So the end of my stay in England is rapidly approaching its end. As you probably all know, I have lots of plans for what to do after ALL my academic stuff ends. The plans (to the left there) have not changed very much but it's always the little things that count.
Yalu is coming to visit me in a little more than a week and a half. I can't believe she's coming so soon! Our original plan included a 2 night stay in London which turned out to be wayy too expensive. So she's going to visit London on her own on Friday since I have class. And then we're going on a tour with Roots Travel that will take us to Salisbury, Stonehenge, and Avebury. All transportation costs and also speaking tour included. I've been wanting to do one of their trips for a while because they operate out of Cambridge and will basically take you to famous places. This day trip would not have been possible on our own because it would include a lot of waiting for trains and buses and would probably cost a lot more. So I'm very happy about how this worked out.
The next trip I have planned is to Amsterdam. Originally, I had planned to fly there on EasyJet and meeting Yalu and Anya (Yalu's roommate for the summer, also from MIT) there. Yesterday, one of our other friends, Xiumin, who is also working in France (but in Pau, not Paris) decided to join us for the trip. She has to take an overnight train and all but it's not too expensive and this actually makes it cheaper for the 3 of us since we were planning on booking a hotel with two beds and splitting the cost. However, an EasyJet flight is 50 GBP and I would imagine getting to and from two airports would cost me almost 20 GBP in addition.
So I started investigating other ways of getting to Amsterdam and found a ferry. There is a Netherlands ferry service that has overnight rides from a port in England to a port in Holland. I can buy a Rail+Surf ticket and all the trains that I take from Cambridge to Amsterdam plus a private cabin on the ferry would cost 55 GBP total. This would involve leaving Cambridge on Friday (June 6) at around 8pm, taking a train to Harwich International (a port in England), getting on an 8 hour overnight ferry, and then spending about 1-2 hours getting from the port in Holland to Amsterdam via Rotterdam. Don't ask me why this makes me excited but it does. I think it's the overnight ferry ride. I've never done this before. This is not just any ferry ride, this is a ferry ride with a private cabin (bed, shower, bathroom included). And I would get to ride through a lot of Holland and see the landscape. Granted, it's probably going to be extremely flat and uninteresting but whatever, I like trains. I'll get to "feel the distance".
After Amsterdam, I'm going back to Paris with Yalu and friends and spending a week in Paris. Still debating whether or not I want to do some day trips out of Paris in that week or just stay in Paris the whole time. I can get a rail pass and do some day trips, which might be fun. But it would not be bad to just explore Paris.
Then I'm coming back up to England to meet my parents and brother. I think we've also decided not to book any hotels in London because it is too expensive. I found out that it is actually not that expensive for the 4 of us to go to London on a day ticket with National Express (bus service). My mom just wants to see Cambridge, Oxford, and London anyway. And there is a bus that goes to Oxford for about 2-3 GBP per person, per way. That's really, really cheap for things around here.
I'm just really glad that things are working themselves out. I have had all these plans before but haven't booked anything. I think once all the details are settled, I can finally look forward to going. It's always the details that are complicated. I think I would enjoy a backpacking Europe trip. Just buy a rail pass and go. And won't have to worry or think about all these details until it's actually necessary. But... if it hadn't been for thinking about these trips and doing some research, I don't think I would've found all these great deals....
1 comment:
i can't believe i'm coming so soon either. first, they still haven't found housing for me. not that if they did, they'd send us an email telling us what it would be like anyways. second, until last week it was still in the mood after finals. after this morning, which was highly anticlimatic (i mean, all this studying for an exam that took 1.5 hours, 2 hours if you stretched it out and looked at answers and decided that it was your best answer, but you didn't know if it was right, which is what i did), i feel like the semester is basically over, since grades for my other classes which ended a week ago are finally coming out and i only have 1 more exam, on thursday morning. and it is not cumulative, although i need to do well on this one.
i have to admit, i'm kinda hesitant about this visiting london on my own thing. i imagine it involves me walking around to a few sites that you and i will have figured out beforehand, and looking at things that i'm supposed to look at...errr...i guess other cme people will have already been to these places in London. but ehh, i guess you're doing the same in Paris, and we're seeing a bit of these 2 huge cities together too.
i'm also really thrilled about the saturday tour thing. it was a good find. i never realized how nice it is to just have things taken care of for you.
need to help xiumin get this eurail thing...to get on it. you know, she's completely done with finals!
you know, when we went from Berlin to Stuttgart on the ICE, i didn't feel the distance at all. We had a very interesting conversation with the guy in our cabin, or rather his cabin, since we didn't have a reservation and invaded, and the ride was just very quick.
i dunno what to say about the last of your entry. it's nice to find deals, since everything is so expensive. it would be nice to have a backpacking tour and not have to worry about every single element though (on this day, we stay here, take this train, have this luggage we need to take care of). someday, we need to take one of those tours that STA travel offers. seems kind of neat.
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