You thought you'd got rid of me!

So, I made it! This morning I woke up in my bed in Wakefield, tonight I'm in Paris, all a bit surreal really. 

I set off this morning at some ungodly hour, to find out the train we were on was taking an alternative route to London due to engineering works, via Lincoln. So we took a scenic route via 'the largest hanging garment warehouse in Europe' (told you I'd remember Mum). Then left my platform party at the Eurostar terminal and cried as soon as I got through the barriers. 

Once on the Eurostar, I faced my first challenge; when packing my suitcase I hadn't accounted for having to lift it above my head height onto a luggage rack. It weighs more than me. Fortunately a friendly man took pity on me and gave me a hand. So a number of strange things happened on my Eurostar experience, firstly apparently colouring an I love yorkshire colouring book with jumbo crayons is not the done thing on long train journeys so that drew some attention to me. I experienced what was probably one of the most bizarre yet endearing train announcements; I heard it in French first and thought I'd misinterpreted but no it did really say 'Attention please: The staff of the Eurostar would like to wish a Happy 65th Anniversary to Muriel and Derek' followed by a weird cover of happy birthday. 

On arrival to Paris after heaving the aforementioned suitcase off the Eurostar and onto the platform, I managed to negotiate my way into the metro station. I was doing so well on the language student front but when a metro ticket machine gives you the option of an English interface you grab that with both hands! 
I learnt 2 things about the metro today; firstly there's signal on the metro, secondly the woman who voices the GCSE French listening assessments, is the same woman that voices the metro stations. 

The aforementioned luggage caused me a multitude of problems involving steps and my short arms and it already lost a foot in the battle. But me and the suitcase made it safetly to the hostel. 

The plan for tomorrow; be the most stereotypical tourist in Paris.