Date of Travel: 31 August 2011
In 48 hours, I've traveled on a train more than all the train rides I had throughout my entire life. I've traveled almost 2000km by rail in under 2 days.
The trip started in London St. Pancreas station, right beside King's Cross station. It's the international terminal for rail travel into/out of the UK. We took an Eurostar train. Given all the hype and how special it is to do under the channel, I was expecting the train to be all new and high tech. To my disappointment, it was a rather LKK (lao kok kok) train.
(In St. Pancreas)
In 48 hours, I've traveled on a train more than all the train rides I had throughout my entire life. I've traveled almost 2000km by rail in under 2 days.
The trip started in London St. Pancreas station, right beside King's Cross station. It's the international terminal for rail travel into/out of the UK. We took an Eurostar train. Given all the hype and how special it is to do under the channel, I was expecting the train to be all new and high tech. To my disappointment, it was a rather LKK (lao kok kok) train.
(In St. Pancreas)
(At the Eurostar platform)
So we reached Brussels in about 2 hours, crossing a timezone in the English Channel. We spent about 20minutes underwater in the channel. Nothing to see there, though it's supposed to be an engineering feat. I think they could have built plastic/glass tubes so that passengers can look out into the sea, like underwater world. That WILL be an engineering feat and it will be cool.
So anyway, we had a 3 hours transit in Brussels, with no free wifi and no electricity point. It was rather torturous. Nothing to do at all. We did not want to venture into the city as we each had an enormous luggage to be deposited in Vienna. And everyone speak French, vu vu si oui bonjour delifrance etc. We had previously been in UK, where everything is still in English. This is the first time that I feel we are really in a foreign country.
So as the 3 hours dragged past, we were relieved to board the train to Cologne(Koeln). It was on a Thalys train, and it was newer than the Eurostar. It took about 100minutes to reach Cologne. Along the way, the train announcement changed from French - Dutch - German - English to German - French - Dutch - English. Interesting. Imagine if SMRT change the order of the announcement at Little India or Chinatown station. Lol.
After a short 45minutes wait at Cologne, we boarded for the first time an overnight train. We wondered who will be our 4 'roomies'. Hoping to be some hot chio bu, we were disappointed to see 2 aunties already in our cabin. Nonetheless, there were interesting to chat with. They came from Poland but lived in Germany, and they are having a little 'girls' trip to Vienna.
When asked for their favorite european cities:
1) Krakow, Poland(their homeland)
2) Paris, France
3) Prague, Czech Repulic
4) Vienna, Austria
We have 2 other passengers joined us from Frankfurt, an AT who spoke very fluent German and a German who I think is gay.
The small cabin in the train can actually sleep 6 people. Though you can't really sit up right when all the beds are down. The bed is actually not bad at all, rather comfy. Add to the occasional slightly bumpy and noisy sounds of the train, it's very easy to fall asleep quickly. As guys whom completed NS, we have all been trained to sleep in any moving vehicle, especially bumpy and noisy ones (e.g. tonners and rovers).
(reading Harry Potter on my laptop.. yes.. I'm re-reading books 1 to 6 because I want to read book 7 and I've forgotten the rest liao)
Morning came quickly, and we were awoken to our breakfast, 2 bagels and a cup of coffee. Not bad. And finally, we're in Vienna!
So after a day of settling in in Vienna, we took another overnight train to Venice. This time round, no hot chicks as well when we boarded, very disappointed. It was a middle age Czech couple, and we were joined by another man and a young American girl from the east coast.
So to sum up, here are the travel distances we took:
London St Pancreas to Brussels Midi : 373km
Brussels Midi to Cologne : 183km
Cologne to Vienna : 744km
Vienna to Venice : 615km
So we reached Brussels in about 2 hours, crossing a timezone in the English Channel. We spent about 20minutes underwater in the channel. Nothing to see there, though it's supposed to be an engineering feat. I think they could have built plastic/glass tubes so that passengers can look out into the sea, like underwater world. That WILL be an engineering feat and it will be cool.
So anyway, we had a 3 hours transit in Brussels, with no free wifi and no electricity point. It was rather torturous. Nothing to do at all. We did not want to venture into the city as we each had an enormous luggage to be deposited in Vienna. And everyone speak French, vu vu si oui bonjour delifrance etc. We had previously been in UK, where everything is still in English. This is the first time that I feel we are really in a foreign country.
So as the 3 hours dragged past, we were relieved to board the train to Cologne(Koeln). It was on a Thalys train, and it was newer than the Eurostar. It took about 100minutes to reach Cologne. Along the way, the train announcement changed from French - Dutch - German - English to German - French - Dutch - English. Interesting. Imagine if SMRT change the order of the announcement at Little India or Chinatown station. Lol.
After a short 45minutes wait at Cologne, we boarded for the first time an overnight train. We wondered who will be our 4 'roomies'. Hoping to be some hot chio bu, we were disappointed to see 2 aunties already in our cabin. Nonetheless, there were interesting to chat with. They came from Poland but lived in Germany, and they are having a little 'girls' trip to Vienna.
When asked for their favorite european cities:
1) Krakow, Poland(their homeland)
2) Paris, France
3) Prague, Czech Repulic
4) Vienna, Austria
We have 2 other passengers joined us from Frankfurt, an AT who spoke very fluent German and a German who I think is gay.
The small cabin in the train can actually sleep 6 people. Though you can't really sit up right when all the beds are down. The bed is actually not bad at all, rather comfy. Add to the occasional slightly bumpy and noisy sounds of the train, it's very easy to fall asleep quickly. As guys whom completed NS, we have all been trained to sleep in any moving vehicle, especially bumpy and noisy ones (e.g. tonners and rovers).
(reading Harry Potter on my laptop.. yes.. I'm re-reading books 1 to 6 because I want to read book 7 and I've forgotten the rest liao)
Morning came quickly, and we were awoken to our breakfast, 2 bagels and a cup of coffee. Not bad. And finally, we're in Vienna!
So after a day of settling in in Vienna, we took another overnight train to Venice. This time round, no hot chicks as well when we boarded, very disappointed. It was a middle age Czech couple, and we were joined by another man and a young American girl from the east coast.
So to sum up, here are the travel distances we took:
London St Pancreas to Brussels Midi : 373km
Brussels Midi to Cologne : 183km
Cologne to Vienna : 744km
Vienna to Venice : 615km
"an AT who spoke very fluent German and a German who I think is gay." - What is AT?
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