I got home from Vilnius ok last night although weather into Prague seriously delayed the flight so I didn't get home until quite late. I also decided to take the train in from the airport rather than a taxi. BIG MISTAKE.
First of all it is a very long walk from Terminal 2 where we landed to Terminal 3 where the train station is located. ( Did you read that Bun ..... a very long walk ! ). You take the RER 'B' train to get to Paris. The ticket was easy to get through a machine that took Visa ... it was 8.7 Euro for those who are coming over later. I said it was 20 Euro in an earlier post and I was wrong. My taxi on tuesday was about 50 Euro so it is quite a bit cheaper. BTW I took the train because I've never done that before and wanted to see how easy or hard it was to do ... NOT to save money although that helps.
Second, the escalator down to the platform was not working and so I had to haul luggage down the steps which was a real pain. I only had my carryon bag and the knapsack I bought to carry my camera equipment but it was still heavy enough and awkward enough to make it difficult.
Third I got off at Gare du Nord which then meant I had to take two different subways to get home. Discovered today with a good map I should have taken the RER 'B' to the next station which was Denfert Rouchereau then it would have been only one subway to take. But the walk from Gare du Nord to the subway was also very long and with baggage therefore difficult. I suspect the walk at Denfert would also be long. ( Did you read that Bun ... the walk was very long!!!)
Fourth the french haven't figured out yet that there is a good chance that people travelling by train have LUGGAGE so they mostly have stairs rather than escalators and or elevators. So there was at least 4 rather lengthy stair climbs ( did you read that Bun ... 4 lengthy stair climbs!!!) and at least that many to go down as well. Going down is of course a lot easier UNLESS you have baggage.
To save 40 Euros it wasn't worth it. If I was travelling very light I might do it again but with any and I mean any sort of luggage to haul I question why anyone would do it. Maybe at rush hours to save time but it is a royal pain in the butt to haul luggage through the train and subway stations.
My last day in Lithuania was Monday and it went well. Only went for a relatively short walk in the morning so there are not a lot of pictures. I added in some which I took on previous days from some of the places Peter took me which I had not posted earlier. The group of girls in the picture below I took outside one of the sites I was visiting. In Lithuania when someone gets married the girls get together with the bride and have a big night out. I've seen a half dozen of these groups roaming the downtown area at night ... almost all falling down drunk. These girls co-operated and let me take their picture.
My seminar was well received although it was a tough audience. Very straight faced, most of the lines I use in North America that at least get a chuckle didn't work at all ... There were executives there from Norway, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and I believe Poland. DnbNord Bank is a very large bank and they have entered into the Baltic by buying this Lithuanian bank and are slowly integrating them into their system. I was impressed with the executives from DnbNord who I had a chance to talk to over lunch before heading to the airport. They are very sophisticated ( at least in Norway) with their approach to banking the automotive sector and aspects of what they talked about seemed to put them ahead of some of the banks in North America. I'm not sure I taught them anything but I at least confirmed that their strategy was correct and that is valuable in itself.
Got up early this morning to go for my walk but it was raining so I went back to bed and didn't get out until close to noon. Walked for about an hour and then it poured rain almost all afternoon so it wasn't a pleasant day at all. I did take some pictures which I'll post in a later blog. I did get in over 32,000 steps today which is a lot and I'm very glad I lost all that weight before coming over to Europe ... if I hadn't those stairs yesterday might have killed me. I plan to do a LOT of walking and to try to avoid over use of the subway. For the most part I'm in no hurry on this trip so like today I'll walk where ever I go if at all possible.
Auto Guru in Europe.
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