Kenilworth, United Kingdom
52° 20' N 1° 34' W
Jan 17, 2008 15:16
Distance 477km

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Text written in: English

Victime d'une logique économique coloniale

How's this for an ample demonstration of New Zealand's economic ties to the UK (or inversely, lack thereof to the Continent) - to ship my belongings from Auckland to London cost $400. And for Paris? $1600! So I came up with some crazy scheme (as I do best) to retrieve my household goods the cheapest way possible. I would ship them to London and simply drive there in a rental car to collect them!

As it turned out, it was much cheaper to rent the car from Chartres, some 150km south of Paris (wrong direction).

So my whole trajet was:

Sat 8am - Train to Chartres

11 am - Drive to London

4pm - Ferry from Calais to Dover

8pm - Arrive at Taylor's in London without the aid of a map (having forgotten my laptop in my haste and Hertz not having any GPS units for rent...)

Cue much merriment and a few hundred kilometres detour to visit my dear Mirchi on Sunday

Monday 8am - brave London rush hour traffice on the A406 to collect my stuff.... then do the whole thing backwards...

The upshot was I actually quite enjoyed the drive and hitting 160km/h on the motorway was fun... people drive fast in Europe! Still, an incredible amount of fuss compared to the Eurostar... Finally seeing the White Cliffs of Dover was great too. In NZ, all of our French class textbooks were printed in England for British kids (the qualifications were much the same deal), and the texts were always about kids taking a school trip to Calais (or La Rochelle, or somewhere in Brittany). And always harping on about these cliffs. So it was great to be able to tick that off the list.

Not so much fun was paying for diesel in pounds.... Anyway - have all our stuff back now. Nice to have cocktail glasses :) And GREAT to see Mirchi and Taylor and meet said friends love interests :D

Photos / videos of "Victime d'une logique économique coloniale":

The venerable Tour Montparnasse at 8.00 am on a wintery Saturday morning Waiting for the train to Chartres Waiting for the train to Chartres Waiting for the train to Chartres Waiting for the train to Chartres Waiting for the train to Chartres Waiting for the train to Chartres Waiting for the train to Chartres Waiting for the train to Chartres The southern suburbs of Paris... The southern suburbs of Paris... The southern suburbs of Paris... The southern suburbs of Paris... The Chateau de Versailles The Centre region The Centre region Chartres Chartres Médiathèque Chartres Médiathèque On the Ferry at Calais On the Ferry at Calais On the Ferry at Calais On the Ferry On the Ferry - traffic on the Channel On the Ferry - White Cliffs of Dover On the Ferry - White Cliffs of Dover Part of Kenilworth Castle complex Mirchi and her man. Kenilworth This looks remarkably like Cambridge (NZ) - but it's not! Kenilworth Castle Kenilworth Castle Kenilworth Castle Kenilworth Castle Arriving back at Calais Arriving back at Calais
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