Munich, Germany - Basel, Switzerland – Milhouse, France – Luton Airport, England - London, England

My flight for tomorrow was out of London and I had to get back there. The easy way to do this would have been to fly from Munich to London. Unfortunately since it was Oktoberfest, the flights out of Munich were super expensive. I had one day left on my Eurail pass and I used it to take the train to Basel which is on the border of France Switzerland and Germany and fly back to the UK. I had to switch trains in Manheim and only had an 18 minute layover. My train from Munich was 30 minutes late arriving. I went to the platform and the train I needed wasn’t listed. I went and checked the monitors in another part of the station and it said my train was an hour late. I went back to the platform and a train had just arrived. My train was supposed to be an ICE and this one was just a regular train. The sign said it was going to Basel, so I hopped on not knowing if I would make it all of the way to Switzerland. Luckily everything worked out fine.
The train ride up the rhine valley was very nice with castles and vineyards on the hillsides. I arrived in the swiss Basel train station with plenty of time before my flight. There is a border between France and Switzerland within the train station and there is another station in the German part of Basel. Despite being such an international city, they only accepted swiss francs, so I had to convert some Euros to buy dinner. I took a bus to the airport (in Milhouse, France) and got on my Easy Jet flight to London Luton Airport without a problem.
It was a clear night and I could see Paris in the distance from the air. Paris is enormous. I picked out the Eiffel tower and it looked like a tiny spec compared to the enormity of the city. I think we arrived in London around 10pm with the time change. British Nationals were given first priority in the customs line so everyone else had to wait. It was at least 30 minutes of waiting in line before we got through. London Luton is not really in London. It is about an hour’s drive to the North. I had to take a bus which cost 10£ to get into London proper. There was construction on the motorway too so it took even longer. Later I discovered that if I had taken a series of trains from Munich, I actually could have gotten to London a little faster than flying after the customs delay and the bus ride.
I think I got to the hostel I was staying at around 1am. I stayed at the Astor Victoria Hostel, which was the same one I stayed at near the beginning of my trip. It was like coming full circle.