Typical. Glorious sunshine, on the day I leave. Hmm. Anyway, I had to check out of the hotel by midday and couldn't check in for the train until nearly 7pm, and had pretty much everything done already except buy chocolate to bring home. Good job I had a book with me that I'd just started - interesting biography of the pope. He's an interesting character. I can testify to this, because I got the book finished in plenty of time to go to the train station.
I'd accidentally booked for two people to begin with, and although I later amended the booking, I was annoyed, when I checked my bill afterward, to discover that they'd charged me two sets of room tax. Bah humbug. Well, it was hardly worth going back to complain over a few Euros. Also, I noted that they'd automatically added a charge for two breakfasts for each day, although the man at the desk did check with me that I hadn't had any, and removed them. Good thing too - the breakfast charge came to €84! Bad form to put them on automatically, I think.
I moved around town a bit to read the various chapters of my book. Spent a large part of the afternoon in the Bois de Boulogne, where there was a funfair. Very pleasant in the sunshine. Wound my way slowly back to the town centre, and when I'd finished my book, decided to check out St. Maurice's church again. Sure enough, the dependable Roma had again taken up position there, and again I skipped it.
And went chocolate shopping. Which is quite a fraught practice, you know! First, there's the problem of affordability. Then, there's the problem of choice. One shop looked promising, until I noticed that the bags of sweeties I was looking at, which seemed reasonably priced, were €60 and €80 respectively. That shop looked much less attractive after that, and I ended up in Benoit Chocolatier, in Theatre Square. I was lucky - they used not to open on Mondays. Anyhoo, I made some delectable purchases there, and went back to the hotel to collect my case, which they'd been holding for me. She asked whether I needed the toilet - very helpful, the staff there - and when I said that would be good, she told me where the public toilets are and asked whether she could hold anything for me. She looked very torn when I gave her the chocolates.. but, to her credit, they seemed untouched when I returned.
Made my way to the station, only to find out that check-in wasn't open yet. So I got something to eat at the café, and even gave someone directions to town. How chuffed am I when I actually know the directions to give someone, despite being fairly new to a place myself. And it's even better when it's in a foreign language, and they understand me. :-)
Delays on the Eurostar because of long, long queues at immigration in Brussels, apparently, and then we were held at St Pancras, what with the backlog at immigration there. Honestly, such checking.. I was checked three times on the return trip. There were passport checks for both France and the UK at Lille, then another check in London. Now, that's just silly, considering that there was only one going over. Similarly, when I go to Ireland, there are two checks - one each side - and when I fly back to London, there's only one. Get your act together, folks.. this contrasts with in-station security in Lille, when I was allowed through the metal detector with my coat, which of course caused it to beep, given that it had keys in the pocket, and the security guy just waggled the handheld detector at my ankle and waved me on. I dunno..
BTW, link to Lille pictures: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10202156355614663.1073741834.1361836980&type=1&l=98340cb3b4
Back to normal tomorrow, I guess. Going to The Pride in Trafalgar Studios tomorrow night, on one of those cheapie lastminute.com tickets for "Theatre Week". We shall see how that pans out!
No comments:
Post a Comment