The tickets are booked!
St Pancras to Paris Nord leaving at 1502 on the Sunday afternoon, two-and-a-quarter hours; then a 10-minute walk to Gard de l'Est, and a two-hour wait (I might find somewhere for a bite to eat on the way); then it's the night sleeper leaving at 2020 to Berlin Hauptbanhof, arriving twelve hours and thirty-nine minutes later, at a minute to nine in the morning (and I bet it will pull in at one minute to, as well!)
Then I'll need to make a prompt dash for the hotel, because I think I'll only have until 11 to leave my bags (check-in doesn't open until 4).
All of which is brilliant because I will have a full day on Monday, plus Tuesday and Wednesday, and indeed most of Thursday before my flight from Schoenefeld at nine in the evening, arriving at Gatwick at 10.
The whole train booking business has been made immensely easy, I have to say, by The Man in Seat Sixty-One website. Oh, and less than £120, London to Berlin.
The whole flight booking business has been abysmal: it's Easyjet. Initial delight at a sub-£20 flight has been somewhat tempered by the £9 charge for the hold bag, then the £9.90 charge to pay by credit card. That's a 35% surcharge to pay by the card which will protect me if something untoward happens. It would even cost me a 14% surcharge to pay with a debit card (every other retailer charges no extra for this). The only way to avoid any charge is to pay using a Visa Electron card, whatever one of those is. So my £19.27 seat is costing me £37.17. Still, I suppose forty quid is a cheap flight, however the total is arrived at.
And finally ... I have a theme song for the trip. There will be regular blog updates, possibly some vlogs and certainly a few pictures as I go along, and a video at the end.
When am I going? Oh, sorry, didn't I say? Sunday the 10th October. Tschüs!
