Stranded in Paris...Making Our Way Home

Okay....I know it sounds bad to say "We got stranded in Paris" but it wasn't like we had time to swing by and see the Eiffel Tower or any other sites. With the Eurostar closed indefinitely we were pretty desperate to just find a way to get home. Granted if they would have told us that things would have been up and running two days later and with them paying for our hotel and food while we were there we could have taken in the sites, but no information was being shared. Rumors of all sorts were running wild in the queues and queues of people with tempers flaring.

Sarah had found us two rooms at a hotel not far from the train station. We ended up on a crazy taxi ride with a driver not knowing where he was going and took 3x as long to get to the hotel and then said we owed him more money than what the the meter read. Of course we couldn't read French and it was written on the inside of the cab window that it was an extra 3 Euro for the luggage and 5 Euro for having a baby with us. So what should have been really a 5 Euro taxi ride turned into a 15 Euro ride and he didn't give us a receipt to turn in...didn't start our "stranded" time out very well.

The rooms we got in Paris were actually pretty nice for Paris. Most complaints people have about Paris is that rooms are very small and very expensive. We got two triple rooms, but had both of our kids with us. Addie got her own little single bed and Kevin, Harry and I squeezed in a tiny double bed. Kevin and I ventured out to find us some food since it was late we didn't want to take the kids out so we found a little supermarket to buy some lunch meat, bread, butter, fruit and drinks. Same stuff we had been eating all day but it was the easiest thing we could think of. We actually had a computer at the hotel to check out ferries and train tickets for the next day if the Eurostar wasn't up and running. We did get to email family to let them know we were okay as we were sure this would make the international news. We didn't get too much sympathy when we said we were "stranded in Paris," but they were glad to hear from us.

One cool thing about Paris and about Europe in general is that things are so laxidasical. Of course why wouldn't you have Heineken in the pop/snack machine!!!

The next morning at 5:30 Mike, Kevin and I headed up to the train station to get in line with the Eurostar by 6AM as they requested we do. That didn't amount to anything other than we ventured to buy ourselves train tickets to Calais to try to catch the ferry to Dover. We headed back to the hotel to get packed up and all headed back to the train station for our noon train out.
Our only little bit of site seeing was seeing a pretty church just a block or so from Gare du Nord train station and the really cool Metro sign outside the front entrance.

We tried getting a sit down lunch but the staff wasn't being too cooperative with us and we didn't want to waste time and miss our train so we grab yet more cold sandwiches and chips to fill our bellies. We caught our train, but we had to make a connection in another town. On our first leg we were in the same situation as everyone else and of course you all start talking. We found out from a lady that all the ferry tickets were sold out, but we could try ringing them to see if we could get some while were on our way. Kevin had no luck booking anything and it looked as though we were going to spend another night over in Calais. I just started to sob while I held Harrison in my arms while he finally took a nap and just ached that I couldn't get my kids home. Then I thought about bugging Sarah again and I text her. About 20 minutes later she texts back and says she got us the last 6 tickets on the 7PM ferry!!!! It felt like Christmas came early. But as we made our connection that train was delayed and when we finally got on it, it was so jam packed with people and luggage that there was literally no where to move or sit. I did get a spot to hold me and both of the kids but it was an agonizing 45 minute ride.

When we got to Calais there was about 6 inches of snow on the ground and people all moving in a herd towards the shuttle buses to get to the port. While at the back of the queue someone came up to us and said, "you have children, come with me up to the front of the line." What a nice gesture and we were on our way in less than 10 minutes. Once we got to the port we had no clue what to do. There were well over a thousand people standing in line all the way outside. Again we had someone approach us and tell us that if we had children to come inside and since we had booked tickets that we could move to the front of the line. It was awful pushing our way through loads of people with our stroller and luggage...you could just feel the glares. Then we sat and waited for at least an hour before we got to the front of the line to have our ticket printed and then everything was bottle-necked because the police weren't allowing people through until the boat was searched. Then security only let about 50 people at a time through for passport control. Then we stood in another line to get on busses to take us onto the actual ferry. I think we got to Calais at 3 and finally were on the ship by 6:30. Again we got lucky since we had the kids and a stroller we got to take the lift up straight away and got straight into the cafe for a really nice fish and chips meal.

We were pretty much done eating before the ship took off at around 7PM. Since we had over an hour or so to kill Sally and I took the kids to the arcade to play on the cars and Dance, Dance Revolution. We had heard that the ferries normally take on about 30-40 foot passengers a time but they were now trying to accommodate over 500 a journey. I made comment that it felt like the "Evacuation of Dunkirk" when the British evacuated over 250,000+ troops in something like 48 hours from France during WWII. It didn't matter if you had tickets booked or not (that just got you to the front of the line), they were filling up the boats with first come first serve.

It was actually a really nice journey across, but again once we got to Dover it was chaos again. We got off the boat and got piled onto shuttle busses that we thought were bringing us to the train station, but turns out they driver told me he was just driving us through the terminal to passport control. He also said that the shuttle buses to the train stations weren't running anymore. They took the drivers off of that route to pick up all people from the ships. Our options were to catch a cab or walk two miles to the train station. Well with 500 people fighting for transportation, I tried booking it to the taxi area. The line was already 50+ people long and no cabs in sight, so we followed the flow of walkers to the train station. Kevin and I went ahead with the kids to sort out a train. We had purchased tickets over the phone to insure we had a spot on the train and they had to be used by midnight or I was out 72 GBP.

Well we got to the train station to discover that all Eurostar passengers could use their Eurostar tickets for valid passage on the train to London....WHAT!!!! I just shelled out 72 GBP for a FREE ride!!!! Any who...there was a 9PM train on the high speed SouthEast Rail right into St. Pancras station...AWESOME!!! This way when we got to London all we had to do was walk across to King's Cross and not have to fight the Underground.

As we waited for our train, one of the famous steam locomotives came trudging through. It was pulling one of those fancy dinner trains that you get to eat a 5 course meal while taking a 2+ hour train ride in a proper dining car. Found out later that the "steamies" (Thomas tank engine lingo) were actually helping out move people up to London because they weren't affected by the weather since they didn't rely on electronics used by the other trains that were having troubles.

We got to London around 11 and just made it onto a really packed First Capitol Connect train which seemed very strange to me for a Monday night so late. Of course we were in such a hurry and just wanted to catch a train and with no schedule we happened to catch one of the long trains (meaning it stopped at every stop - almost an hour and a half). We found out that trains got suspended into Cambridge because it was snowing and they were sending everyone to Hitchin to catch shuttle busses into Cambridge and that is why the train was so full. What a miserable night for all those people as well.

We called for a cab on the way back and it was nice having them waiting for us. We didn't get home until about 1:15AM on Tuesday, but at least we were home. What an adventure....