This is the post where I regale you with how gracefully I stepped off the plane from the US to Paris, kissed a French boy on both cheeks, took my delicate bag off the carousel and got into my private car at the airport, where I applied my red lipstick without a mirror as we sped through the French countryside.
Yeah. So, about that. Remember my last post? The one where I packed a suitcase full of deodorant and stayed up the night before my flight? That might have had something to do with the actual outcome of my 18-hour trip to France. The one that ended with me at the wrong train station, blubbering to my mom on the telephone out of sheer exhaustion.
I landed at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport with the game plan of getting my suitcases, making my way to the train station (practically a part of the airport), buying a ticket to Lyon, and settling down on the train. Once to Lyon, my host mom would pick me up from the airport and take me home.
Spoiler alert: despite my series of increasingly miscalculated endeavors, I did eventually get there.
It started at the baggage carousel at the airport, where I got my two fifty-pound suitcases. Always one for comedic timing, I realized I needed to find the restroom, where I maneuvered myself, two strained bags, a small carry-on duffel, and my backpack into a cramped stall. When I opened the door (which thankfully swung outwards), I heard a woman waiting in line gasp. It was a sight to behold.
Then I was off! Lugging my suitcases through the airport, which included a series of frequent posts in the ground spaced so you couldn’t steal a luggage cart. People along the way asked if I needed help, but I, terrified of being robbed blind, vehemently refused. I huffed and puffed, and sweated like it was my job.
Paris Charles de Gaulle
I made it to the ticket office of the train station, where (after a brief wait in the wrong line) I bought a ticket to Lyon and a student discount card, called la Carte 12-25. In my one train ride from Paris to Lyon, the card paid for itself (49,50 euros). I walked out of the office feeling pretty awesome for my thriftyness. I brought my luggage down to the tracks long enough to figure out that I was not on the right “quai.” I made it to the right platform with about 8 minutes to go, and asked a nice-looking uniformed man if this, indeed, was the train to Lyon.
With his answer, I knew I’d messed up. In Lyon there are two train stations—Gare de Perrache and Lyon Part Dieu. I had done some snooping online, and thought that all Paris-Lyon trains stopped at both. (For future reference, this is absolutely not the case. At all.) My host mom was going to be at Perrache, and I was going to arrive at Part Dieu. With a few minutes to go, I whipped out my European phone and started to text her. It took forever to send a quick message.
After hitting “send,” the train started rolling up to the platform, and I searched in vain the car number on my ticket. I frantically turned to the vested employee. He told me that my class ticket was actually on a separate train, about a football field away, further down the same track. Adrenaline flooded through my body. I hauled my bags and started running, moving slow-ambling tourists out of the way with my frenzied presence as I booked it down the platform. At one point my rolling bag tipped over, and I just about started crying. But there was no time for that! Only running.
I made it to my train, threw first one bag up the three steps into the car, and then the other. The doors closed not 15 seconds after. I was shaking, but the adrenaline came in handy as I lifted my bags onto the shelving and sank into my seat. The car was practically silent, which was perfect. I think at that point I would have broken down if a wailing baby had shown up. Or if a pen dropped.
Gorgeous French countryside.
During the hour trip from Paris to Lyon, I looked at the rolling green landscape in the distance, and my reflection in the glass right next to me. My hair was unwashed, my face shiny with grease. But for the first time in about 18 hours, I was relaxed. I tried to call my parents to let them know I’d made the train, but my tiny phone couldn’t muster the signal. It did, apparently, send the text to my host mom, who suggested it might be best for me to take a cab from the station. I agreed.
Once in Lyon, I chucked my bags off the train and started the final leg of my voyage. Before I found the taxicab stand, I stopped and called my mom. Close to tears right outside the train station was not how I envisioned my entrée into Lyon, but perhaps my lipsticked daydreams were a little too ambitious. The cab ride was pleasant, and I loved watching the streets whiz by. All of a sudden the city opened up onto a bridge crossing the Rhône, and in two minutes more I was parked outside the building.
I phoned my host sister and pulled my suitcases into the hallway. To my delight, there was an elevator. In that moment, I couldn’t imagine a more striking happiness.
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Coming up next week, my adventures with the classically French “kiss-kiss” greeting. Until then, read about my apartment on my tumblr blog, à mi-chemin (which means, halfway there).
P.S. By the way, there IS antiperspirant in France. In just about EVERY supermarket. LIES!!