Begin forwarded message:
From: colette <colettes@gmail.com>
Date: December 22, 2009 19:11:03 GMT+01:00
To: bjbaisch@aebike.com, Douglas Stevenson <doug@aebike.com>, Cullen Stevenson <cullenstev@gmail.com>
Cc: Toby Gee <tobygee@gmail.com>
Subject: xmas adventures!
hey guys,
wow, we've had some travel adventures so far! so we missed the
blizzard on saturday night, which basically closed down boston logan
airport. we didn't have any problems getting out. when we got to
london, reports had come out that eurostar trains had gotten stuck in
the tunnels for 17 hours! weather problems, they kept sending trains
into the tunnel for some reason, complete chaos. so sunday they ran
"test trains," and we made some backup plans as we were due to get
eurostar out on monday.
we got a taxi at 4:30am to charing cross station to get to dover to
take a ferry. we waited for 30 mins to see which track,only to have
the train canceled! we got on the phone right away and finally found a
cab company that would take us all the way for only a little more than
the train had originally cost. we were aiming for the 8:30am ferry,
but as we drove trhough a spot of blizzard in kent, we knew we were
going to miss it.
we got to the ferry terminal and turned out all the ferries were
delayed as well, so we managed to get on the first ferry of the day at
9:30, which wasn't especially busy. the whole time, we were calling
chris and steve trying to make plans for when we got to france as we
weren't going to make our paris-limoges train unless there was an
incredibly quick connection at calais.
then, steve told us that austerlitz station was closed due to a train
derailment, so that train was canceled as well! smooth ferry
ride,then, we couldn't get off the ferry as the gangway door was
frozen shut...
cian and i decided we wanted to rent a car as we didn't trust the
trains at this point, so we picked up a van in calais after dragging
our luggage through the deep snow. was supposed to be a 5 hour drive,
but ended up taking about 9 hours as the roads were pretty bad. got to
limoges station and steve met us so we could return the car, and then
the drive out to the house.
turns out that after we left dover, hordes of people arrived with the
same idea, and there was a mob scene-- they had call the police,
people were waiting for hours. in calais, the whole terminal was full
of people trying to get back to england, apparently the ferry
company's ticketing system broke, which slowed things down even more.
i guess about 200,000 people have been "displaced" by the eurostar
failure, tons of people camping out at kings cross and paris gare du
nord...even though it was a stupidly long day, we got here and had
some sparkling wine and dinner in the middle of the night, so were
pretty lucky
hopefully you guys aren't having weather too much!
xo/c
