Day 3 : November 11, 2009

Our train from Barcelona leaves at 0845 local time. So we had to leave without breakfast, and very quietly, as the other two backpackers we shared the room with were still sleeping. We did not really get the opportunity to introduce ourselves and made friends because of our different timings. The 2 nights that we shared the room, by the time they got back, we were already sleeping!

Anyway, from Barcelona, there’s no direct train to Paris. We had to transit in Montpellier St. Roch, which we were able to make reservation for. But from Montpellier to Paris Gare de Lyon, we were told that they couldn’t reserve the seats for us from Barcelona and that we had to do it when we get there. We had 3 hours to kill when we reach anyways. So no worries there. But we were wrong.

Above: Estacio de Franca station

Above: Breakfast in the train. Just for fun, otherwise it was very pricey.

When we reached Montpellier, first thing first, we went straight to the ticket counter to make reservation to Paris Gare de Lyon. We had to queue for quite a while, and when it finally came to our turn, it was at a counter with a man, in his 50s, who couldn’t speak much English. (We should have just let the next one go first) Anyway, by using sign language, showing him our itinerary and our Eurail tickets, we managed to conveyed our request.

Unfortunately, with a lot of French in between, we came to understand that it was full to Eurail pass travellers. But he offered us an alternative, which was to Roissy Aeroport, instead. You see, although we had Lulu (iPod Touch) with us, she was not operating on 3G and there were no detectable Wi-fi for us to locate where this Roissy station is and how far is it from Gare de Lyon. We asked if we could upgrade to a 1st class and pay the excess, and assuming that he understood us, he said no. So seeing that there was no other ways, we bought the reservation tickets to Roissy aeroport at 3EUR/each.

Plus the queuing, that took us about 1 hour and a half. Subsequently, we tried looking for wi-fi to find out where Roissy is situated but to no avail. After discussing, we decided to try our luck again at the ticket counter- the whole time praying that we wouldn’t get the same counter again. It was a close call, but thankfully when it was our turn, the counter which was empty first was a young man, who spoke more English.

The funny thing was he did not say anything about reservation being full to Eurail pass travellers. There was no hassle whatsoever. He just printed out the tickets and we paid another 3 EUR/each (no thanks to the first teller). Nevertheless, we were thankful that we got the tickets and save us the trouble of having to find our way from Roissy to Gare de Lyon.

We were also having uncertainties with the tickets as this was our first train ride in Europe, and it was printed in French. So we guessed our way to our seats, and asked a man sitting in front of us if we boarded the correct train and seats. It was a 2-by-2 seaters, facing each other, with a small table in between, and the Morrocan man was sitting in front of me. It started off as an innocent confirmation of the train, the next thing we know he talked for the next 3 hours, all the way from Montpellier to Paris Gare de Lyon!

He was a classical case of having flight of ideas, talking continuously, jumping from one topic to another, according to plays of words. Knowing that we came from M'sia, he started talking about his days as a waiter in a 5 star hotel in M'sia serving the Sultan -> how good he is in his waitering job in France, and how because of that his French colleagues dislike him -> about the French disliking foreigners, and how proud they are to be French, refusing to speak any other language -> complained about his wife, a Morrocan who grew up in France, and acted like the French -> how the Morrocans fought in the front line for France during the world war, but was not given any credits... Noticed how I highlighted some similar words but about different topics? That's exactly what flight of ideas mean.

Towards the end, I was getting rather uncomfortable. He was sitting at the edge of his seat, leaning forward, with both his arms on the table. As he was sitting in front of me, it looked as though he was going to reach out and grab me any time now. I had to lean back and actively stick myself to the back of the seat! But of course, MV was there beside me if he ever tried to be funny. Because in my mind, I was convinced he may have some psychiatric problems.

It was already dark when we arrived at Paris. It was very cold and the wind was strong. We bought our metro tickets for 10 rides/each and head to Hotel Ibis. We checked in and asked the receptionist the nearest supermarket to buy charger for Lulu (Left it in London). There was one near the hotel but unlikely to sell charger, so the receptionist taught us how to take the bus to a nearby Carrefour.

That's another funny story:

We waited for the bus at a nearby bus stop and boarded the bus along with a Chinese-looking lady and others. In Carrefour, we bought bottles of water, bread, local apples, Carrefour's junk food and chocolates (Items that we had not seen before in Carrefour M'sia).

Anyway, when we came out, we weren't sure where to wait for the bus! The receptionist gave us the direction to Carrefour, but not from it (And we didn't ask, either). But we saw the same Chinese lady waiting at a bus stop. Assuming that she was heading back to the same place, we waited with her, and boarded the bus when she did. It did occur to us that she might had come from her workplace, stop for some groceries at Carrefour, and was going home now. But we just adopted the wait-and-see approach.

And our hunch was right. She was heading to a different place! The surrounding was unfamiliar to us and there were not many people on the street to ask, as it was already late. We unboard the bus, one station after hers, and walked in the opposite direction from the bus. We somehow navigated our way with a local map, to a bus stop and then board the bus. So much for following a familiar face! The even funnier thing was, the bus took us back to Carrefour area, and picked up the cashier we paid our food to!

We did head back to our hotel in that bus. It was already after 10pm. And we only had one meal the whole day in the morning train- 2 slices of toasted white bread, with coffee, because our lunch in the train was interrupted by a "storyteller".

We walked around near the hotel, which had many restaurants still open for business. The menus placed outside were all in French. We didn't know what they were serving, and then decided against it, as it was already late. So we went and bought crepes with nutella and a hotdog from a nearby stand. The mustard in the hotdog has a light tinge of wasabi-like taste. Very interesting.

We walked back to the hotel and called it a day.

Above: The night view from our hotel room. It actually looked much nearer than in photos. See the tiny orange lighted building on the right, beside all the skyscrapers? That was the Eiffel tower.