The Eurostar Experience

The last two weekends I went home, first for Thanksgiving, and then to help my parents unpack all the boxes into the new (almost finished) house (yeah!).

Mom, Beau and I enjoying the new living room!

This required four trips (obviously) under the channel on the Eurostar. Recently, as I’m sure everyone knows, there was a fire in the Chunnel, disrupting the Eurostar service until next year.

Therefore, instead of the normal 2 hour journey, these trips have been anywhere from 2 hours and 20 minutes to 3 and a half hours. Now, on my way in on Monday morning (leave London at 5:54AM, arrive in Brussels at 9:20ish AM), I usually sleep, so I am not sure why there were delays on that trip, but on the others, the reason given was “due to construction, the trip under the channel took longer than planned”.

But the Eurostar experience as a whole is usually très interesting. There is such a mix of people it’s great. There’s ALWAYS, American college students, usually with a big backpack and lots of travel guides, the European (usually German or Italian) young traveler, usually in dreadlocks and a bandanna, the businessman/woman on his or her laptop, looking very important and busy and the British holidaymakers either drunk 30 some-things (usually men in football jerseys) or an older couple on an anniversary trip.

I was trying to decide what category I belong in, as I am so easy to slot everyone else in a category, and I haven’t come up with a conclusion yet. I suppose, I would look like a business person, as I am usually dressed for work on the train, however, I never do anything very productive, except for maybe read/edit a report and then nap. I also usually just bring my Nike backpack (very unprofessional), so I guess I’m a combination of American tourist (sans tourist books) and business person? I have also started to bring my own food, as the train food makes me want to vomit. So at one point I pull out a little packed dinner/breakfast and munch away, (this snack usually consists of spéculoos, a yogurt and a sandwich, wrapped in an old Financial Times I stole from work, which I usually end up reading...try to read around the mustard stain!).

I will be back home for Christmas on the evening of the 23rd, so hopefully I will be able to find a new category I will be able to slot myself into during my 2 hours of intensive people watching.