I have fallen in love.

This is probably coming as a surprise to most of you. You didn't see this coming. Well neither did I. And some of you might be thinking "she's so young, she doesn't know what love is!" Oh, but I do know what love is.
 It is true. I am in love.

Let me start from the beginning. I first saw my love a few weeks ago when I was in search of a grocery store. The Tesco I was looking for was not where GoogleMaps told me it would be, so I was lost. And that is when I saw my love. I passed my love on the street and could not stop staring.

My love's name is Pancras--St. Pancras, actually. My love is the patron saint of children, jobs, and health...but that is neither here nor there. My love's middle and last names are International Station.

Yep, I'm in love with a train station (you all thought I was serious, didn't you?). And you would be too if you had been to Open House London this weekend.

Open House London is a weekend once a year when many of the architecturally significant or sustainable buildings of London that are usually closed to the public are open for tours.  There were over 750 buildings open this year, from government buildings, to offices, to private residences! But since you can't tour 750 buildings in two days, my friends and I picked the two most interesting sites on the list--Village Underground (more on that later), and St. Pancras International station.

St. Pancras is just up the street from my apartment, right next to King's Cross Station of Harry Potter fame. And the story about me getting lost on the way to the grocery store is true. I thought this building was so magnificent that I had to show my architecturally nerdy friends, and, well, they fell in love with it too. So when we realized that there would be tours of this marvelous building during Open House, we decided that WE HAD TO GO.

So we did. And it was one of the best decisions we've ever made. The inside of the train station is just as amazing and beautiful as the outside. The front, the grandiose castle, is actually a hotel (a Marriott to open in spring of 2011), and the train station is in back. Both structures were designed by William Henry Barlow in 1867. St Pancras just barely escaped demolition in the 60's and was restored in 2007, when the EuroStar moved there from Waterloo station.

Our tour guide was from the marketing department for the company in charge of the restoration of St Pancras International, so of course he talked it up. But, baby, did I fall for it hook, line, and sinker. Sam (that was our tour guide's name) talked about how the company was putting the romanticism back into taking trains, how St Pancras is becoming Europe's "destination station". As rightly it should be. There is no Macdonald's or Starbucks in sight in the station. Instead they have a champagne bar, farmer's market, artisan food shops, and designer stores from around London. The restoration kept all of the original architecture and artistic details in tact, and worked the beautiful wrought iron trussing that supports the glass roof and the below-ground brick arches (originally used to store barrels of beer) into the new lower concourse.

The whole experience made me want to buy a ticket to Paris right then and there, just so that I could sit at the champagne bar next to the train tracks and wait for my High Speed train to Paris (pronounce: Pair-ee) to pull in.

Some day it will happen. Until then I will have to be content staring at my love from across the street.




...Sorry this post is so long.
I JUST LOVE IT SO MUCH-OK?! GEEZ!!!