & fat, found out the slow cooker probably requires a transformer. I'm not completely sure of this, because I know it uses low power for a long time, but I'm going to err on the side of caution and not burn this place down. 

Earlier I also checked out of the temporary living quarters, and was driving back home when I almost got T-boned because I inserted myself to a right turn (which means crossing over a lane, we're in the UK) and the opposing traffic had a green light starting up that this car was responding to with haste. Fortunately it didn't result in contact, and was more or less a learning experience for me. What am I learning other than I am bad at driving here? Just trying to get my instincts up to par since I am still looking the wrong way more or less all the time - but taking corrective action - just my first instinct is often wrong. I also should have been aware that I couldn't quite see the traffic coming from the other side, and even though they had a red light when I was pulling out, it was turning green (note, I didn't have a light, the light itself was a little bit to my left.)

Driving here is scary. And now I have a chicken dish ready to get slow cooked that will have to wait a few days in the fridge until the right transformer gets here. Next is figuring out how to know which is the best transformer for you.

Can I get some chocolate? And wine?

You Don't Know You're Beautiful; That's What Makes You Beautiful

Yeah, yeah, yeah not the first one to wax feminist (gender equity) with respect to this -- old -- and very catchy One Direction song. What gives me pause is how much I love listening to it, on repeat, instant good mood.

But just to be clear! You're only beautiful because you don't know you're beautiful. AS SOON AS YOU REALIZE YOUR BEAUTY, IT FLIES OUT THE WINDOW. Women! Make sure you bust ass in the bathroom in the early morning to get beautiful. But don't for a second act like you are aware of your good looks! That ruins the whole thing. What's that word? Demure? Reserved, modest, and shy. Modest but very beautiful. Eyes at GROUND! Get with the program, women!


Carole King has some words on the subject:
You've got to get up every morning with a smile on your face
And show the world all the love in your heart
Then people gonna treat you better
You're gonna find, yes, you will
That you're beautiful as you feel

You could interpret this as: internal awareness of your beauty is directly proportional to how beautiful you are seen externally, by others. That's more or less the exact opposite of our British friends Liam and the gang? I wonder who wrote that song and if they like it.

The end.

Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, and other things

I went to see Beautiful: The Carole King Musical last night. I had no prior expectations save for any I developed during the commercials I've seen during Jeopardy!. It was great; so emotional. It seems like good therapy for anyone going through a breakup. Man, live theatre, right? I love that anything can happen, it's so scary and real, and obviously LIVE! Alive. Many different scenes struck me deeply. I thought at first the two love interests seemed like they had very little chemistry and were a little stiff and awkward physically with each other, but you watch their relationship as it progresses and transforms. The actress who plays Carole King, Cassidy Janson is unbelievably talented and raw, very powerful.

That said, I've been keeping to my goal of one performance per week! There are so many more shows I'd like to see, but the really great news is they are relatively cheap (under £35.) I'd like to see Book of Mormon, Aladdin, what else... An American in Paris, Dreamgirls, Lion King, Kinky Boots, Carousel, everything?

Wicked, in particular, watching "Popular" sung live was stunning and energizing. For both shows I sat in the last possible row, but found the view to be perfectly acceptable. Plus, at under £20, you can't really go wrong.

I'm thinking that if I can get my food budget under control, I can squeeze £20 a week on a ticket, meaning if there is a £40 ticket (e.g., Lion King, Aladdin all seem to be pricier), I can just skip one week. I think that ought to work nicely? There are a lot of things to see, but also many weeks with which to work. It would mean £160 budgeted from the monthly pay, which I'll have to finagle in Excel. Like a real budget!

Note, going to stuff on my own has not been weird, scary, or intimidating, in fact I haven't been thinking about it too much except for observing any sense of liberation internally. I don't feel super liberated by it, either; I get a sense of empowerment from correctly navigating to a new place without major hiccups, but I think the "showing up alone" aspect is a given and therefore doesn't come with its own rush of pride. I have joked with folks at home that I am terribly lonely, which actually isn't true in spite of all this alone time. I do miss Matt! Significantly. More in the sense that I wish he were able to be with me as I go on these adventures because I love his company. But, we will have to wait for him to come visit and I can share with him the best of the things I've done or have yet to do.

Au revoir! Cheerio! (Going to Paris in a week and a half, might want to finish that itinerary!)

Bits & Bobs

Brief update: Moved into my new apartment (flat) this past weekend! It is lovely: spacious and light. I have a lemon plant growing on the balcony, performing a few Googles to figure out how to prevent its untimely death.

I've investigated the West End a little bit, the equivalent of Broadway in New York. Last minute tickets seem to be inexpensive. I think the TKTS booth might be the best possible option, but since I don't have all day to wait in line, I'm looking at lastminute.com, timeout.com, and most recently londontheatredirect.com for tickets within the same week. Michele, Steve & I went to see Wicked last week Thursday through this method, and it was really terrific. Great performance, back row seats but still visible, and a cost of £19.50/seat.

I just booked a ticket to see Beautiful: The Carole King Musical tonight for £15, plus £1 service fee. This is cheaper than most dinners in the area! I had previously thought I'd head straight home this evening, but booked this instead. My ticket is in the back row. I'm excited to become a "theatre person," or something that vaguely resembles one.

In other expenditure news, we're looking at booking a hotel in Bath, England for an upcoming bank holiday weekend. We'll expect to experience the Thermae Bath Spa! Looking at what packages are available that weekend, and hopefully looking forward to some R&R.

I've also recently booked flights to Oslo, Norway and Bordeaux, France, and the only legwork I've done there was an unavailable AirBNB, so I'm back to square one. Fjords and wine!! And I guess I have to figure out how to request time off (~2 days and ~3 days, respectively.)

April 12th will be the day that my TV and Internet *maybe* gets set up, something else to look forward to (especially as I am already paying for both services.)

Also arranging to go to the doctor (GP) to get onto the National Health Services system.

We've also got Paris in 10 days, wow! I was feeling a bit of a void like I wasn't doing enough or making enough use of being here yet, since I more or less spent the last 3 days at IKEA and surrounded by heaps of clothes. I set up a bunch of mirrors so I can try on all of my clothes at some point and decide that everything has to be donated :). (Or, some things. Or a few.) The planning for Paris that remains is figuring out itinerary with maximum use of Paris Pass.

My mind is a bit occupied by what feels like a galaxy of tiny things. All smallish projects, and all really great things.

I strolled through Shoreditch at lunch today & went to the Cereal Killer Cafe, or rather, the outside of it. Looks cute, but also daunting since I didn't want cereal, and apparently a popular tourist destination where things move a bit quickly. It is on a very hip side street which will require deeper investigation. Lots of vintage-y shops selling clothes you would buy if you were performing onstage. My singer alter-ego Laura was intrigued, but reality Laura was reminded of the heaps of clothes back at the flat that require homes. I also wandered through Boxpark, a shopping center made entirely out of shipping crates. Very hip. The only thing intimidating here is that to wander into the small space makes it appear like you are somewhat committed to making a purchase, which if you're me, you're not. But I think it is also aimed at drifters like myself, seeking inspiration maybe for the interior design of their new apartment (true.)