Update
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Bianca
14 Mei 2013 | Verenigd Koninkrijk, Crawley
I feel bad not having more stories here… but there’s just not that much to write about. Sorry to say that it’s a lot more boring than Vancouver ;-) haha.
Anyways, I’ll give a brief update of what’s been going on in the past month. The trip to Paris was amazing! In England it was really easy to find the train station and luckily I was travelling business class, so the check in was really easy and I could just relax in the lounge. Train ride was very smooth as well, even though there was a small hick up just before entering the tunnel.. luckily it wasn’t bad and we could continue, just had about half hour delay getting into Paris. The drive through France I really loved It was a long time since I had seen the country side. Nice!
When I got to Paris Nord, the adventure started.. first off I needed a train ticket to go north to Chantilly/Gouvieux. You would think that being on a international train station, they would speak some English.. but no! Luckily I remembered enough French and used gestures to tell the guy what I needed. Got a ticket and found the right train . I had checked upfront how long the train would take because as I expected, there was no way to find out what the stations were. At 10PM I made it to the train station, in the middle of nowhere… no taxis.. there was a taxi stand with a bunch of phone numbers on them. Ok, guess I need to call them. Ehm.. what is the country code? Haha. There were 2 young girls waiting to be picked up from the station and I could ask them (and yes, even they didn’t speak English! Tsss). The first one I called just rambled a whole lot of French, no idea. The only thing I heard was the he wasn’t driving. So I just hung up. The second one I called luckily came and within a few minutes he was there. Really, no one speaks one word of English. Annoying.
Finally I made it to Les Fontaines where I checked in for my training course. There was more trouble, but I just had enough. By the time it was 11PM I could finally rest my head and go to sleep.
The next 3 days were all about the training. It was really nice, met a lot of nice people. The nice thing about Les Fontaines is that it’s a beautiful area. Nice (not old) castle for the meals and good training facilities. And of course a fun party on the Thursday night . Haha.
After the training ended on Friday, we were brought to the train station so we could back into Paris. By that time Arine already drove to Paris and I met her in the hotel! We were both really tired, so all we did was just walk around the neighborhood and find ourselves a good meal in a restaurant. Which we did! Was really yummy.
Saturday was crazy-touring-through-Paris day to see as much as we could. Luckily it was a nice sunny day. First stop was the Eiffel tower, we walked around the park on both sides of the water and walked underneath the tower. From there we continued to Les Invalides and on the way we had lunch. Men…. I forgot how nasty it can be to sit next to someone that smokes.. I know, I used to be one of them, but still.. having been in Canada for so long where you’re not allowed to smoke on a patio, I forgot how it was. And we happen to sit next to someone who smoked about 7 cigarettes in 40 minutes.. anyways.. the food was good . After Les Invalides we crossed the Seine and we ended up on the Champs Elysees. We went to La Concorde as we wanted to walk through the Tuileries. With the beautiful weather, it was so nice to walk around the city! We made our way to the Louvre and then we finally took the subway to Centre Pompidou. First we had to sit on another patio of course and eat some French cheeses and drink a nice cocktail with it!
Afterwards we went into Centre Pompidou to see all the modern art. Most of it is a bit too modern for me, but I love the Picasso’s and that stuff!
Of course we also had to go for dinner in the city and we met up with Christian, a colleague from Norway. Going into Quartier Latin where we found a nice place and had a really good dinner.
After a long but beautiful day, we made it back around 11 PM. Sunday we slept in and enjoyed a late breakfast. Then we went to the Notre Dame and the Sacré Coeur. We had lunch in Montmartre and then we had to go back. I slightly misjudged the time we spent there and how long the subway took… so I had to run to Paris Nord to catch the Eurostar back to London. Nope… by 30 seconds I missed the check in time!! Aaargh. I guess there’s a first for everything… Luckily I could easily change the ticket without any extra costs and the 2nd train went 30 minutes later. It was very quiet in this train and I got a 4-seat all for myself! Nice .
A fun time in Paris!
The other weeks in England, there’s not much to tell. It’s just going to work, staying at the hotel at Gatwick airport and that’s about it.. I’m spending another weekend in London though, the first weekend of June. And tomorrow I’m meeting a colleague from Canada for dinner in London! Yay. And in 3 weeks times I’m off on holiday to La Palma. Looking forward to it!
Hopefully you guys aren’t too bored reading this ;-) There’s just not that much exciting things here as there were in Canada!
Till next time.
Anyways, I’ll give a brief update of what’s been going on in the past month. The trip to Paris was amazing! In England it was really easy to find the train station and luckily I was travelling business class, so the check in was really easy and I could just relax in the lounge. Train ride was very smooth as well, even though there was a small hick up just before entering the tunnel.. luckily it wasn’t bad and we could continue, just had about half hour delay getting into Paris. The drive through France I really loved It was a long time since I had seen the country side. Nice!
When I got to Paris Nord, the adventure started.. first off I needed a train ticket to go north to Chantilly/Gouvieux. You would think that being on a international train station, they would speak some English.. but no! Luckily I remembered enough French and used gestures to tell the guy what I needed. Got a ticket and found the right train . I had checked upfront how long the train would take because as I expected, there was no way to find out what the stations were. At 10PM I made it to the train station, in the middle of nowhere… no taxis.. there was a taxi stand with a bunch of phone numbers on them. Ok, guess I need to call them. Ehm.. what is the country code? Haha. There were 2 young girls waiting to be picked up from the station and I could ask them (and yes, even they didn’t speak English! Tsss). The first one I called just rambled a whole lot of French, no idea. The only thing I heard was the he wasn’t driving. So I just hung up. The second one I called luckily came and within a few minutes he was there. Really, no one speaks one word of English. Annoying.
Finally I made it to Les Fontaines where I checked in for my training course. There was more trouble, but I just had enough. By the time it was 11PM I could finally rest my head and go to sleep.
The next 3 days were all about the training. It was really nice, met a lot of nice people. The nice thing about Les Fontaines is that it’s a beautiful area. Nice (not old) castle for the meals and good training facilities. And of course a fun party on the Thursday night . Haha.
After the training ended on Friday, we were brought to the train station so we could back into Paris. By that time Arine already drove to Paris and I met her in the hotel! We were both really tired, so all we did was just walk around the neighborhood and find ourselves a good meal in a restaurant. Which we did! Was really yummy.
Saturday was crazy-touring-through-Paris day to see as much as we could. Luckily it was a nice sunny day. First stop was the Eiffel tower, we walked around the park on both sides of the water and walked underneath the tower. From there we continued to Les Invalides and on the way we had lunch. Men…. I forgot how nasty it can be to sit next to someone that smokes.. I know, I used to be one of them, but still.. having been in Canada for so long where you’re not allowed to smoke on a patio, I forgot how it was. And we happen to sit next to someone who smoked about 7 cigarettes in 40 minutes.. anyways.. the food was good . After Les Invalides we crossed the Seine and we ended up on the Champs Elysees. We went to La Concorde as we wanted to walk through the Tuileries. With the beautiful weather, it was so nice to walk around the city! We made our way to the Louvre and then we finally took the subway to Centre Pompidou. First we had to sit on another patio of course and eat some French cheeses and drink a nice cocktail with it!
Afterwards we went into Centre Pompidou to see all the modern art. Most of it is a bit too modern for me, but I love the Picasso’s and that stuff!
Of course we also had to go for dinner in the city and we met up with Christian, a colleague from Norway. Going into Quartier Latin where we found a nice place and had a really good dinner.
After a long but beautiful day, we made it back around 11 PM. Sunday we slept in and enjoyed a late breakfast. Then we went to the Notre Dame and the Sacré Coeur. We had lunch in Montmartre and then we had to go back. I slightly misjudged the time we spent there and how long the subway took… so I had to run to Paris Nord to catch the Eurostar back to London. Nope… by 30 seconds I missed the check in time!! Aaargh. I guess there’s a first for everything… Luckily I could easily change the ticket without any extra costs and the 2nd train went 30 minutes later. It was very quiet in this train and I got a 4-seat all for myself! Nice .
A fun time in Paris!
The other weeks in England, there’s not much to tell. It’s just going to work, staying at the hotel at Gatwick airport and that’s about it.. I’m spending another weekend in London though, the first weekend of June. And tomorrow I’m meeting a colleague from Canada for dinner in London! Yay. And in 3 weeks times I’m off on holiday to La Palma. Looking forward to it!
Hopefully you guys aren’t too bored reading this ;-) There’s just not that much exciting things here as there were in Canada!
Till next time.
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Je kunt nu ook Smileys gebruiken. Via de toolbar, toetsenbord of door eerst : te typen en dan een woord bijvoorbeeld :smiley
