International Travel

For the first time in five years my job has taken me to Europe. I had meetings in London last week and more today. As I was here over the weekend, I decided to take the train down to Paris for a couple of days and get some good practice with my French. I used to live in France and spoke it fluently. One weekend was all it took for a nice language refresher. Once people found out I spoke French, they opened up to me were greatly relieved they didn't have to try and speak broken English. It opened quite a few doors.

In these past five years I have taken eleven trips to Japan and so it is sort of routine. Going to Europe required making some major adjustments in my international travel habits. In Japan, I use a Suica stored-value card for travel on the subway and Japanese rail system. In London I just needed to purchase an Oyster card. I did a bit of research before I flew out and knew that would help make my trips so much easier. I got to London and made sure to pick one up for myself as well as my wife who came with me on this trip.

My next trick was figuring out how to get from downtown London to Paris. A quick Internet search showed me that Eurostar runs the train line from London to Paris. I purchased my tickets online back in the States and even had seat assignments. When it came time to take the train, I just took the London tube to King's Cross station and walked over to the St. Pancras International train terminal. I could have taken a flight and it might even have been cheaper, however if you really want to see a country, take the train.

While in Paris I wanted to take my wife and show her the many sights that the city is so famous for. We started our trip by walking from the hotel to the Arc de Triomphe. It was a quick walk and formed the first leg for a great walking tour. Next we walked down to the Eiffel Tower. Along the way, we passed an open Street Market which turned out to be my wife's favorite part of the trip. When we got to the Eiffel Tower, I was tired of walking. The last time I was in Paris, I had my bike with me and it was really easy to get around the city. Walking made the city much larger than I remembered it. Big Bus was the answer to my tired legs. Basically they drive you around and make 10 stops throughout the city. If you get off, they leave you but another bus is only 10 minutes or so right behind you. You just show the new bus your ticket and you can get back on. I highly recommend them if you want to save your legs.

The trip from Paris back to London was very uneventful. I wanted to see how fast the train was going and so I pulled out one of my phones. Unfortunately I couldn't get a GPS lock as I had it in airplane mode and so I pulled out my company phone and tracked myself on Google Maps. Unfortunately I couldn't get my speed and so I just looked it up. I knew I was going fast as we were passing cars on the autoroute next to us and was pleased to see we were doing 186 miles per hour. It didn't feel that fast. When you take the tunnel under the English Channel, the train slows down to 100 miles per hour for safety reasons.

The last adjustment I had to make is with my electronic devices. Everything in Japan runs on 110 volts just like the United States. Furthermore there is no need to bring any plug converters because the outlets look exactly the same. Europe is different and more complicated. First they run on 220 volts and so you need a transformer for some of your electrical items. As most electronic products now convert AC power to DC, the transformers built into them will automatically convert the voltage for you. That means I don't need a transformer for my laptop or my USB outlet connectors. The real problem is that the power outlets don't look anything alike. England is different than France and they are both different than the US. So I have to carry a number of various wall outlet adapters. Fortunately most of Europe uses the same outlet format as France and so you can get around pretty well with just two adapters.

Tomorrow I head back to the United States and my European trip will be over. I have to say that the International travel has gotten a lot easier since my first trip many years ago. I know I am getting a bit more experienced as I voyage to various places around the world but I think the Internet is definitely helping to make the world a smaller place.