Never Leave Home Without It

After several glorious days in "The Land that is My True Calling," (a/k/a France), Sherri and I dropped the rental Mercedes minivan at the Hertz trailer (the train station was under construction) and "pulled" our rolling suitcases that were as big as she is through the gravel parking lot and to the luggage storage facility. We somehow managed to store the giant bags for the day and spent the day in Avignon. We took one of those trolley tours and sat behind the most beautiful blonde haired blue eyed girl you've ever seen.

After a full day in the HEAT, we went to check in for our marathon train ride. We were departing Avignon late afternoon and heading east to Nice where we were to change trains. In Nice we were boarding our overnight train (on which we had reserved a cabin in which to sleep) which would drop us in Munich the next day. We were to meet up with Leslie, Jennifer and Janey at some museum (whole nother story) for the day and head out the following night on another overnight train to Prague.

France had been everything I ever dreamed and more. Gordes was gorgeous, the market at St. Remy was heaven on earth, Aix en Provence was so quaint, the food was to die for, the linens were beautiful; in short, I felt like I might just spontaneously combust. And man, was it hot. Even though I was wearing what I had deemed my "nekkid dress," I vividly remember sitting on the platform waiting for the train to arrive and wiping my feet off with a wet wipe because they were so nasty from my sweaty flip flops and that was the only way I felt I could cool off. (At least I had not been wearing them for a month, but again, whole nother story) It was HOT people. It was an outdoor platform and I kept welcoming the high speed bullets that would come barrelling through every now and then because they let off a (hot) breeze. I had just made the decision to say good bye to the fake Kate Spade purse that Sherri convinced me to buy on sale 3 years ago and was looking so French carrying my new straw bag.

The train arrived and we boarded. Again, we had reserved seats, because Sherri and I will only rough it so much. At this point, we had mastered the luggage dilemma and I had learned how to board without breaking my neck. We took our seats among the very provencial (imagine) looking women, I mentally said my good byes to France, and we settled in for the beautiful scenery to unfold on the way to Nice.

At one of the stops along the way, Sherri became suspicious of some younger folks who boarded--they certainly did not fit in with the demographic in our car. She checked our things in the overhead and then thought she noticed them swiping a lady's purse. She mentioned it to me and we watched them leave the car, but we didn't see the purse, so she decided she imagined it. No one around us spoke a lick of English, so it was pretty pointless to try to point it out.

Sure enough, sometime shortly thereafter, an older lady comes walking our way looking distressed and chattering in French. Again, we don't know, but given the other people's reactions, we suspect that Sherri was right.

Shortly after this excitement, the train comes to a complete stop in the middle of the woods. Much like the occupants of the train, the conductor does not speak English. In Spain, the announcements were made in Spanish and English. Not so much with the French. It's in French and French only. Take it or leave it. So, when the conductor made some announcement, we had no idea what he said. Judging from the reactions around us, though, it was not good. Then the train is turned off (remember the heat?). And another announcement is made. More French groaning. As Sherri and only Sherri can, she pointed out that there was not one thing we could do about it stuck in the middle of the French woods. We let our windows down and settled in for the wait. At least we don't have the toddler like the lady next to us. What a nightmare. Might as well enjoy the people watching.

The saga of the stolen purse continued (remember, this is just our interpretation of what is going on. Although, I think I remember a cop walking through with the lady and Sherri trying to give them a description of the houligans). We also tried to help the lady with the toddler by entertaining it as much as we could.

After a few hours and several announcements, Sherri and I make an attempt to figure out what is happening. I bust out my trusty French/English dictionary and we are able to discern that there has been a wreck on the tracks in front of us. Nice one. At least it wasn't us.

We eventually got rolling again, but after a several hour delay, we missed our connection in Nice. Being only one year out of scheduling on Capitol Hill at that point, I immediately go into scheduler mode. This was equipment failure therefore it is the fault of the Eurorail--not some weather related delay, what are you going to do for us now?

The answer I managed to get from the "nice little man" behind the desk who spoke not one word of English and was in no way shape form or fashion interested in looking at my French English dictionary was: "go see that guy over there."

Eurorail is NOT the Delta Capital Desk. Eurorail's answer was: "put your luggage in this sleeper car over here and we'll walk across the street and give you something to eat. Once you're fed, we'll put you in the UNAIRCONDITIONED cattle car where you will bunk up with the rest of these yahoos standing here all night." (loose translation of course since "the guy over there" didn't speak one word of English either. Not that I really expect them to speak English. I'm not one of those people. Just didn't want you to forget the communication barrier. There was a lot of "mange" while demonstrating shovelling food into his mouth which he thought would soothe my hurt feelings of trying to sleep in an unairconditioned cattle car with strangers).

At that point, Sherri and I agreed that our parents would murder us if we survived the night in that cattle car. This was exactly the reason her dad had upped his AMEX membership to Platinum before we left. This required a call to AMEX travel.

Then, and only then, did it occur to us that we were in the capital of the French Riviera at midnight on BASTILLE DAY. Holy crap, how were we going to find somewhere to lay our pretty heads for the evening?

Believe it our not, not only did AMEX travel manage to find us a room, it cost less than $200 a night. And best of all, we got to take a shower! And it was air conditioned! We showered, slept and headed to the train station the next day bright and early. We were not able to get a reserved seat, but fortunately, Nice was the first departure point for this train. We boarded and got some decent seats and watched amazed as the cars filled up as we headed up the coast through some of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. The girls sitting across from us were from Georgia and of course, Sherri recognized one of them from home (she remembers everyone she's ever met).

We changed trains again in Milan and got a reserved cabin this time. There was some weird little man in there, but it was a pretty uneventful ride through Italy and Switzerland. We arrived in Munich in time to catch our original train, albeit too late to meet up with Les and co. Ends up that's a good thing, but that's a story for another day. As is the remaining trip from Munich to Prague. The drama and intrigue of watching an Asian girl have a melt down and being accosted by the KGB might just be too much for one day.

All of that happened 5 years ago. Pre-9/11 and all the ill-will for the French that has become en vogue. In spite of all that, I really just can't bring myself to hate them. They just live in too beautiful a place for that. Happy Bastille Day!