The next day we awoke early and headed down to breakfast. When you stay in a rich person's home, you expect rich people to act a certain way. And these ones did. But I suppose once you have a self-designed and -built house of 13 bedrooms and an open floor plan, I guess it happens. They have a very strict "look with your eyes, not with your hands" policy for children and decorations and I came down in the morning to a bit of a stereotype of the architect father working on some drawings with his glasses on, listening to classical music which echoed through the many rooms of the ground (and upper) floor. We ate bits of breakfast cake and fruit and soon it was time for goodbyes and off to the train station at Avignon for me - for I had changed my ticket so it would be easier for them to drop me off at Avignon station, rather than drive all the way back to Montpellier.
After Annie and Guilhem dropped me at the train station, I began to chill out. I noticed my train was on platform 4 so I went over and there was a train sitting there. As I got on I asked a man, "This train goes to Paris, right?" and he looks at me and says, "No." as the doors to the train close with a sudden thump. My heart, stomach and brain sunk into a delirious stupor. I had gotten on the wrong train. I looked at my watch - I don't know what I was thinking when I got on, my proper train didn't even ARRIVE at Avignon for another 20 minutes and was supposed to be 15 minutes late, so WHY did I get ON this train? The man with the dog who had answered me looked at me with a reassuring face, "Don't worry, you can get on a train to Paris from the next station."
"It's true," interjected an old woman who had witnessed me practically flop to the floor, "I used to live there - trains to Paris all the time." As reassuring as this was, it didn't help my inability to breathe or stand at this point - I was in a foreign country on the wrong train and had NO IDEA in what direction it was going, "How far 'til the next station?"
"Oh, shouldn't be more than twenty minutes." He said with a smile and shushed his whinging dog. Sufficed to say, that was the longest twenty minutes I had ever lived through - most of my thoughts consisting of "Oh God, oh God!" and that I would never make it to Paris that day and would miss my plane to Dublin tomorrow. Soon, the Controller came by and the man with the dog stopped him and we explained what was wrong to him - mostly that I was a lost Australian boy who had gotten on the wrong train and needed to go to Paris. He told me not to worry, that in fact, this train was going in the same direction and that it would stop in a place just 10 minutes train ride from the center of Paris. The Controller was extra nice when I told him where I was from at the next station, gave me an official seat on the train, "There's no point changing trains to the one to Paris," he said, "it will cost you an extra 30 euros [for fucking up] to change the ticket and all that - just stay on this train and I'll come by and let you know when we have to get off and I'll show you where to go." and he smiled under his Clouseau-esque mustache, "On est sympa ici, en France. On est gentil les francophones." ["We are nice here in France. We are nice us francophones."] he said as he installed me into a seat.
I'm starting to breathe a litte more normally, now. Calming down from an anxiety attack-like experience. I don't think I'll get much writing done on the train and I'll probably just do it in the hotel room. My brain is completely fried. I didn't think I'd be able to eat, but I finished a nice, big sandwich because that adrenaline made me tired and hungry.
There is a small baby sitting across from me and he keeps trying to pass me his books to share, to play. It's adorable. So the ontrolled is taking me directly to the place I need to go to because he doesn't want me to get lost again, "C'est trop gentil." ["That's really nice."] I said.
"C'est rien. Comment ca ce fait t'a manque ton train?" ["It's nothing. How is it that you missed your train?"] So I explained it to him and he just laughed a little to himself and he told me not to worry and that he would take me.
But even on the train, I'm near babies whose parents seem incapable of shutting them up. Sigh.
It's interesting noticing that as we travel further north, the cloud cover becames heavier and more prominent, leaving the sunshine and the warmth and the south behind.
I got off the train at Massay-Varriers and found the Controller who took me up the stairs and pointed me in the right direction to catch the train to Charles de Gaulle airport and my double room, "Il y a jamais des problemes en France, toujours les solutions. On est sympa, pas comme les Anglais ou quoi!" ["There are never problems in France, always solutions. We're nice here, not like the English or whatever!"] he said with a coy smile.
"Oui, trop vrai." ["Yeah, too true."] I said enthusiastically.
When I got to the appropriate building I got on a train to the airport, where I had to change trains at Gare du Nord, where again I had some difficulty, mainly because of the Gare's poor design. Once finally on the train, I sat across from an Asian man who spoke no French and some good English, who asked me where to get off at for arrivals at the airport. I pointed out the appropriate stop at CdG airport and he thanked me, but some people just don't understand "leave me alone". When I put my headphones in it means "leave me alone" not "keep talking to me about inane deatils in your life of which I don't care". Yes, I'm talking to you annoying Asian accounting who's picking up a friend at the airport who works in New Zealand and L.A.!
At the airport I finally headed up to my Novotel hotel room and as I walked into the single room with a double bed I burst into joyful laughter (I could've cried) and immediately stripped naked and jumped on the bed, lay around for a while and took a shower. I had left Avignon at 12:20, I got to the hotel at 17:20, imagine how I felt. But I was finally in a room where I could walk around naked, watch crappy TV and just lounge - some private time. And what a shower. I didn't even care that I was alone on Christmas Day, the hotel room was my gift and I loved it. That night I fell asleep in front of the TV at 21:15.
- from The Journal December 25th 2008
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