Pre-Paris Trip Story
I was going to write my Paris trip during 10 to 15 September 2005 timeframe soon, but I would like to share something that happened before the trip.
Originally, I didn't plan to travel to Paris for my two-years stay in the UK, as I always thought there was nothing special in Paris and I still only wannted to visit Italy, Greece and Spain on my mind that time. However, that was an incident happened to my friend, this made me decided to do her a favour and started my Paris trip.
I was sometime around August of 2005, I was studying hard in my room as it would be my final exam sonn, and I recieved a call from Lucy at one afternoon, it was surprised me because she was still in her Europe trip that time, I was no idea at the first place why she called me.
Lucy is a good friend of mine, who I met in the UK, she is from China and studied her master degree in business a year before me, however she needed to prolong her stay in the UK for finishing her year end project. While all her friends were returned to China, she was the only preson left in the UK.
Then, we met each other in a Bible reading class, we were both new to Christianity that time. At first, we were shy to each other and had our live without too much interactive. Later, we always involved in some activities together and getting closer and closer. At last, we sometime would ask each other for some outing or afternoon sharing. Well, I want to say that is good to have a close friend when we are alone in a foreign land, at least we know we are not the only alien there.
Due to Lucy finished her year end project long before my final exam and she couldn't wait for Europe trip as her visa would be expired soon, therefore she travelled to Europe alone without me.
She was in Amsterdam on the day she called to my cellphone and it was her terrible day, as she lost her backpack at an internet cafe and that made her lost her everything, passport with UK visa and money are the most need survival kits. Fortunately, she still remembered my cellphone number, so that she called me for help.
On the phone, she requested if I can lend her some money (it is about 150 pounds). so that she could have it survived for some days until her mother could send her some money from China as they are in different time zone, it would be too late for her mother to save her.
At first, I was hesitated if this is a fact or she tried to cheat some money, but finally I chose to help her as I told myself that would be more important to get her help (if it was true) than be cheated by her, then I decided to get my 150 pounds in risk to trust my friend.
Actually, it is quite simple to send money to a person in another country, even if s/he doesn't own a bank account there, let me share how I did it and maybe you would need it next time, well... I hope you don't really need it when you are travelling :) From then, I just know that post office is really a helpful organization. Yes, I did all this in a post office, where you need to give them the money (there would be small charges on transaction comission) with a bank name and the address, of course, they only supply service to specified bank, therefore you need to choose the closest bank to you. Then they will do transaction for you and you need to give them the reciever's name and a passcode, so that the reciever can withdraw your money from another country with your passcode. The most convenient part is all this transaction can be done within 1 business day, that's mean Lucy could withdraw money without too long waiting.
After all, Lucy is quite lucky then as Amsterdam almost is the end of her trip, so that she didn't lose too much money as she had most of her money spent on her trip. However, she couldn't back to the UK without her passport (as UK is using their own visa, it is different from Europe).
Without permission to enter to the UK, this meant Lucy couldn't get her lagguage to go back to China, her lagguage was with an auntie in London, where Lucy planned to get it after her trip and back to China from London.
After some conversation with Lucy (through e-mail), I knew that she would leave Amsterdam and go to Paris to find her friend there, as Amsterdam really is a nightmare to her and she always spent her money there for her accommodation. This is convenient to travel betweem Europe (except the UK) if you lost your visa, as they are all under Europe Union, therefore they seldom to check on tourist visa for this as they are using a common visa. BUT, you will be in trouble if you get caught by them without a valid visa.
Luckily, Lucy's bad luck was ended after Amsterdam's incident and she successfully arrived to France by train without any trouble. Train from Amsterdam to Paris is actually a long journey, you need to bet a lot of luck on it without a visa.
And finally, I decided to help Lucy on this after I completed my final exam, then I would travel to Paris by train from Waterloo Train Station in London to help Lucy to get her lagguage from that kind auntie.
Originally, I didn't plan to travel to Paris for my two-years stay in the UK, as I always thought there was nothing special in Paris and I still only wannted to visit Italy, Greece and Spain on my mind that time. However, that was an incident happened to my friend, this made me decided to do her a favour and started my Paris trip.
I was sometime around August of 2005, I was studying hard in my room as it would be my final exam sonn, and I recieved a call from Lucy at one afternoon, it was surprised me because she was still in her Europe trip that time, I was no idea at the first place why she called me.
Lucy is a good friend of mine, who I met in the UK, she is from China and studied her master degree in business a year before me, however she needed to prolong her stay in the UK for finishing her year end project. While all her friends were returned to China, she was the only preson left in the UK.
Then, we met each other in a Bible reading class, we were both new to Christianity that time. At first, we were shy to each other and had our live without too much interactive. Later, we always involved in some activities together and getting closer and closer. At last, we sometime would ask each other for some outing or afternoon sharing. Well, I want to say that is good to have a close friend when we are alone in a foreign land, at least we know we are not the only alien there.
Due to Lucy finished her year end project long before my final exam and she couldn't wait for Europe trip as her visa would be expired soon, therefore she travelled to Europe alone without me.
She was in Amsterdam on the day she called to my cellphone and it was her terrible day, as she lost her backpack at an internet cafe and that made her lost her everything, passport with UK visa and money are the most need survival kits. Fortunately, she still remembered my cellphone number, so that she called me for help.
On the phone, she requested if I can lend her some money (it is about 150 pounds). so that she could have it survived for some days until her mother could send her some money from China as they are in different time zone, it would be too late for her mother to save her.
At first, I was hesitated if this is a fact or she tried to cheat some money, but finally I chose to help her as I told myself that would be more important to get her help (if it was true) than be cheated by her, then I decided to get my 150 pounds in risk to trust my friend.
Actually, it is quite simple to send money to a person in another country, even if s/he doesn't own a bank account there, let me share how I did it and maybe you would need it next time, well... I hope you don't really need it when you are travelling :) From then, I just know that post office is really a helpful organization. Yes, I did all this in a post office, where you need to give them the money (there would be small charges on transaction comission) with a bank name and the address, of course, they only supply service to specified bank, therefore you need to choose the closest bank to you. Then they will do transaction for you and you need to give them the reciever's name and a passcode, so that the reciever can withdraw your money from another country with your passcode. The most convenient part is all this transaction can be done within 1 business day, that's mean Lucy could withdraw money without too long waiting.
After all, Lucy is quite lucky then as Amsterdam almost is the end of her trip, so that she didn't lose too much money as she had most of her money spent on her trip. However, she couldn't back to the UK without her passport (as UK is using their own visa, it is different from Europe).
Without permission to enter to the UK, this meant Lucy couldn't get her lagguage to go back to China, her lagguage was with an auntie in London, where Lucy planned to get it after her trip and back to China from London.
After some conversation with Lucy (through e-mail), I knew that she would leave Amsterdam and go to Paris to find her friend there, as Amsterdam really is a nightmare to her and she always spent her money there for her accommodation. This is convenient to travel betweem Europe (except the UK) if you lost your visa, as they are all under Europe Union, therefore they seldom to check on tourist visa for this as they are using a common visa. BUT, you will be in trouble if you get caught by them without a valid visa.
Luckily, Lucy's bad luck was ended after Amsterdam's incident and she successfully arrived to France by train without any trouble. Train from Amsterdam to Paris is actually a long journey, you need to bet a lot of luck on it without a visa.
And finally, I decided to help Lucy on this after I completed my final exam, then I would travel to Paris by train from Waterloo Train Station in London to help Lucy to get her lagguage from that kind auntie.
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