Travel days:
Quick, quick! Rush, rush, rush!!!!
Hurry up and wait. And wait. And wait.
OK,Go! Then! Now! NO, NOW!!!
1, 2, 3, 4 …. wait, WHERE IS...??? There - 5. All here.
Relax. Sit. Wait.
Go, go, GO!!
Ahhh … feet up.
All done.
But Grams always did a great job providing a little extra in the way of new travel games and toys for the waiting periods.
We left Paris for London on a Eurostar train departing Gare du Nord to arrive at St. Pancras-King’s Cross Station. Gare du Nord, I later learned, is the 24th busiest train station in the world … the 23 busiest all being located in Japan. For what it’s worth, all but six of the 50 busiest stations in the world are in Japan.
(NOTE: This probably explains not only my initial reaction to Paris -- we got our first non-airport taste of Paris in Gare du Nord -- but also some of the sensibilities of Japanese tourists abroad.)
Travel on the Eurostar was fabulous -- nice seating, a car essentially to ourselves, plenty of room for luggage (though I did a bit of a number of my back by not following my mother-in-law’s advice regarding the size of my suitcase and the vertical lift required to get it onto the overhead rack).
Arriving in London at St. Pancras-King’s Cross (the latter of Harry Potter fame … platform 9 ¾), we made our way to Canary Wharf on the Isle of the Dogs, where we would be staying while in London. Both Canary Wharf (a major speculative property venture that seems to have paid off) and the Isle of the Dogs (created by a geographical oddity in the Thames river) have interesting histories.
The entire area is now the newest business district in London. The first site to greet us was the Thomson Reuters building. With the legacy of West Publishing, Thomson Reuters has a huge presence in the Twin Cities, and I have several good friends who work at their Eagan office, including Nora’s godfather, Tom Caneff. The area was all upscale nouveau chic with an almost, dare I say, American flavor.
So, really, London felt a lot like home from from the moment we arrived.
After securing the keys, we all walked what would become a familiar route from the Canary Wharf station to our apartments at Fraser Place. Again, coming from our seriously retrofit Parisian accommodations, these newly built apartments felt a lot like very nice accommodations in the US (with a few quirks … like no coffee pot).
We also discovered what has to be the nicest grocery store I have ever been in outside of Minnesota. When I was new to the Land of 10,000 Lakes and first walked into a Byerlys I couldn’t believe it. (Carpeting in a produce department? A chandelier? You’ve gotta be kidding!) I had never seen anything quite like it. But Waitrose in London came about as close as I’ve yet encountered in terms of luxury grocery shopping experience. No carpeting, however, and no chandelier.
After dinner and watching the sun set over the fish market across the street from our apartments, Jen and I walked back to the underground station and took the Jubillee Line back towards London -- just to explore a bit. We got off at the London Bridge station and ended up sitting outside on the patio of The Old Thameside Inn watching the river pass by.
It was a nice evening, but I must say that the pub culture in London cannot match the cafe culture in Paris.
These are two very different cities.
First Impression of London: A clean, efficient, well-ordered, well-oiled machine.
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