Hey all, Dustin is officially supposed to write the next post so that you can get his unique (and no doubt highly amusing) take on the situation.
In the meantime, allow me to talk your ear off as usual. We left for Paris around 11:31 am this morning on the TGV and everything went smoothly.
HAHA oh wait, that's in an alternate universe! You know, the other dimension where stuff goes according to plan.
Okay, so ACTUALLY, what happened was that we showed up at the train station and our train was indefinitely delayed, and then, our train got canceled I guess. Because the next thing we know they're crowding 80 of us into one bus and driving us way the heck out to St. Dizier. But only after making us wait an hour and a half in the rain, because that's how you do things.
Then we get to St. Dizier and the bus driver starts acting a little drunk--circling the train station, switching sides, scratching her head. "What's going on?" asks one passenger. "I have no idea, I'm just a train station employee," she admits. "I don't know if I'm supposed to drop you off here or not."
It was very good fun. We got to spend 30 minutes looking out the bus window at a spectacularly depressing Holocaust memorial made of black stone. And I had the blessed opportunity to contemplate how once again, I am being reminded that just because a train station employee wears a uniform, it doesn't mean they know anything special about trains or how to get on them. In fact, the average five year old may know more, particularly if they've read that Thomas the Tank Engine series.
So, the bus driver either got some outside info or decided to grab life by the horns, because she eventually started up the bus and took us to Champagne-Ardenne where we caught the next train to Paris (but only just.) This was a wonderful development in our lives, given the fact that my musings about Dachau and Auschwitz were by this point verging on morbid.
Henry enjoys trains. Mommy and Daddy enjoy them quite a bit too, especially when you've spent close to 3 hours just trying to get on board the dang thing. Henry found himself riding on a train once again and took this opportunity to scream his head off because I wouldn't give him an orange (they are his new favorite food and he can eat four clementines in a row.) Then, he peed his pants big-time.
Somebody should make a cartoon of our lives. Unfortunately, because I'm an active participant, I'm too tired to do it.
When we got off the train in Paris, the French government must have heard about how crappy our day had been so far, because we got a warm little beam of sunshine. Our first train was canceled due to an act of sabotage at 5:30 am this morning that was connected with the numerous strikes taking place in Paris. So, to apologize for the inconvenience, every passenger on a delayed train was given a free meal ticket at the train station sandwich shop. They even gave one to Henry--his premature set of teeth must have led them to believe that he can eat sandwiches already. And oh yes, need I mention the three free bottles of Orangina? Um, citrus heaven.
So, that was nice. A much-needed break, if you will, because the next step of our journey was getting on the Paris subway with a 60-pound suitcase, a portable crib, and the world's fattest 9-month-old in the world's flimsiest stroller. Also my purse. Remember the SAT word comparisons? Here's one for you: "My purse is to normal purses what sumo wrestlers are to Dustin."
We always struggle a little bit with automatic ticket dispensers. Do they want our card? Do they want to spit it out? Do they want to accept only coins and no bills? Does the rolling cursor want to select what I tell it to, or does it want to independently flip up and down the screen until I develop a nervous tic in my right eye? Or is it D, all of the above? Forgive the standardized test comparisons...it's just that life today felt like more of a test than it normally does.
A test which we have passed, despite everything, because we're currently in our hotel room watching Sarkozy gesticulate on CNN. But not before Dustin tried to get through the metro gate, only to have the suitcase pull handle snap clean off, causing him to miss his chance. Which resulted in a good 20 minutes of anxiety, since we were now on separate sides of the gate, we had no more pocket change to buy another ticket with (he had already scanned his and couldn't scan it twice to open the gate) and also, Dustin doesn't speak French. Which turns out to be the only language that the lady at the information window speaks.
Oh, and did I mention that Henry was screaming bloody murder? He has this sense of ironic timing...I'm not sure which side it comes from. Maybe it's just "a little baby present," as Frere Vincent would say.
At long last we found the solution to our problems. All you have to do, it turns out, is make so much noise that you attract the attention of the train station police.
Paris police are a little bit more bad-@$$ these days than they normally are because of the strikes and sabotaging; they're wearing bulletproof jackets and we also saw some military personnel with M16s (we'll go ahead and assume they weren't AK-47s because those are for the bad guys, right?) Not that I would know the difference on sight. All I know is, it was definitely an automatic and he was definitely wearing fatigues and a clip.
So, Dustin was escorted through the gate by a police officer, and we made our grand entrance to the metro station with three policemen carrying Henry and our suitcase down the stairs. Yes, it requires an armed task force to get us on the subway. No, I'm not too proud of that, thanks for asking.
The subway was pretty typical. Marvelous graffiti (I've always been a fan of Basquiat, lol) crazy man saying the S-word in several languages because he missed his stop, mad dash for the door, etc. We got off and on all by ourselves like big boys and girls, and then to make my joy complete we even found the hotel--which would be my natural expectation on a normal day, but on a day like today I'm just glad everybody's brains and lungs and circulatory systems still work, etc.
Now we're getting ready for some shut-eye and then it's up at the buttcrack of dawn to go attack Paris in our aggressive, badly-dressed American way.
A bientot!
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