This
was our first of a few travel days. Bag drop was at 5:45 am and
breakfast at 6 am. We left London's Thistle City Barbican hotel at 7
am. Our bus coordinators – Randy, Matt, and Mike – were really
good about making sure that everyone was accounted for every time the
bus left anywhere by counting empty seats. We rarely left late as
students and family members were also really good (for the most part)
on getting to the bus on time. It also seemed like potty stops were
plentiful on our travel days – if not to use the facilities and
patronize the stores (like snacks were going out of style) but to
support our driver, Gerd's, prolific smoking habit. In London, there
were a few times that we re-boarded the bus and found it to be very
smoky. I think someone said something to him as this was not a
problem the rest of the trip.
We arrived at the ferry depot in Dover at around 10 am. We navigated a series of queues, stopped at border patrol and got our passports stamped for France, and then pulled into a building for inspection where they selected 5 suitcases randomly from each bus and had those people get off the bus and did an inspection similar to most airports. We finally pulled into our designated lane where we were allowed to get off and use the bathrooms and nearby store. Along the way, we listened to the song “White Cliffs of Dover”.
 |
| White Cliffs of Dover |
While we were waiting to get on the ferry, I had looked up P&O ferry specifically to glean any information about how the English Channel was in terms of waves and motion, and noticed that there was a Captain's Lounge upgrade but wasn't able to upgrade our ticket online. At the appointed time, the bus was moved onto the ferry and we were all cautioned to pay attention to what floor and color we were on so that when the announcement was made to debark, that you could make your way quickly back to the bus. If you missed the bus departing, they won't let it stop and you would have to take another form of transportation to Paris. We also had a time change – moving our watches back an hour.
We boarded the ferry and seats filled up quickly. We walked around a bit and went up one deck when we happened to walk by the Captain's Lounge just as someone was coming out. I asked if it was too late to purchase an upgrade and the waitress answered that it was fine to do that and invited us in. The lounge was really nice and quiet with only a handful of people in it. It had its own set of bathrooms and we were greeted with glasses of champagne and cookies. We leisurely ate our pastries from Chinatown for lunch.
 |
| Captain's Lounge |
The ferry ride was very smooth – moreso than I would have thought. The ferry only took about 1.5 hours to cross the Channel. We arrived into Calais and made our way to Paris which was still quite a ways away. Traffic was brutal as is always the case in Paris, it seems. We were originally scheduled to have dinner at 6 pm but we didn't arrive at the “restaurant”, Le Saulnier, until around 6:45 pm.
Now this restaurant was very interesting. We shuffled into the restaurant – this huge group of people – and the patrons in the restaurant never even looked up. Then we started noticing that all of the “patrons” were eating the same thing. We were seated and immediately they started taking our drink orders. We tried a bottle of white and red which were so-so. This was the first opportunity for the kids to actually order alcohol during a meal.
The waiters passed out drinks and then our meals frenetically. We started with a Quiche Lorraine which was quite good. The piece was pretty big. The main dish was turkey medallions, rice, and haricot verts. It was ok and that was after every other person at our table (there were probably 10 of us) had been served and I waited and waited and waited to get a plate. We finally had to flag someone down to get me a plate the waiters were moving so fast. We met our Paris coordinators at the restaurant and then enjoyed an apple tart for dessert. It was at this point that we realized that the restaurant really wasn't a restaurant – it was a mass production kitchen that catered specifically to tour groups and was, perhaps, just a step up from a school cafeteria.
 |
| Quiche Lorraine |
 |
| Turkey Medallions |
 |
| Apple Tart |
We made it to the Saphir hotel at around 8:45 pm. We were told on the bus that the elevator was small and old and not to get on it with our luggage. They had devised a plan that would work better which involved selecting the suitcases destined for certain floors and taking them up in waves. Seth and I took our luggage up the stairs rather than wait for them to come up the teeny elevator. Our room had a queen sized futon-like bed close to the ground, a roomy bathroom and separate toilet room. I used the drawers and unpacked a few things quickly then we met downstairs for group orientation.
For the most part, our itinerary was pretty well planned and they made plenty of allowances for bathroom stops, waiting for stragglers, etc. As the city coordinators (Pat, Jenilyn, and Soe) explained about Paris, I wish they had started with the good things rather than the not-so-good but Pat started off right away warning students about the gypsies, panhandlers, pickpockets, and con men in and around Paris. This clearly needed to be done to warn them upfront but hearing it first was a little intimidating, imo. Since the hotel was so old and the internet hadn't been upgraded, there was not enough bandwidth for everyone. Staff was given a wifi access code so I had asked them for the code to be able to make daily upload to Facebook. The wifi, unfortunately, was pretty poor with connection issues and slow speeds.
After connecting and reconnecting over a dozen times, I did finally manage to get all of my pictures uploaded. We were pretty excited that tomorrow would be our first morning to “sleep in” as breakfast wasn't until 8:30 am and buses would be leaving at 10 am.
No comments:
Post a Comment