Semester Break- Homeward Bound

Day 8- 11/1

 

The final day on the trip, and what a very long day it was.  I got up at 6:15, packed (thank god the suitcase expands), and took a taxi back to Waverly Bridge, because I was not interested in stumbling the half-hour walk there in the freezing cold.  Shuttle-d it back to the airport, where I repeated the same procedure as before (without the bagel store)… arrived in London and it was train, tube, train… and that’s where things got fun and interesting.  I made it to the train station without a problem, although I was fairly hungry at that point.  It’s a good thing that I didn’t stop to eat anything, because when I got there my train wasn’t on the board.  I was not exactly thrilled about this fact, since I didn’t really want to have to find an alternative way to get to Paris by 6pm.  The somewhat rude lady at the check-in desk informed me that the timetable had been moved up by half an hour… better early than late, I guess. 

 

I got in to Paris and took a taxi to the next train station (this was the first time that I felt like I wasn’t a tourist anymore… the taxi driver had me explain the US election system and pointed out where President Chirac lives, but driving by the Louvre was unmentioned).  I finally got some food, and then sat around and waited.  And waited.  And waited.  The platform number is supposed to come up on the board 20 minutes before the train leaves.  Well, my train was supposed to leave at 6:50pm.  Nothing on the board at 6:30, or 6:35, or 6:40.  Then I realized that the trains that were supposed to leave at 6:15 were still on the board.  Meaning delays… and then, the board changed… and the train that was supposed to leave at 5:15 came up on the board.  Meaning that my train was going to be at least an hour and a half late. NOOOOOOOOO.  I ran down to the platform and tried to get on every train that was going to Bordeaux… of course, because of seat reservations and because it’s a TGV (meaning nice, high-speed bullet train), I couldn’t just convince them that it was totally fine for me to stand in the corridor for three hours.

 

Finally, I hear a muffled announcement in French that I don’t totally comprehend… but I heard the key words “Bordeaux” and “Voie Une”… this was after hearing the muffled announcement involving the words “3-4 hours,” which I assumed meant “3-4 hours late.”  Following the crowd of people to platform 1, I asked if the train would take me to Bordeaux, was told “oui” and “montez-là,” meaning “get on the train.”  I do as instructed, then look around and stop.  After asking the SNCF train-mistress if I could sit anywhere, she told me “just take whatever empty seat you find,” and I wasn’t about to argue, because I had walked right into first class.  I spent the next 5 and a half hours in my nice cushy first-class seats, with about five other people in the entire car.  Personal table, personal light, personal window… aside from the fact that I was on a TGV train on a normal-speed track (hence the 5.5 hour ride), I managed to read the first three books in the Twilight series (I need Breaking Dawn in English NOW).   I took a taxi home from the train station (I didn’t exactly want to walk past the prostitutes on the corner by the tram stop, and I might have already missed the last tram) and basically knocked out, back in Bordeaux at 12:30am.  Ah, vacations.