Paris Trip - Preperation

After sitting at home for quite a long time, thanks to the weather, I decided I’ll have to go somewhere. Mukul wanted to go to Paris as he’s going back to India in March. So we decided to take up the 3 Day star tours package to Paris. Then we checked out the itinerary of the package and realised we’d have just enuf time to look at Paris thru the windows of the bus. So we decided to go on our own. A few more ppl(Dheeraj, Sunetra, Sangeetha, Subbu, RK, Sadheesh and his wife) were also interested in the Paris trip. Only Sunetra and Sangeetha cud take a day off on Friday (22nd). The others were happy with a 2 day tour.

Once we decided we are going. We started the wid the prepns. To get the Visa we needed our travel, acco, travel insurance, bank statement, employer letter – everything to be ready. It was hardly one month left for our trip. So flights and Eurostar was costly. So we booked in National Express for the Eurolines coach. Cost us abt 48£ return.

Acco we booked it in Aloha hostel, thru hostelbookers.com. It had pretty good reviews and it was well connected to most places. Cost us abt 23 euros per pppn.

Travel insurance booked it thru insureandgo.com. 33£ for annual multi trip. Ppl got it for about 15£ from a different insurance provider.

Booked an appointment for Visa on 12th Feb. It was very easy getting it. Have all your docs ready and you will get the Visa in Half a day.

So everything was ready 10 days in advance. Then came the worst 10 days in UK. Suddenly so much work came up and I even had to take some work home and work till 12 to finish off everything before I leave.

In the mean time did a little shopping as I hardly had any casuals. On 21st did all the packing and I had one bag which was too small for all the stuff I had and one which was too big for a 3 day trip. So I ended up carrying one bag with clothes, one with fruits, biscuits and water, my camera bag and my tripod.