I hate early starts.

Like okay this is more bareable than when I have an early shift at work. But 5am… Really?

So here is the scenario, England finish top of the group to set up a last sixteen game in Paris against fellow British nation, Northern Ireland. Go Saturday, enjoy an England win, stay one night in Paris, get a flight home the following day! Simples (meerkat kiss).

Wrong!

Wales toppled England to the top putting us second to set up a game in Nice. Now we were excited about a game in the French Rivera, true but it doesn’t go without its complications.

We already booked a flight out to Paris which was fine, we had a hotel booked for one night there, and two nights in Nice just in case, but of course it’s become more expensive.

It meant three nights in France instead of one, includes a train ride to Nice and a flight home from there. At one stage we were probably looking at £700 each just for the last 16 game, not including spending money. So we had to look for cheaper alternatives.

The cheapest solution? We found a nice train to Nice which came to £70 each, cancel the hotel room in Paris, then wake up the following morning in Nice, stay there for two night then get an expensive flight home in the Tuesday.

Oh and the flight itself cost £227.

We headed out at 8am without Nick as he is at Glastonbury this weekend, and you’re up and down before you know it. The flight is just over an hour and we comfortably landed at 10am European time. We had to find our way to Paris Austerwitz train station for 9:22pm so we had lots of time to kill. We got a train into central Paris and had a walk through the shopping districts which we didn’t go to see upon first visit.

I wanted to see Bastille so we took a stroll there after some wine and pizza for lunch. Yes, settled for wine and pizza because they are considerably cheaper. To be honest, not much to the statue of Bastille, I didn’t know what to expect. But I can assure you the band didn’t turn up at any point.

We found a nice Irish/Americany pub to watch the Poland vs Switzerland then Wales and Northern Ireland game, where ideally we would’ve been playing. We had some of the pubs own brand of beer (which took a few sips to get used to) and settled there. It was a good way to kill time before our train.

Trigg had been pro-navigator but left the duties to me today as his and Coatesy’s peril. I guided us to Bastille but I was quick to give the reigns back to him for our trip to the station.

We got into our train at 9:22pm and lets just say it wasn’t something I was looking forward to. I don’t sleep on trains or planes so I was s little worried about lack of sleep. Be that as it may it is certainly an experience I was willing to try. It was better go take an 11-hour night train then to rent a car and drive for nine hours.

In each room there was six beds, three on each side. We got ours first and we were hoping that we was the only ones in our cabin. That didn’t last long as a gentleman who must of been pushing 127 years of age quickly came in reserved his bed. Didn’t seem too happy that he was sharing with three English lads. A young lady also joined us and quickly took the top bunk.

I was on the middle bunk. Not the most comfortable but I would make do. I lent on the inside of the bed and part of the bed fell through to the lower bunk. Thank god no one was below it. I tried to fix it, gave up quickly and whilst the others laughed at my expense, I soon resulted in the lower bunk.

Let’s see how this turns out…