Strategy to Defeat Jet Lag

We were flying over Iceland at 4:30 in the morning. A luminescent blue sky was divided from the steel grey clouds below by a brilliant orange strip as the sun came up. I sent some good vibes to Caitlin and Tyson. Our Air Transat experience was not as bad as we thought it would be although the food was a bit of a joke.

We arrived at grotty Gatwick and walked the miles to Baggage Claim. Our bags were both there. Then the fun began. The weather was drizzly and grey.  Monday morning  rush hour and the trains are on a “go slow” - some of the crews were not reporting for work so some trains were cancelled. Our train was delayed because of an “incident” in Brighton. Oh Yes! We’re back in England. We finally squeezed on to a standing-room-only car.



St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel (the station is just behind)

We got to St. Pancras International station four hours before our booking to Lille in France.  “This is a ‘Red Alert’ station”, the cheery cashier at M&S (Marks and Spencers) announced when I asked if she had a garbage can for my empty paper coffee cup. Garbage cans are not allowed due to bomb threats. She helped me sort through my handful of English money. Some of it was from the 70’s and not valid currency any more. Sigh. The station has groups of police in their black and white checkerboard and citron uniforms. They seemed more interested in chatting amongst themselves than surveying the crowd.



Mmmm warmish, flat English Ale

 

After coffee and a light breakfast/lunch/dinner we did several laps of the station looking for the Eurostar ticket office to see if we could go on an earlier train. Yes, we could, for sixty pounds ($111). We cheaped out and braved the rain to go to a pub across the street.  Laurie said it had been a long time since he had drunk beer at 3:30 am (Vancouver time). 




Tea pot collection at the pub.

There was an issue in the tunnel so the trains were iffy. We left on time but after hanging around on sidings we arrived in Lille an hour and half late, smack in the middle of rush hour.  Standing in the horizontal rain for half an hour really took the edge off the start to our vacation, especially as people kept stealing the taxis before they got to the start of the taxi queue.  I may have mentioned something about wanting to go home :)

 We were concerned about the missing the rendezvous with the person who is managing suites-to-let for Schindler Rentals. Laurie had found them on Booking.com. The taxi driver turned things around for us by being the best of his profession that we have ever encountered. He was having trouble finding the address that we had been given due to the illegibility of the numbers and the tricky way the street names only last about a couple of curvey blocks then change to a different name entirely. He eventually turned the meter off and phoned the contact to get verbal directions. He left us on the corner by #2 Rue de Priez to await Marion. While we were standing around a group of 5-6 teens asked us to step aside and they casually kicked the building front door open. It is supposed to be opened with a fob; kind of them to be concerned with our safety though.

This apartment is called the Warhol suite. I’m not sure if it was named to reflect the print of Campbell’s Tomato Soup or the general lack of toilet paper, linen, clean fridge, comfortable bed…We asked ourselves at dinner why we didn’t cruise as others our age do. But then if we’d been on a cruise we would have missed the lovely family run restaurant down the street with great food at a very reasonable price.

Well tomorrow is another day; I’m sure there will be plenty of opportunities to once again encounter legions of drunk Irish football fans. At least the journey with its imposed lack of sleep and no real meal until 8:00 pm (France time) should positively affect our jet lag.