Oh dear, I am 13 days
behind in my blog…. What can I remember?
The day started off early
as I had to be at the Kensington Close hotel (which funnily enough was located
in Kensington) by 7:45am for an 8:30 departure. I was driven to the hotel by my cousin John and we made it
to the hotel in plenty of time.
There were a few tours leaving from the hotel that day. I met a lovely pair of sisters from
Brisbane. One of them was
practically a neighbour to me, living in nearby Forest Lake.
Eventually the
European Masterpiece travellers were called to board our bus for our ride to
Kings Cross Station (oh why couldn’t I have joined the tour there? It is so much closer to “home”). There are 46 people on the tour. There is a husband of wife who are
Filipino’s but live in Alaska, 3 Americans (2 sisters and a young woman
travelling solo), 3 x Kiwi couples (1 couple are honeymooners) and 1 single
Kiwi travelling solo. The rest of
the tour group are Aussies.
Majority are New South Welshmen (we won’t hold that against them), quite
a few Victorians, a couple of WA couples and off the top of my head us
Queenslanders are represented by yours truly, an older woman travelling on her
own from Runaway Bay and a couple from Kippa-Ring. There could be more of us but I’m struggling to think who
else? (Halfway through the tour and I am still grappling with trying to
remember who everyone is).
So we all make it on
the bus and we’re off to Kings Cross to catch the Eurostar to Paris. The Cosmos rep who escorted us on the
bus said most of us were in 2nd class with a couple scoring first
class and that we would be met by our tour director in Paris. Well Jax scored a 2nd class
seat, and Jax was not amused. The
journey was ok but we were all cramped into second class like sardines and to
make matters worse I was travelling “backwards” in my seat. I had a “window” seat but was actually
sitting at the partition between 2 windows, so I couldn’t really see much. Hence I just slept a lot. I woke up close to the outskirts of
Paris and came to the realisation I was feeling rather ill. Confirmation Jax is not suited to 2nd
class. Jax did fear that my tour
group’s first experience of Jaxbah would be of her throwing her guts up on the
platform at Paris du Nord.
Thankfully the fresh air made me feel a bit better, though I could feel
one of my notorious headaches coming on.
Prior to leaving London
the Cosmos Rep told us our Tour Director would meet us at the end of the
platform in Paris, errr….. there are 2 ends to a platform? Well I just followed the masses who
fortunately headed in the correct direction. We found our Tour Director who introduced himself as
Leo. Leo is a Dutchie and is
proving to be as mad as the proverbial meat ant. Jax had a huge laugh as he was calling out the roll call to
give us our number sticker for our suitcase. When it came to Jaxbah he said “Jacqueline Ho-are-ay”. Jax responded “it’s pronounced
‘hoare’…. as in a prostitute”. He
hasn’t forgotten the pronounciation since!
We were then
instructed to follow him to where we had to collect our suitcases to put our
sticker on and take our bags to the bus.
What? What’s this taking
our own suitcase sh*t? Jax did
then think maybe she shouldn’t have packed 21.1kgs of clothes! We collect our suitcases and were told
to go to the second bus across the road with the good looking bus driver. Well we followed instructions but the
bus driver wasn’t good looking.
Turned out Leo got himself all confuzzled and we were at the wrong
bus. We go to the correct bus and
well I wouldn’t call our bus driver hot, but he was an improvement on the first
driver we saw. Turns out his name
is Rocco, and with a name like Rocco, yes he is Italian. Quite a few of the ladies are all hot
and bothered over Rocco. I don’t
find him overly attractive, but I’m willing to participate in all the jokes
over Rocco’s hotness.
We’re off driving
through the streets of Paris (with my migraine starting to kick in). Not long into the trip Leo informs us
the first optional is this evening…. D’oh….. and it’s the night at the
Cabaret. Here we go again,
flashbacks to 1993, when last in Paris Jax missed out on going to the Cabaret
because she had a migraine. I ummed
and ahhed about it and decided to have an early night so I wouldn’t risk waking
up with it only being worse the next day (or just wanting to die through the
night). But we had to choose the
rest of our optionals for France.
I decided to attend all of the remaining Parisian optionals….. the
Palace of Versailles and the Welcome Dinner.
We finally arrived at
our hotel, which courtesy of the construction of the new tramway system outside
it looked like we were staying in Beirut.
Whilst getting our keys I learnt that I wouldn’t be getting a room to
myself…. D’oh! I was supposed to
be rooming with Margaret, an older lady from Runaway Bay but she had already
befriended Jingy, the solo traveller from NZ. So they roomed together and I was put in with Andrea, a 25 yo
Dentistry graduate from Chicago. I
can say now she is a good roomie and we are not having any issues with being
confined in a hotel room with each other.
As soon as we made it
into our room I crashed for a while.
I woke up around 7ish feeling ok so wandered outside and across the road
to find something to eat.
Successfully ordered a cheese/mushroom crepe and getting exactly what I
thought I was getting. I then had
a wander around the area before heading back into my room before fluffing
around on the computer before collapsing for the night.
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