It is Friday my first travelling day:
A long night of packing brought me at least approximately one hour proper sleep and a lot of bad looks from my room made (I am not sure yet if he really recognised me during the night or if this looks were just an sleeping reaction). But anyway, I had to wake up early because I haven’t booked any tickets for the Eurostar to Paris (my first destination). I used an Interrail ticket what should bring me around Europe in 22 days for 475,- € (because I am over 26). The good thing on it you can use it for the most of the trains in Europe and some ferries but for some of the faster or more special once you need to do a reservation. That is the reason I had to call to check for a reservation, what brought me prompt to my first Problem. Sometimes the amount of reduced tickets for a journey are limited, so happen for all the connections from London to Paris at this day. The next possibility would have been on the next day around 12pm arriving 4 hours later. What means I would have lost my first one and a half day or paid £170 for travelling that day with the Eurostar.
So the first improvisation was required. Instead of the Eurostar now I used two trains (starting at 11.53am in London Bridge) those brought me to Dover where I took the ferry to Calais. On that way I met my first helpful contact on my trip. Stefan from Switzerland (see pictures below) who was actually also a traveller (he was travelling a lot in the past) who is just placed in a small town in the South East of England at this moment to improve his English for a couple of month. Luckily he was just on the run going to visit a friend of him who lived in Lille and he was fluent in French too, what helped a lot finding that there weren’t got any connections to Paris for my reducer ticked for the rest of the day. The earliest train I I could have used without paying would have been on the next day around 12.40pm (and I guess it would have been the Eurostar again). So another alternative was required. It was nearly 6.30pm. With a little quiz to the train service assistant we found there will be another two trains from Lille and an earlier connection to Lille with just one change between. So we started after my first experience in ordering some sausages without any clue of French.
In Lille I said good bye to Stefan after booking the second train to Paris what let me arrive there at half past eleven still on that Friday! (so I reached my daily aim for my first stop) I had some time in Lille to check out some sleeping possibilities, which were often totally booked out but I had a little clue where to go to get some more advice. What brought me a relative cheap first accommodation right in the centre of Paris with 20€ included breakfast if I am out of the room until 8am.
Another really helpful gadget for my Paris stay poped up as I found one of this Citybikes unlooked on my way to the Hostel, which I took with me. Because after checking inn and doing some stuff at the internet I thought about my planned aim for that day and actually it meant seeing the Eifel Tower and doing a picture. So why not using the chance and having a night picture? I started at 2am to explore Paris by night with my new bike looking for the Eifel Tower. Passing by to some Cube Art on a bridge alongside some Rats in front of the Cathedral Notre Dame de Paris to parts of the Champs Elysées. After a little more than an hour I start wondering that I still couldn’t see the lighted up Tower until I recognised a really black needle over the top of the skyline roofs. And I was nearly upset that they just choose the night I have been in Paris as the energy saving day! But I have been so far so I had to do the rest as well. What brought me a funny surprise. Nearly arrived at this dark sculpture I recognised some fire worker trucks in the area not really special for a big city like Paris but those ones went directly to the bottom of the tower what made me a little wondering because it was 3.30am in the morning, the tower was closed and nobody would be on it to have lighted up a fire… but there were some people on it, climbing the outer stairs to the first platform. They seems like random tourists but the fire worker might avoid some suicide candidates. So the Eifel tower was lighted up for me and I did my picture!
I got it!!!
Now I could, satisfied about it, start my way home to have my well earned sleep.
