What my family thought of our trip to London

[jrineakter]

Hello dear friends and welcome to this new episode of Marchez Avec Johan. It is a great pleasure to welcome you today and to be able to chat with you during this little stroll, this little walk.

And today, I'm going to tell you about our stay in London. I went with my family this summer to London for a few days. And the idea is to tell you about it, not because I think you're interested in what we did, but to provide you with vocabulary that is authentic and that is linked to vacations, to travel. So, it's always very interesting to hear French like that in context in order to improve, quite simply.

So, the kids… it’s my kids, Emma and Tom, who wanted to go to London. And, you’re probably going to smile, the main reason they wanted to go to London was to visit the Harry Potter museum, because they love it, they loved the series and, so, they’re fans, and, so, they wanted to visit the Harry Potter museum. I think it’s Warner Bros. Studio in London or near London, it’s not right in London. But in any case, it’s the best, because that’s where the scenes from the film were filmed and the museum is splendid. We’ll talk about it briefly right after, but, well, if you like Harry Potter, I think that’s where you have to go.

And they also wanted to see the city, because London is a very, very famous city, very famous all over the world. School friends had told them about it and they were curious to go there and see what it was like. And of course, as they have been learning English for 2 years now, they wanted to practice their English there, their British English, and they were very motivated by this idea.

I already knew London, I had been there three times before, but obviously in completely different contexts. I went there for the first time in February 2010 with Céline. So, that was 14 years italy whatsapp number data ago, we were a young couple, we didn't have any children yet, we were just married, we got married in 2009. So, it was necessarily a quiet context, for visiting, without constraints, and it was very nice.

And I had been there twice without my family for work. The first time was when I was working in the automotive industry. So, there, I was mostly in meetings and in restaurants, unfortunately. It was in the middle of winter, so, we didn't walk around London much. And the second time was in 2019. I went there for a conference, to attend a conference for two or three days, I don't remember, and it was nice. I met people, I also walked around London quite a bit, and it was quite nice.

A little tip that helped me with souvenirs, well it's to keep your tickets from... for example, if you take the metro, I kept metro tickets from February 2010 and I put them in the guide, we had a guide on the city of London, plus some tickets for museums and restaurants. And in fact, it gives me memories. You see, it gave me... I remembered taking the metro with Céline. I compared the ticket from 14 years ago. So, there you go, a little tip in passing. I was very happy. Even if at the time, when I did it, I had no particular intention, it was very funny to see all these memories again, today.

So, of course, this time, the context was different, because I was with Raphaël who is 3 and a half, Tom who is 11, and Emma who is soon to be 13. We went there by plane from Luxembourg. So, we did Luxembourg-London. It was London City Airport, I think it's LCY, the code, and so, which is east of London.

Why by plane? I prefer to take the train and I was planning to go by Eurostar. In fact, I went by Eurostar last time for the conference. But the problem was that it was complicated to get to Paris. So, I have to go to Paris by train, it takes me an hour, an hour and a half. Then, I had to change stations, go to London with the Eurostar, and it was especially very expensive. The train, unfortunately, is very expensive. So, I'm not saying that the plane is not expensive, but in any case, there, it cost the same price, the plane cost the same price as the train, and it was much more practical for us, so that's why we went by plane.

We rented a little flat in the west of London for the occasion. It was not far from the West Kensington tube station. I say this for those who know London. And so, there you go, when we arrived, we arrived in the east, we crossed, I think it was almost an hour to go from the airport to the accommodation, and there you go. It was a very cool stay. I'll tell you some of the activities that we did.

Before that, still with the aim of teaching you a bit of vocabulary, I'm going to tell you some little anecdotes that happened to us with accommodation. We had an Airbnb accommodation. We like to book our accommodation on Airbnb, in general. Since we're a family, it's often easier than a hotel, because a hotel requires two rooms, which is complicated. And we're always very happy. Besides, the hosts always make great efforts to have apartments that are pleasant, practical and that correspond to what they described in the photos.