Beanie and The Big French Storm, Day Four!!!

 On Wednesday, we got up and went down for breakfast.  The television was on again showing the French news, and suddenly, there was a newsflash thingy saying that Eurostar was going to be running later that day!!  YIPPEEEE!!!  We can get home!!!  Andrea asked the receptionist lady if they could find out more details, and she said that there may be delays on the train.  That's OK, so long as they're running!

 After breakfast, we went up to our room and packed our things.  We had time to go out for a bit, but because everything had frozen over during the night, we probably wouldn't get far without slipping over, so we stayed in.

 We tied some more tags to the coat hanger in the room, too!!!

Then, just before noon, we went down and checked out of the hotel.  They got us a taxi cab back to the station too, and it only cost 8 Euros.

 Here we are back at the Lille Europe station.  We had an hour and a half before the train, but that gave us enough time to get some food to nibble on during the ride, and to find out when the train would be leaving.

 Then all of a sudden, I shouted out WHOOOPPPEEEEE!!!!!!!  That's our train to London at the bottom!!!

It isn't late at all!!!  It's arriving bang on time!!!  BRILLIANT!!!!!

We're going home!!!

 We went through the security clearance and passport control down to the departure lounge.  It still looks very grey outside.....

 It even started snowing again!!!

 And we're off!!!!  We got a window seat too so we watched all the clouds and snow.....

There was an announcement later to say there was speed restrictions in place so we'd lose 30 minutes on the way to the Calais side of the tunnel.  Actually, that's not bad at all - they were saying an hour delay on the news.....

 We left another tag on the table!!!

And here we are on the English side of the tunnel!!!  We're home!!!

 Here we are!!!  Exit, this way!

 And we saw the big statue again!!

 On the way out of the Eurostar terminal, we changed our left over Euro money back into English.  There were huge enormous lines of people waiting to get onto delayed Eurostar trains going into France..... the lines were half way to the street!!!  We also saw a chap playing the piano too!  That was fun!

 Oh hang on!  We don't normally go this way...... OH!!  Trains to Brighton go from St Pancras??  Really??  I didn't know that - we don't have to spend another hour and a half on the bus going across London!!!  Oh, that's really handy, that is!!

 We got a First Capital Connect train that went to Brighton at 15:09 hours!  It went a completely different route, and we crossed over Blackfriars Bridge and saw Tower Bridge from it!!  (That's the one that lifts up in the middle to let boats through).  Then the train did a U turn on the other bank......

 And we got a totally different view of The Shard building!!

You get some interesting views from this train!!

 Here we are crossing a Viaduct bridge just before Haywards Heath!  We're nearly home.....

 and we're back....... a short walk home, now!  We got home for 5 p.m. too.

And you'd never know it had snowed......

Because we couldn't get any postage stamps, I didn't have anything for my passport.  Andrea said not to worry...... we found a used Lille subway ticket on the floor on Monday, and picked it up.  Andrea had a hole punch gadget that punches out faux stamp shapes with deckled edges, so she cut out a piece of the subway ticket, and used that as a faux stamp for my passport!!  Then she stamped on a rubber stamp that we bought in Loisir et Creations two years ago, when we last came to Lille!!!

Wow, what an adventure!!!