Not much to report at the moment except that I'm enjoying my Toussaints vacation in Londres (aka London). I've made it alive and without too many issues. Actually, once I got out of France, my travel woes essentially ended. What could I possibly mean by that?
Well, Belley is quite far from airport (read civilization) and so I had to take a dizzying combination of planes, trains, and automobiles (not in that order)--all thoughtfully scheduled--to arrive in London last Friday afternoon. Alas. I started my day at 4:50 because I needed to catch the 6:10 bus from Belley to Virieu le Grand Belley train station since my train was to leave at 7:55. I did it without problem. Upon arrival at the train station at 6:29, I was much dismayed to see that the train station was not actually open and that I would have to wait outside in the bitter cold for my train for about an hour and a half. I started listening to back episodes of Gouda Radio. At 7:10, a man showed up to open the station and let me in so that I could get some feeling in my bod. I went inside and rested by the heater for a few minutes before queuing for the guichet. When I reached the front of the line, I asked for a ticket to Geneva airport. He immediately made a face like it was going to be an issue and consulted a timetable for the trains running during the grève and informed me that the first train going to Geneva would not leave until 9:52. That would have been fine if my plane didn't leave at 10:50. So I told him that wouldn't work for me and went outside to call a cab. The woman at "Taxi Chantal" answered quickly, told me it wouldn't be impossible to find someone to drive me, and called me back within 5 minutes to tell me she had successfully found me a female driver who would pick me up in a grey car.
Glorious. I waited outside and the woman fetched me and it was beautiful. Until I looked at signs and realized I was taking a cab from further from the airport than where I had started. Perfect. Then we arrived at the airport and I said, I hope I can pay with credit card (considering that it was a 130€ trip) and she looked at me like, "You crazy fool," and said, "I don't have a card reader."
Then I told her I could go find a cash machine and she said she'd come with me. So the taxi driver and I start walking around the Geneva airport looking for an ATM and we find one that says it wil give scrilla in euros, dollars, or CHF (Swiss francs), but by that it actually means that it will only give CHF, which she doesn't want because she lives in France. In the end she tells me to give her 150 CHF and 10€ to even out the exchange rate. Then I got on the plane and into London without issue. First stop: Borough Market. Next post will be up next week sometime. (I get back to France on Tuesday.)
Queuing with the best of them,
Yessica
P.S. On Thursday night, I went to a dégustation (food tasting) at Sabine's. Food was good. I was too nerveuse (srsly?) to speak for 90% of the time even though it was just Marc, Sabine, Sabine's hubby, and Nicole for the majority of it. But, to be fair, a significant portion was spent on nuclear energy in France. Not much to say on that subject even in English.
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