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.
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.
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