Day 4 Departing to Paris

Volleyball Tour Blog  – Day 4 London to Paris.

Today is a travel day… we are leaving London and going to Paris. 

We had an easy morning and did not have any set time to have breakfast. Most of us slept in until about 9am and went down to breakfast. We pack our bags the night before so we were ready to head out the door after breakfast. We were only about 15 minutes from the St. Pancras International train station we had a chartered motor coach to transfer us to the train station . The coach company sent a smaller coach than we ordered and we needed to divide into 3 departure groups.  The first of our group departed the hotel at 10am the second group departed at 10:45am and the last group departed at about 11:15am.   We arrive to the train station and had some time to wait for our train.  Taking the Eurostar is similar to what we do for an airline flight there is the checkin and then the security check.   We checked in we had our luggage screened, and proceeded to the passport control and got another stamp for our passports, and then went into the secure area to wait for our boarding announcement.  One can tell who the experienced train travlers are and thoes who are not....  I have to admit we were not too smooth in our boarding process… The train car has two entrances to it one on each end of the car…we all lined up at ONE…. thus taking much longer than the expierence Europeans…. It seemed like all of the other cars were already loaded… and we still had people on the boarding platform. After a few minutes time … everyone was on board… and shortly after that the train started to move.. silently and smoothly.
In about 30 - 45 minutes and without and and special announcement… we were UNDER THE ENGLISH CHANNEL…. Traveling at about?? 100 miles per hour…. And in 28 minutes we were back into the sun light and into FRANCE.  Once we entered France… the train went even faster…. Up to 200 miles per hour.. The cars and trucks on the freeway next to us looked like they were standing still…. Really … standing still. In no time at all we were pulling into the Gare du Nord train station, our final stop of our train ride. The train station is one of those big old …scary ones that you see in the old movies…. Our hotel was … right across the street. The check in took only about 5 minutes which was amazing considering the number of people that we had to check in. 
At 6:30pm we walked to the top of Sacre Coure to see Paris from one of the highest points.
We returned to the hotel at about 9pm.  Curfew was 11:30pm everyone was home safe and sound.
Tomorrow starts the tournament.