Traveling by train

4:30 came awfully early this morning.  Cas and I were so buoyed by our extra-long nap yesterday that our dinner started after 10 pm.  That pushed bedtime to even later than usual, and made it a bit difficult to get moving at that early hour.  But, we needed to get a move on.  We had to take two metro trains to get to the station where the Eurostar train took us under the English Channel to the UK.  I try not to think about that part too much or question the logic of how it all works.  Things underwater have tremendous pressure exerted on them.  The farther under water you are, the greater the pressure.  What kind of engineering voodoo did they have to get just right to make sure that the tunnel isn’t crushed at any second?  I know it’s a tunnel dug through the earth under the water.  How does that work?  How did they calculate the amount of reinforcement necessary to keep the trains running on time without the walls caving in?  I know there are definite, specific answers to these questions, but I was satisfied this morning just knowing that we made our way safely under the English Channel to the station in London.  

There was a fair amount of nodding off on the train, too.  I know Cas and I were both in need of a little more sleep than we got.  I didn’t spend enough time awake to see if Cas was getting much shuteye, if I’m being honest.  We got to St. Pancras station, got off the train and walked out to the street.  When booking the tickets for all of this, I was told to expect a 10-minute walk from one train station to the other.  That’s not exactly true.  King’s Cross is right across the street from St. Pancras station.  Even though our Chunnel train was a few minutes behind schedule, we had plenty of time to sit at the King’s Cross station, enjoy a sandwich and stop for a quick visit to what was apparently awarded as the United Kingdom’s Loo of the Year for 2023.  Bravo, British bathroom buffs!  It was clean, well stocked and efficient to enter and exit.  We’re on the train from London to Edinburgh, Scotland, where it may be raining upon our arrival.  Apparently, we can spend ten minutes walking to the hotel or we can locate a taxi just outside the train station.  That choice will be weather-dependent.  

We’ll be in Edinburgh about 12 hours after we woke up this morning, give or take.  There’s a walking tour we’ve booked for tomorrow, as well as a Whisky tasting experience, but today, we’re taking it easy after the train pulls into the station.  I genuinely like traveling this way.  I am happy we booked trains- it was just over $200 to get both of from France to England, and that’s the cheapest border crossing involving a body of water that we’ve done since that kayak rental we did at the Rio Grande.  

But that’s going to have to be it for now.  I may just “rest my eyes,” as my grandfather used to say.  It really is a very relaxing way to travel…

Also, we’ve updated the photo album- here it is: tinyurl.com/dunlap-pl