Paris, Day One - Friday.

The day began with a bumpy start, literally. As we stood on the station platform watching our train to London approach, Stewart noticed a definite "clunking" noise underneath the front carriage. I shrugged, figuring it was nothing more than the rickety tracks of Portslade Station, and boarded the train.

30 minutes later, sitting on a locked train with no air conditioning OR electricity, we were informed by the conducter that there "might" be a problem. He said they were working on the "technical problem", and that he would update us with any details post haste. More minutes passed. Stewart and I had started giving each other worried glances at this point, and he was busy watching them outside of the window work on the train. FINALLY the conductor came back and gave us the cause for our delay. He said, and I quote:

"There appeared to be several large planks of wood stuck underneath the train. In order to solve this problem, we have taken something very large and very heavy, and hit the wood very hard."

Everyone chuckled, the train lurched, and we were on our way.

The time? 2:30. We were still over an hour away from London, and then we were several underground stops, and a passport control away from boarding our Eurostar to Paris.
But we made it to the Eurostar terminal without event.... and boarded the train right on time.

We noticed immediately that our seats were facing backwards. Fun. I love to travel 185 mph in reverse!

It was on the Eurostar that I realized why American have a bad reputation in Europe.
Seated directly across the aisle from us, was a young American man (although I still claim he was Canadian!). He was busy chatting with the poor English guy beside of him, asking really idiot questions about the Eurostar, but that's not all. 15 minutes into the journey, he proceeded to whip out from his backpack an entire deli department. I'm talking a whole loaf of bread, jars of mayo, mustard, and a huge pack of assorted deli cuts.

So he's over there making himself a sandwhich, asking the poor English man if he wants one with crumbs spraying everywhere... and then the stench hits me. I'm talking SERIOUS STENCH. This guy has obviously been walking around with this deli meat in the 84 degrees all day. It STUNK. I'm talking rotten catfood kind of stink. How he ate that stuff is beyond me, it really is.

Here I am, already feeling slightly gross at the prospect of speeding at nearly 200 mph backwards... inhaling these toxic fumes. I nearly upchucked all over myself.

He continued to eat until most of the bread, and every. single. slice. of meat was disposed of.
I'm sure he got really great views of Paris from the toilet in his hostel.

We made it to Paris without incident, in 2 hours and 35 minutes. We checked into our hotel by 10:30pm, and planned to start our day in Paris first thing in the morning.

So ends, part one. ;)