Eurostar! My favorite mode of transport!

I have always had a thing for trains. Even as a kid, I used to run to the balcony at the mere sound of a train horn. And my grandparents and my uncles used to live right across where the tracks used to pass in the city. And it was a constant stream of trains. Suburban transports, freight, shunting trains, broken down trains, all sorts of engines. It was a thrill to catalog the different styles of engines and I had my own code to define each of them. So much so that I could actually decipher the train codes and their destination sequence. Yeah! I was a whack job. Get this! When I used to visit my grandparents as a kid, they had a balcony which had a utility ladder that had 4 legs and a top. Like an oversized coffee table except it was a ladder. I remember taking pen and drawing dials in the little gap and pretend it was a engine window. Har-di-har! Laugh as much as you will, but that was my fantasy as a 5 year old. And trust me, although I got out of the whole ladder business, trains still fascinate me. And when Microsoft released Train Simulator, it was a dream come true. I could not ever hope to drive one in the real world. But I could do it in a virtual world. And boy! Did Microsoft hit a jackpot.

Enough of that. So I reach Waterloo after a long 14 hour flight to Heathrow, 40 minute immigration, 40 minutes to Waterloo and then 1 hour wait for my train. The journey to Paris was smooth, comfortable and fast.

Close to 300 KM was the speed and it was fun. They have improved since the last time I traveled. More comfortable and less noise. Since I had done an Internet booking, I got a sweet deal for a very reasonable price. I was served Champagne and wine with some nice cheese, breakfast on route to Paris. How cool! 9:30 AM and I am already getting tanked.