Joachim Breitner

Arrived at DebConf7

Published 2007-06-10 in sections English, Reisen.

After about 18 hours of public transport, I arrived tired but savely in Edinburgh. Chairs in DB night trains are not the same as chairs in CityNightLine trains, but if you have only two people in a compartment, you can atleast spread out on three seats. I still didn’t get too much good sleep. The Eurostar train from Paris to London behaves as if it were a plane: Long queues before check in, security and passport checks. The benefit of taking a train (hassle-freeness) gets somewhat lost there, and it feels as if it was the marketing department’s descision. The train itself is comfortable and has power plugs − nice.

In London I had to take the underground from Waterloo International Station to Kings Cross. If I had bought a simple one way ticket paid in cash, they would have charged me £4, but with the so-called Oyster-Card, it’s only £1.50. But please, if you put ads and leavlets for that card all over the place, mention somewhere that the card itself is basically free! Well, I had to ask to find that out and got myself the cheap ticket.

The train to Edinburgh was not different to German trains, besides the fact that it offered on-board wireless network. Pricy, but still reasonable, and not entirely secured.

In Edinburgh I tried to go to the hostel first, but walked too far and ended up in Teviot, where the DebCamp is happening, just in time for Dinner. My first brief impression of Edinburgh is: Massive, Dark, Old. Not bad! Also the room I’m sitting in right now, the Hack Center, looks lik an old curch, with coloured glass and a balcony around it.

Comments

Yes, Paris is by far the worst of the Eurostar check-ins, which balances out Paris being by far the simplest of the arrivals (just walk off the end of the platform). They rebuilt the Paris check-in a few years ago and it still can't cope with the volume of travel. Waterloo is better and I'm hoping that St Pancras will be better yet.
#1 MJ Ray (Homepage) am 2007-06-10
I just don’t get why you can’t just get on and off the train without any check in, just like on any other train in Europe, international or not.
#2 Joachim Breitner (Homepage) am 2007-06-11
As far as I know, you can travel from Waterloo to King's Cross using your Eurostar ticket. At least, that is what I did :)
#3 Wouter van Heyst am 2007-06-10
And how did you find that out?
#4 Joachim Breitner (Homepage) am 2007-06-11

Have something to say? You can post a comment by sending an e-Mail to me at <mail@joachim-breitner.de>, and I will include it here.