Paris at last

11 April 2006 from Paris

From Paris - and a damn close thing it was too. We arrived at Waterloo station with several hours to kill before boarding the Eurostar from Gare de Nord in Paris. Everything seemed to be progressing quite reasonably until ten minutes before we were due to leave an ominous sounding voice announced, "Ladies and Gentlemen, may I have your attention please. Due to difficulties on the line, the departure of the Eurostar for Paris has been delayed. More information will be provided as it comes to hand." An hour later after several equally uninformative announcements rumour had begun to spread that there had been an explosion on the line. What else would you expect - Terrorists. Well, not exactly. As it turned out it was apparently a house with a gas leak which blew up throwing debris over the line.

Since we were through customs and actually considered to be in France (albeit still at Waterloo Station), they seemed a bit confused about how to deal with all this. They first announced that all Eurostar services had been suspended until further notice. They then advised people waiting to go away and travel at a later date. For those of us (the great majority) who had no intention of going away they eventually decided to get us past the problem area and allow us to pick up the train at Ashford, about an hour down the line and just before the train would enter the Chunnel. About 1,000 of us left the security area, trundling our bags across Waterloo Station during rush hour to Waterloo East. The platform there was a heaving, seething mass of angry, frustrated people with suitcase as full as their bladders in many instances.

Eventually a local commuter train arrived and we crammed ourselves into it for the hour-long journey to Ashford. No toilets available on the train which meant the number of people travelling with their legs crossed and tightly at that was significant. Remember we had been waiting for a long time at Waterloo and, of course, kept drinking coffee or tea.

At Ashford International things deteriorated. To be fair, this station was trying to cope with a situation of considerable difficulty. Trains were arriving from both Paris and London and dumping hundreds of passengers who had to be ferried by Ashford staff around the affected areas of the line. The trouble was that passengers were kept in the dark so, not surprisingly, tempers frayed. Eventually we got on the Eurostar and arrived about four hours late - and we were among the lucky ones.

It was quite an adventure but we "went with the flow" and found it interesting from an organisational behaviour point of view. So, I can hear you saying, "are you having a good time in Paris?" Hell yes!

NEXT DAY

According to the thermometer hanging outside our bedroom window, it was 3 degrees at 7.00 am. By teatime it had struggled to 14 rather shaky degrees. Thank goodness we had not fallen into the "April in Paris" spring thing and had taken coats, hats, scarves and gloves. We ventured north this morning on foot to the non-tourist part of the 18th Arrondissement and had some rather wonderful surprises. This area has been shabby for many years but has now suddenly had a revitalisation. Prices are right and many young couples with first and second children have moved into the area. So there are pre-schools, schools, high schools and lots and lots of children. The shopping is delightful composed as it is of small shops, street markets, restaurants, bistros and everything that one associates with Paris.

Although there are larger food markets, similar to Coles and Woolies, there are far more small food shops, butcheries, boulangeries, fromageries and charcuteries (we may not know much French, but we know all of the "food" words). The bread shops bake four to six times a day with the last baking being around 7.00 pm when there are queues of people getting the bread for their evening meal. Early morning openings guarantee the freshest of croisants for your table - Yum. Amazed to learn that there are 365 different cheeses available; one for every day of the year. Unfortunately, being here only 25 days we won't be able to sample them all. The one thing we seem unable to find is Vegemite. I am in deep sh-t with Ginnie who I talked out of buying it at the London duty-free. Tomorrow, to avoid my life being made a virtual hell, I am doing a full reconoitre of Paris in search of the black stuff.

At mid-day we wandered down to a place at which we had eaten when last we were here and were delighted to find that not only was it still thriving, but the quality of food was just as high as previously. Wonderful meal and then a longish afternoon nap. This evening it is back to basics with housework and laundry. It's 9.00 pm now, and the daily rubbish collection is just taking place; they probably work on weekends here too! And speaking of civic cleanliness, every Parisian seems to have a dog which manages to poop on the footpath every day. Sometimes I am not sure if we are walking or dancing.