It's currently 1:50am Monday morning... Happy 4th of July. I'm
up doing laundry and decided to do some work. Earlier the laundry room was too
packed to get a machine so I went back to my undergraduate tactics...show up
early in the morning when the rest of the building is sleeping. It's peaceful,
empty, and still. Yesterday was our first day in Paris and it was a long one.
We rose early in the morning and had breakfast with the call
time to be checked out of our rooms being at 10am. After I finished eating I
finished packing and reported to the dorm lobby to await further instructions.
After Dr. V collected our keys we were told that we had until 1pm to do
whatever we liked and I quickly went towards the door. I've acquired so many
gifts, clothes, and other things that the weight that I'm traveling with has
increased and I know my suitcase is well over the allowed weight limit. I purchased
a bag to carry on the plane ride back home and to help decrease the weight of
my suitcase.I purchased my bag and headed back to the school arriving just in time for us to start grabbing our luggage and start towards the tube station. Let's just say...Dr. V was right. It's so hard traveling with so many bags, especially if they're heavy. He walks extremely fast without apologies so, once again, you're speed walking to keep up. That plus all the stairs, the large crowds of people, and the train itself can cause one to quickly become frustrated and exhausted. When we got to our destination we were allowed to grab some snacks and use the restroom. It was here that we discovered an interesting fact.... The train station didn't have trash cans. We looked in the restrooms, even went outside of the train station but didn't find one. There was a lady walking around cleaning so we handed it to her but later found ourselves with more trash from the items we'd finished consuming. Don't get me wrong, the place was spotless but there weren't trash cans anywhere.
After getting over this shock we started to board the train and settled into our seats. This train was so much better than the one we rode into London on. We had more room and there was enough space for all of our luggage. It took two hours to arrive but once we got there the speed walking started again 😏. We arrived to a jammed packed station and was given directions just in case we got separated. The train in Paris is a whole lot different than London. Maybe it's just the language barrier, I don't know but I already feel like London has won the best city of this trip.
