After staying up all night, we left Maxime's and the Julien, Jean, and Maxime were perfect gentlemen and helped us with transporting our stuff to the train station. After arriving at the station we came to an unfortnate realization. Since my card, the one we used to pay for the train tickets, didn't work in the French machines our other option was to print the tickets at the ticket booth. The problem: Our train left at 6:54 and the booth opened at 7:00. After Maxime spoke to several people in frantic french, we were allowed to board the first train without tickets (We probably would still be in Toulouse without his wonderul help!)
We said our goodbyes and our new friends waved as we pulled out of the station. We were joined by Scott- our middle-aged Australian guardian angel who traveled with us all the way to Rome. He definitely looked out for us and made sure we got on all our connections (some of which we had under 10 minutes to make!) .We got a temporary ticket until Nice, but on our second train there was no room so we were forced to stand in the bar for a good deal of time until finally claiming spots. We then got the tickets sorted in Nice (most of my money was refunded expect 20 euro) and we boarded a very tiny train to Ventimiglia. Before the train left we chatted with an extremely cultured woman from Chicago whose son has his Harvard’s doctorate in European history. She was fascinating and very opiniated and told us all about her thoughts on everything from Van Gogh’s suicide, to Versailles, and the problem with consumerism (She expressed extreme distaste in the Mall of America and was clearly frustrated by the souvenir shops in Notre-Dame)
We shoved all our stuff on our laps for the hour long train and barely caught our next one where we were reunited with Scott. He took us to a back coach which was entirely empty. There was no good place for our luggage, so we spread our stuff in one section and sat in the other. This eventually was a poor decision as during the course of our three hour train, it got very crowded with Italians. I woke up to two old Italian ladies scolding us for taking up so much space and got very irritated at us ( I couldn’t really understand her but she seemed pissed). So the last half of the trip I was very uncomfortable. Surrounded by cranky old ladies and stressing about our last connection which we would have to make in under 8 minutes. Luck stuck again, and it proved to be the easiest switch yet. We just had to cross the platfor where Scott helped us with our bags and the four of us got a nice spacious area to ourselves.
After our final and most comfortable 5 hour train ride, we arrived in Rome around 12:00, said goodbye to Scott, and found our hostel. A clean bed and a shower have never ben so appreciated.
Dana,
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of a time when I was cooking for an SJU campus ministry treat. It was at some parish up the road from Collegeville and we were forced to move between the school's kitchen (crappy) and the parish kitchen (nice.) One day, while in the school's kitchen, one of the OSBs comes down stairs and says something about the old parish ladies having a fit about something or another. I was frustrated at the moment (likely because the oven wouldn't work.) I threw down my towel and said, "Fr. ________, if you wanna run with the big dogs, you gotta stop pissing with the puppies. If being a cranky old lady is the game they want to play, they've met their match in me." I went up stairs and took care of business.
Point of the story: next time old Italian women have beef with you, take care of business.
Love always,
Dr. Maynus