London to Paris to Kaiserslautern Germany

Today we take the Eurostar from London, through the Chunnel to Paris, where we walk to a different station and take a Deutsche Bahn train across France and into Germany where we stop at the main station in Kaiserlautern. As a little boy I remember reading in the “Weekly Reader” about the Chunnel construction; I never dreamed I would travel through it on my own Grand Tour!

The Eurostar train was beautiful and we were surprised by how short the travel time under the English Channel was. We headed underground and were just starting to take it in the fact that we were under the channel when suddenly the sunlight poured in and we were in France. And then just as quickly we were in Paris. Arriving in Paris was big for me as it is the only city in the world that Sarah had visited but I had not! Of course two train stations in Paris were all I would see as we will not be fully exploring Paris until we return in a couple months. Nevertheless, dragging our luggage through this part of the city was exciting.

Before long my exuberance diminished and when I found myself needing to carry all our luggage down a million steps to get to the second train station! So much for traveling light! But we made it! While in Paris Tommy got to experience the first of what will be countless pay toilets, and then after a snack we were back on the train to Kaiserslautern. The scenery was again lovely and soon we were in Kaiserslautern (not quite as lovely). After the challenge of locating a cab that actually wanted a fare, (the first wanted to sit and smoke for a while), we headed to our Conference Hotel outside of the city proper in a beautiful mountain village in the German Palatine Forest. Without a doubt this was as lovely a spot as anything we saw on our trip from London.

We got settled into our room, had a lovely dinner at the restaurant/pub, and prepared for the conference to start tomorrow! Yes, folks we really will be earning our living over here. –Although, for the record I have been teaching online until this week when I submitted final grades for Winter Term!