Day 6 | London & Paris
Leaving London, England from the St. Pancras train station and traveling to Paris, France on the Eurostar with three small children.
This day we were taking the train to Paris from London. We had intentionally selected an apartment near the train station in order to simply walk down the street with our luggage. However, my husband decided after the debacle of locating the apartment in the first place with numerous pieces of luggage and three small children, that a taxi service would be best.
My husband is a funny guy in the respect that he worries about the silliest things. Myself and the children were just getting settled in with the time zone change and were sleeping a bit too late for his liking so he had called the taxi service while we were still sleeping and changed the pickup time. Once we were all awake and discussing it, we decided the original pick up time was best. My husband called the service, again, and changed the pickup time, again. I'm sure they thought he was a crazy American!
It literally took about 9 minutes for the taxi driver to drive us down the street to the train station, so we certainly could have walked. But, we were there. If you have never been to the St. Pancras train station in London, it is a wonderful spot to walk about. IF it is not freezing outdoors! It is an open-air station -- as in NO HEAT!
My husband left me in a spot to go turn in the tube ticket for a refund. When my husband leaves me with the children, he tends to get lost and forget that we are waiting for him. He left me with NO MONEY and five pieces of luggage and three small children! After 30 MINUTES of waiting, I was ready to strangle him! I wanted to walk around St. Pancras and explore and take some photos and see what was there - - BUT I COULDN'T for all the above-stated reasons.
I finally gathered all the luggage when my husband had left us and with the aide of the children struggled to an area that was not so cold. We discovered a toy store and I stood in the hall with all the luggage and let the kiddos explore inside. After another 20 minutes I saw my husband walking down the hallway in a huff. I knew he was not happy we had moved. The children wanted to make some purchases, but he would have none of it and shuffled them right out of there.Guess who did NOT exchange the tube tickets either? No clue what he was doing for 45 minutes!
We went right through security and into the waiting area to await our train. I didn't get one single photo and was not happy. But at least the waiting area had heat! We boarded the Eurostar with no issues and located our seats. The girls sat together and my son and husband sat together. I was in a lone seat and was really hoping for no fellow seatmate. The kiddos were deep in Nintendo gaming and my husband was deep in a book and I was deep in an effort to not gag. I was sitting next to the smelliest young man ever! Oh, Lord, did he smell. I don't think he had bathed in a week.
We were fortunate enough to have an English speaking taxi driver to take us to our hotel in Paris. He described the layout of the districts of Paris and how we should walk the city to best see the sights. He told us we were staying in a nice area with lots of universities surrounding us. We later discovered that he certainly took the LONG way to our hotel in order to make the most of his fare. It was an incredibly long ride one way and on the return trip, it was not. Go figure.
We checked in to the hotel without any issues and were shown to our rooms. We had connecting hotel rooms that were quite quaint. We decided to walk around the area a bit and look for a restaurant for dinner. The dinner was fine for our first evening in Paris. We walked back to the hotel for some rest and a good nights sleep. I was still struggling with jet lag and sleeping is always an issue for me.
Traveling with children is a bit challenging. Traveling with children to another country is even more challenging. Especially if one is struggling with a stomach virus. I wanted to go to the Louvre after dinner, but my husband would have no part of it. Once the sun sets, no matter where we are, my husband is done. He does not want to do anything further that day. So every evening, no matter where we are, even in Paris. We sit, so we sat in that hotel room when we could have been exploring the city.