Up early, keen to be on our way. It was raining. The weather up to this point had been perfect, Our last breakfast, oh how we loved those breakfasts. I think they were on Justin’s list of the best things about Paris!
We metro’d it to the train station Gare du Nord (meaning Station of the World) where we were catching the Eurostar. We had to fill in all the customs and immigration forms, present our passports for stamping, were questioned about our stay in London and then let though. Into Duty Free! Yippee ky ay – my kind of shopping!! I bought some Perfume and some Paris coasters and a few nibbles for the train ride.
The train itself was nice. I had a nap so it seemed quite quick. In 2 hours we were there, flashing past the English countryside, rain streaming down and then at the station St Pancras International (or pancreas as Justin kept calling it). Kings Cross Staion is just next door and that is where our hotel was, so we nipped out the door, up the road and we were there. Damn this rain! We put our bags up into the room (up 7 of the narrowest and steepest stair cases in the world) and decided we’d find a map and get sightseeing. The rain put us off a bit, so we thought we’d go to Madame Toussauds and wait the rain out. We lined up for ages before we got to the door and there was a sign that said “60 minutes from this point”. OMG you have to be joking??? I kept thinking it couldn’t possibly take that long, but it did. Nearly 2 hours in that bloody line all up. It had better be worth it!
It was. It was fun and funny and a good way to spend a cold, wet Monday afternoon. I don’t know where these photos are but I had my picture taken with the Pope, Robbie Williams, Diana, Miley Cyrus, Brad and Angelina, Beyonce, John Howard and many others. it was cool.
After a few hours there we jumped on a red bus (yes, a proper red double decker bus) and went where it went, which fortunately was past Harrods. We jumped off here of course and went inside to live the magic and mystery of the worlds most famous Department Store. It lived up to it’s reputation. The food hall was spectacular – we could have stayed in there for ages. I wanted to buy lots of things, but there are so many restrictions about what you can bring back into Australia that it just wasn’t worth the hassle. We went up to the kids toys floor, where we were dazzled by every toy, book and kid gadget you can imagine. We bought some things for the kids, were served by a girl from Adelaide (!) who gave us extra bags for each child. Bless.
We did a bit more shopping and browsing up Oxford Street (Marks and Spencer I love you) before trying out the Tube to get back to the Hotel Being very confident with the Paris Metro I thought it would be easy, but it proved beyond our tired and frazzled mind, and we got entirely lost.
For dinner that night we went to a local Chinese restaurant, set out a plan of attack for the next day, then hit the sack. The weather was a downer, the hotel room was not a great as the Paris one (I’m sure that if I stretched out my arms I could touch both walls of our room), but we were happy to be in London at long last. It was going to be great!!