Final Day in Paris and Return to London.

December 10, 2016, Saturday: Paris-London

Final Day in Paris and Return to London.

 

            And so the day finally dawned when I would leave the City of Lights and get back to London. I awoke at 6.30 am, spent an hour catching up through wifi on email and Twitter and at 7.30 am, I began to look for breakfast. For the last couple of days, I had been trying to finish up all the food in my fridge and so I ate bits and bobs and went down to the vending machine for a mocha latte. I began packing right after as my flight from Charles de Gaulle airport was at 6.05 pm. This basically left me with the whole day to go where I pleased when my packing was done. But I was really so exhausted after all the walking I had done for the past week, that I simply stayed local. After accomplishing a great deal of packing, I took a break for a shower and then left my place to take the tram to Stade Charlety, the next stop, to get some chocolate from Franprix for the friends with whom I would be staying in London for a few days. Takign the tram ticked off the last To-Do item on my Paris List!

            Back in my place with my boxes of chocolates, I continued packing, got rid of my garbage, emptied my fridge and put the last bits of my food together in a makeshift lunch that included the last of my smoked salmon, salad leaves, salad dressing, blue cheese and mixed nuts with honey-ginger yoghurt and macarons for dessert. By 1.30 pm, I washed up my lunch things and returned them to the kitchen (plate, bowl, glass, cutlery). I cleaned up, took pictures of my room and by 1.45, I was down at the Reception and returning my keys and saying goodbye to the place I have now called home twice in my life. I thanked them profusely downstairs for providing such a safe, comfortable and reasonably-priced space.

            From the metro station, I took the RER (B) directly to Charles de Gaulle airport where I arrived at exactly 3.00pm for my 6.00 pm Air France flight to London. I arrived at Heathrow at 7.30 pm local time and taking the Tube, I alighted at Warwick Avenue where I reached at about 10.00 pm. I walked to my friend Raquel’s dupleix flat where her husband Chris came to give me a hand with my baggage expecting me to have an outsized case after three weeks away from London. As it turned out, it amazed them all to realize that I had traveled with just a small backpack.

            Raquel very kindly fixed me a bowl of her pasta and meatballs and after a long free-wheeling chinwag, I gave them the gifts I had brought for them (Fragonard perfume for Raquel, chocolates for Chris and Jonas) and then called it a night.           

   It was great to be back in London (which is like a second home to me) and to feel that easy sense of familiarity—although, to be perfectly fair, within a day of being in Paris, it had felt like home to be as well!

Until tomorrow, cheerio…