Off to London

Our route into London was limited due to the UK’s silly pet policies. For flights, pets can only be stored in cargo (hence Paris being our first stop), and the train version of the chunnel only allows service animals. This meant we either had to take a ferry or hire a car service to take us across the channel. We toyed with the idea of training to the coast, ferrying across, and training again up into London (splitting it up over a few days to explore/to give the kitties a break) . . . but we ultimately agreed that hiring a door to door van service was well worth the cost.

So we spent Friday packing and tidying up the apartment with a small break in the afternoon to visit Shakespeare and Company, a pretty extraordinary English bookstore right on the river across from Notre-Dame. The ground floor (Rez-de-chaussée) is what you’d expect from your standard (read: excellent) little bookshop - the place is crammed to the gills with options. Upstairs (premier étage) however caught me off guard - it’s full of used books which are not for sale, and full of little reading nooks. The place is chockablock full of history. For example, the original store run by Sylvia Beach (open from 1919–1941) published James Joyce’s Ulysses when no one else would. The wikipedia entry is highly worth a read here.

K promised she’d limit herself to two books . . . but within mere steps of the entrance she was already carting around five. I made it out with some short stories written by the author of the book I just finished (George Saunders “Tenth of December”) and K left with seven, SEVEN, books. With the task of carrying our luggage downstairs tomorrow morning looming overhead, I made the joke that she was trying to kill me. 👼

It was a busy evening and a sleepless night, but everything went smoothly! Trekking our luggage downstairs was somehow more difficult than I remembered the ascent being; shaky legs and stepping down blind was no fun, but apart from a few hairraising hiccups there were no big falls and we made it down in perfect time. Our ride showed up within minutes and was super friendly and professional.

We both ended up snoozing through a fair amount of French countryside but perked up once we got to the eurotunnel entrance. Our driver knew exactly where to go and what to do, which was a huge load off stresswise. We zipped right up to the pet check-in building where they confirmed our paperwork and ensured each cat’s microchip matched. Next was the French passport control booth (also a breeze) followed by the British Border Force (not as breezy - K got the third degree since she was handling the documentation/info/interrogation for both of us). Then we were off to wait in line for the next train, which took a fair amount of time (I love a good queue).

I didn’t really know what to expect - is it just a big highway but underwater? A carwash style moving walkway? But nope, turns out you drive right into vehicle scale (double decker!) train cars. They did allow you to walk around, but I wasn’t feeling very adventurous and it seemed like the only sights were the onboard bathroom, so please forgive my lack of pictures.

I did however capture the evacuation instructions! Behold!!

On the other side, the trip into London was a hoot. Our driver was constantly switching up routes to avoid traffic so we ended up driving through hours of side streets, zig zagging through the various boroughs. Being pretty oblivious to all things London, I had no idea of just how sprawling the place is. We were driving through these beautiful neighborhoods and I kept thinking “surely we must be getting close” only to check the navigation to find we had another hour and a half to go. Totally wild.

But after much zigging and zagging, we finally made it to the Thames!

Our new home for the next considerable amount of time!

We’re on the top floor again, but thankfully the stairs are much more forgiving this time around! The windows are much more cat proof as well, which is a huge relief.

After settling in for a few minutes, we left our sleepy babies to go grab our first bite in London and grab some necessities like a cat box/cat food/wine!

Fish and chips woo! The fish (haddock) in the photo is slightly out of focus, so you’ll just have to trust that it was perfectly crispy and delish. The curry sauce on the right was also the bomb. I ate waaaay too much, but we had green beans so it was healthy!

Then home to hunker down for the next many days to relax and recover.

Beans!

And bedtime:

Checking out for now, ta-ta!