So I didn't tell you about my trip to England and France did I.... that's probably because I do not want to relive the horror and the trauma, but i'll tell you anyway. since people asked.
Monday Dec 19th at 6pm was the flight, so of course we had to be there 3 hours earlier at 3pm in order to get processed so we could sit and wait 2 hours for our plane to arrive. Which is normal for any start of a plane trip. However I knew this trip was going off on a bad start when the airport taxi arrived and instead of being a van was a regular sized car.. for 4 people.. with 9 pieces of luggage. After 10 minutes of squishing our bags into the back trunk and the front seats and holding whatever luggage we could on our laps we made for the airport.
Pearson Airport is incredibly large and incredibly busy and not the kind of place I would like to come to every day, but at the very least we got checked in without any fuss (no bags overweight thankfully), made it through security (well I did anyway, my mother and my sister couldn't seem to make it through any of the metal detectors without setting them off), and then sat and waited in the waiting area near our plane. I must admit I still am fascinated with x-ray machines we flew KLM, (which I am never flying again) and this is were the fun begins. Our plane was on-time however we spent an extra 10 minutes before take off for whatever reason, probably so the pilot could smoke some crack. So while we are in the air the pilot says that he will be delayed maybe a 10 minute delay upon reaching Amsterdam, where we are making out connecting flight to England. All in all it was a nice flight, the meal was decent (no one got food poisoning) the movie I didn't bother watching and the alcohol was free.
Turns out we miss our connection to England by 5 minutes. and were 30- minutes late getting in, it was like a scene out of "Home Alone" were the family is running through the airport trying to catch their plane, however on reaching our gate (which had already closed), we were greeted by KLM stewardess that informed us that we had been booked on the next connection flight and again we would only be delayed by 30 minutes... "so there was nothing to worry about please go sit over there" by now it was 10-11 in the morning in Amsterdam.... and our connection to France wasn't until 2 in the afternoon. Oh yes, instead of booking a direct flight to France we were going the long way, which was being made ever so longer.
it was made even longer still when they cancelled our rescheduled connection flight and then took 2 hours to find us another flight! I ended up having to stand in line to get a phone card so I could call the train station and try and save our train tickets.. and in doing so save having to pay 235 POUNDS to get new tickets. because on reaching England we still had to meet up with my uncle so he could take our extra bags, and then we still had to take public train to get to Waterloo station were the train to Paris was waiting for us.
We were very lucky that they didn't charge us 235 pounds again for missing out train. However by now it was already 5 in the afternoon and we were still in England waiting for a train. Then it was another 2 hours to Paris.
on no sleep for almost 2 days and finally in Paris sometime around 7-8 pm we had to take ANOTHER subway train to get to our hotel. I must admit with the little that I was able to see of Paris in the dark I was still very impressed. Though it is always scary to go to a new place. We were lucky to find someone how was nice enough to direct us to the right train platform so that we could get to our hotel. Which took another 20 minutes to get to. So in the end it took us almost 24 hours to reach out hotel from toronto. and I was tired very tired.. but we had to wake up early next day to go site seeing..... but thats the next day
Monday Dec 19th at 6pm was the flight, so of course we had to be there 3 hours earlier at 3pm in order to get processed so we could sit and wait 2 hours for our plane to arrive. Which is normal for any start of a plane trip. However I knew this trip was going off on a bad start when the airport taxi arrived and instead of being a van was a regular sized car.. for 4 people.. with 9 pieces of luggage. After 10 minutes of squishing our bags into the back trunk and the front seats and holding whatever luggage we could on our laps we made for the airport.
Pearson Airport is incredibly large and incredibly busy and not the kind of place I would like to come to every day, but at the very least we got checked in without any fuss (no bags overweight thankfully), made it through security (well I did anyway, my mother and my sister couldn't seem to make it through any of the metal detectors without setting them off), and then sat and waited in the waiting area near our plane. I must admit I still am fascinated with x-ray machines we flew KLM, (which I am never flying again) and this is were the fun begins. Our plane was on-time however we spent an extra 10 minutes before take off for whatever reason, probably so the pilot could smoke some crack. So while we are in the air the pilot says that he will be delayed maybe a 10 minute delay upon reaching Amsterdam, where we are making out connecting flight to England. All in all it was a nice flight, the meal was decent (no one got food poisoning) the movie I didn't bother watching and the alcohol was free.
Turns out we miss our connection to England by 5 minutes. and were 30- minutes late getting in, it was like a scene out of "Home Alone" were the family is running through the airport trying to catch their plane, however on reaching our gate (which had already closed), we were greeted by KLM stewardess that informed us that we had been booked on the next connection flight and again we would only be delayed by 30 minutes... "so there was nothing to worry about please go sit over there" by now it was 10-11 in the morning in Amsterdam.... and our connection to France wasn't until 2 in the afternoon. Oh yes, instead of booking a direct flight to France we were going the long way, which was being made ever so longer.
it was made even longer still when they cancelled our rescheduled connection flight and then took 2 hours to find us another flight! I ended up having to stand in line to get a phone card so I could call the train station and try and save our train tickets.. and in doing so save having to pay 235 POUNDS to get new tickets. because on reaching England we still had to meet up with my uncle so he could take our extra bags, and then we still had to take public train to get to Waterloo station were the train to Paris was waiting for us.
We were very lucky that they didn't charge us 235 pounds again for missing out train. However by now it was already 5 in the afternoon and we were still in England waiting for a train. Then it was another 2 hours to Paris.
on no sleep for almost 2 days and finally in Paris sometime around 7-8 pm we had to take ANOTHER subway train to get to our hotel. I must admit with the little that I was able to see of Paris in the dark I was still very impressed. Though it is always scary to go to a new place. We were lucky to find someone how was nice enough to direct us to the right train platform so that we could get to our hotel. Which took another 20 minutes to get to. So in the end it took us almost 24 hours to reach out hotel from toronto. and I was tired very tired.. but we had to wake up early next day to go site seeing..... but thats the next day
Paris was wonderful though, saw the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, the Champs. I would totally go again.
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