Wednesday we get up and have breakfast. Leea leaves to see as many sites in one day as she can. I go out to find some proper band aids, books and stamps, then go back to the hotel to “rest.” That is a funny concept for me on my best days. So is “don’t overexert yourself.” “But doc I only walked five miles.” Doctors tend to look at me funny when I try to get a definition of rest or underexertion. So I puttered around the room getting things organized and packing. I basically ran errands, in a very Spanish way of course. Which is to say many stops. No Target.
Leea came home and we went to lunch, then she went back out sightseeing telling me to take it easy. Right! So I got the laundry, packed and then hopped on a bus to go down to the beach and shop. On the way back, by the time I figured out I was in the wrong part of the street to catch the bus I needed, I was half way home. The air was light and breezy and the bus was hot and stuffy, so I kept walking.
During our trip I had received an email telling me that the train was going to leave out of the Sants station not the Franc. So we leave for the station thinking we will relax in Sala Club (available to first class passengers) have some water, juice or soda and snacks and watch television or read while we wait. We get to Sants and our train is not listed on the schedule board of departing trains. So we go to the customer service to try to find out what is going on. After talking to about four or five customer service people in various offices, including the Sala Club; being given conflicting information in various languages, including Catalon, we find out the email was wrong and that we are leaving from Franc which is on the other side of town. I am thirsty by this time and can’t wait to get to the Sala Club. We hop in a taxi and go to the Franc train station. Well hop in my condition at that time is kind of an overstatement. It was more like fell into a taxi.
We arrive at the station. Sala Club? No, they didn’t even have a vending machine to buy water. So I went to a nearby restaurant and got some water. There were no available seats so we sat on the floor until they called our train. First class my booty, literally.
When they call the train we get in line. We are in coach 67. I figured they started the numbers at 50 or something, but no this is one long bleeping train. We haul our luggage for what seems like two football fields and we were only halfway down the full length of the train. We get to coach 65/66 then coach 68. There is no coach 67. I’m thinking this is a nightmare and it feels like I am in a Harry Potter movie. Finally the lady in charge of getting us all on board says that yes indeed the coach marked 65/66 is really 67. She points us to our cabin. These cabins are very small and cozy so we had to get organized. Then we went to dinner in the dining car.
When I say dining car I mean cloth table covering and napkins. They handed us our free champagne and bottle of wine. We declined, but for some reason they did not take Leea’s away, maybe because they had already set it on the table. So we decide we should give it to the family sitting across the aisle, who had the cutest daughter. This became a funny moment because he thought I wanted to toast the journey. We finally figure it out and he enjoyed the bubbly. Dinner was a three course meal with multiple choices on each course. I had two courses, an appetizer which was scrambled eggs and shrimp and then a desert of natural yogurt. Here they serve plain yogurt and you can add sugar if you want. This is nice because sweetened yogurts in the States are made with artificial sweeter, which I am trying not to use any longer. So sugar it is for me. You think I’m going to eat it plain? Are you nuts?
As we ate dinner we watched a full moon rise and try to keep up with the train. The moon was exquisite just over the rolling hills and we were exhausted. This made for a quiet dinner watching the moon and munching. After dinner we went back to our cabin and got to bed. I went to sleep with the full moon as my night light. Ahhh, how blessed I am.
The whole train thing stressed me out and I kept getting irritated. At some point I thought what a trip. I face emergency surgery in a foreign hospital and possible loss of life without much problem, then a little train screw up, which worst case scenario could cost me some bucks and a days delay, gets me all a kimble.
I had a nice nights sleep and then we had breakfast in the dining car and arrived in Paris Thursday morning at nine.
No comments:
Post a Comment