The Chunnel, Taxi Driver, Hotel Keppler

Posted by Andrew on Sep 22, 2010 | 1 comment

So I apologize for not posting yesterday. To make up for it, I will post two tonight. We had a sort of exciting travel day yesterday. As you have probably read in most of my posts, we have been taking the Tube or underground subway everywhere. We have never had an issue with it being delayed or broken down or anything. That is until we were trying to get to the train station yesterday on time. We woke up at around 5:00 a.m. so we could be out the door no later than 6:00 a.m. to catch a 7:30 train. As soon as we got on the Tube, they started making announcements about delays, but assured us that we were okay where we were getting off. Every train station, there were more and more delays until we had just one more stop to go and they made us get off and figure out another train to take. After walking a bunch, going up and down about 20 flights of stairs, and changing lines twice we barely made it to the train station on time to go through the security check (just like the airport). I of course made the metal detector go off so I got a very thorough pat down by a very friendly (haha, imagine the sarcasm here in your head) French woman/official. That was fun…but hey, at least we made our train in the end. Another not-so-great thing that happened as soon as we got on the train was that I got a bloody nose. It must have been all the running up and down stairs in the Tube stations. It was a little embarrassing, but I tipped my head back so it would go away ASAP. The train itself was amazingly fast and quiet and I’m sure that most of you know how excited we both were to go through The Chunnel. Unfortunately, they didn’t even make an announcement that were were going to head through The Chunnel like they were supposed to so we didn’t even know we were in it until we popped out on the French side. A little anti-climatic, but it was awesome nonetheless.  Such an amazing engineering feat.

We arrived at Gare du Nord in Paris and were amazed at all the people and the armed militia walking around. It’s a little weird, but I guess it’s safer that way. I finally had to put my French to the test and ask how to catch a cab. Parlez-vous Anglais? Haha, many people speak English here so it wasn’t a problem. I just had to ask them if they spoke English in French. The train station worker I asked was really friendly so that made it easy. We caught a cab from the train station and there was a little bit of a cab driver issue. I kept telling him we wanted to go to Rue Kepler, but he kept insisting that we wanted to go to Ave. Kleber even though I spelled it for him in French he still insisted. When we pulled up in front of Ave. Kleber and I said this wasn’t the place he got really irritated. Hey, you can’t blame me. I even pointed to it on the map for him. Good thing the two streets are pretty close by. I was glad to see him go. He seems to be the only cranky French person we have encountered so far so that’s good. Everyone else has been really nice. The porter from the hotel met us at our cab and whisked us away inside to be checked in at Hotel Keppler. The service here is excellent. They speak English and French and everyone has been incredibly helpful and friendly. I definitely don’t regret my hotel choice. They even gave us free water and snacks upon arrival when they could see how tired we were.

The day after that got way less exciting quickly. I haven’t mentioned yet that Andrew is fighting a cold. He has been for a few days now and it finally took over. We basically spent the rest of the afternoon ordering room service, napping, and watching movies. Between his cold and my bloody noses we are a little under the weather. Don’t worry, the next post gets more exciting as today we ventured out and saw lots of things. Hope you all are well. Au revior, Chelsie and Andrew