Today it’s time to travel from Paris to London. Okay, so the taxi company has the same trouble finding Rue St Roch (another one-way street in the 1st arrondissement) as they did Rue de la Sourdiere. The driver when he arrives asks me if I speak French, and then if I want to speak English, so he can practice. He has my vote for the best taxi driver I’ve encountered anywhere in the world. His English is excellent, and when I ask him where he learnt, he tells me he learnt as part of his job, as many of his passengers are Chinese or Japanese businessmen who speak English rather than French. He tells me he wants to ‘lose his French accent’ when he is speaking English, as he thinks it doesn’t sound right. I tell him to keep the French accent!
All in all, a high point to end this trip to Paris on.
The Eurostar to London is as efficient as usual, and other than English immigration admiring my Tristan da Cunha passport stamp, I arrive with 6 hours before the plane to Melbourne leaves Heathrow. The taxi ride between St Pancras and Paddington is uneventful for a Friday evening in London, but they are making a mess of Paddington Station whilst they are building a new rail link.
The Heathrow Express is heaving, even though there is a train every 15 minutes. At Terminal 3, the line for the VAT refund is something to behold – 90 minutes to reach the head of the queue. Glad I’m not trying to do this during the Olympics!
Well, this is it until 2013, where the plan is to travel to Hong Kong, Norway, Iceland, Greenland, Svalbard, London and Paris!
