2010 Trip: To Crewe

8th June 2010

Today, after a leisurely start and having given up on breakfast at the hostel entirely, I saddled up my pack and braved the subway to Gare de Nord. I left my luggage here (after a fairly thorough scanning process) and went in search of a bakery that Angela had recommended.

I found it after a short walk. For my (and your) future reference, the place is Du Pain et des Idées (34 Rue Yves Toudic). I think has some of the best croissants, pain au chocolat, and escargot I have ever had! Oh, and fennel and goats cheese pastries. Yum!

I wandered back to the station, munching happily and caught another train to the airport. Everything was checked in and after a long wait we were on our way to London. To be honest, I probably should have taken the train across the channel, but I didn’t really think about that at the time.

Air France, our carrier, is not one I can now recommend. So many little things. I was talking to someone just as we were about to board (now 20 minutes late) about how they had lost his bags and just forgotten to allocate a gate for a particular flight and had to sit in the plane for three hours while it got sorted out. On this flight, we got checked by security twice at the gate lounge (not including security itself) by incompetent staff. They waited about 40 minutes after everyone had boarded for a piece of luggage.

When we got to Heathrow, everyone got out of the plane and they just forgot that one needs to unlock the doors at the end of the jetway so people can actually get out (maybe more Heathrow’s fault, that one). But that is enough rambling, I made it to London.

I got myself an oyster card and headed to the centre. I was interested to find that the Circle Line is now more of a spiral - I shed a small tear. I went to Paddington as that was obviously the place I needed to catch my train from. It took me about half an hour to realise that I should actually be at Euston, but it was ok as I had tonnes of time!

I caught a Virgin train service north to Crewe and my reservation had be sitting at a table with a young couple, Ben and Saffron, celebrating their marriage anniversary. They had bought a bottle of wine with them and proceeded to politely importune me with several drinks. Ben even headed off and bought another bottle at some point on the trip. By the time I departed at Crewe, we had had excellent discussions on such topics as French cheeses, the British countryside, travelling, eating meat - arguments for and against (I seem to get that topic a lot… hmmm), their jobs, their upcoming move to Bangladesh, and New Zealand. They seemed like awesome people! (Guys, if you stumble upon this, please do come visit me in NZ!)

I walked out onto the platform to meet my two aunts, Shena and Yvonne, who seemed pleased to see me despite my obvious inebriation. We headed back to their place, which I hadn’t seen before, and met their old Burmese cats again - Patrick and Lottie. Shena had made some lasagna, so we had a TV dinner and then called it a night. It was so nice to sleep in a real (by real, I mean decent) bed again!