9/02 11:00am Somewhere between Paris, France and Milan, Italia
The last post was meant to have yesterday's adventures as well, but I got caught up with my new friends and their adventures (more on that later). I'm currently about 3 hours into my 7 hour train ride to Milan. I found some interesting sleeping positions trying to get my foot up over the seat in front of me, but there is definitely a lot more room in this seat than in the airplane seats, so I'm happy about that. We are right now passing through what I'm going to assume are the French Alps. Well, we've been passing through them longer, but I was bumped awake and then I saw them. I had to take a Dramamine because not only is it a train ride, but the seats are backwards :/. Not my idea of an ideal trip. There are littly farms up pretty high on the mountains, and you can see their crops on the mountain side, which I'm guessing you can't harvest mountain side crops with a tractor, so I'm wondering how they do that. My seat buddy probably thinks I'm some crazy college student because I showed up drenched in sweat and looking a mess. I woke up this morning around 545am and I actually got up, which is an accomplishment in itself. I had mostly packed the night before, but I had to just get my stuff together, which took about 15 minutes in the dark. The girl below me kept making a scene like I was bothering her and I just wanted to be like, you're kidding, right? This ain't a 5 star hotel and you are paying 30 dollars a night to stay here. You can handle me packing to leave for 15 minutes. No one else seemed to care though, and by 615am, I was walking to the Metro. And while the trip to the train station was a lot easier now that I knew how to ride the Metro and where exactly I was going, it still wasn't easy. There are no esculators at the smaller stops, so I ended up carry most of my stuff. By the time I got to the train station, I was pouring sweat. Good thing I knew something like this was going to happen, so I had my leggings and nike shorts on. I ended up getting to the station a few minutes early, so I was thinking about all the things I should do before getting on the train. So I was like, I could go to the bathroom one last time. NOPE. They have bathrooms alright, but you have to pay! I'm not going to pay! That the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. So, then I just found my platform and got on the train.
But about yesterday, since I still haven't written about it. My plans were to go to Versilles and the Musee d'Orsay, but I ended up never making it to the latter. I left to go to Versailles about 930 and didn't get there until around 11am. It's about a 30 minute train ride out, but between the metro and waiting, it took a lot longer. But Versailles was really fun. First, you walked through the actual chateau and saw all the rooms. And by all, I mean all 50 billion of them. Then you head outside and look at the gardens, which I thought was the coolest part. They are just ridiculous and go on forever! You also have a nice view of the French countryside, which isn't that bad. I spent some time out there and decided, since it was getting so late, I wasn't going to stress about getting back to go to the Musee d'Orsay, and instead just spend some time at the hostel with my new friends. Around 230pm, I was walking around to the train station to head back to the city, and I turned and saw a Tex-Mex restuarant. Um, duh I stopped there! I just had to see exactly their interpretation of Tex-Mex food. Some, like the taco salad I got were pretty spot on. Other though, not so much. I found some Tuna Quesidillas and a Bubblegum Margarita. Neither sounded like something I've ever had at Chuys before/made at home. I also laughed out loud when they had the pronunciation of Fajitas as FA-HEE-TAS. I mean, it's right, but that's just normal language for us. I was hoping a Texan was actually the owner, but I saw him and he was definitely French.
After lunch/dinner, I returned to the hostel and decided to sit in the common area with my new friend Krista. She's from Canada (Vancouver) and when I'm talking to her, I forget and just think she's from the US until she says 'House' or 'Out' lol. She is also a vegetarian and I was like, I'm friends with lots of vegetarians these days (lol Hoooollly). We had fun hanging out, and it was good we did because she was leaving that night for London to finish up her trip and head home. She had been gone for a year and had also just finished a 2 and a half month backpacking trip around Europe. The rest of the time she was working in Edinbourgh. She reminds me of a lot of my friends, so it was easy to talk to her. She also had tons of advice, including on how to call home. I knew about Skype, but apparently with Skpye, you can also pre-pay and put money in your account and then from your computer (with wireless) you can call any home or cell in the world. I tried it and ended up talking to Dad for about 15 minutes and Mom for about 30 minutes and it was only 2 dollars off my pre-paid. Definitely a win. It was the first time in 4 days I had actually talked to them, so I was happy. And two dollars is nothing, so thank you Krista and Skype.
While we were sitting there, Krista was telling me about a pub crawl she did in San Sebastian, Spain last week that was 'Party Rock' themed and I laughed and told her all about Carrie and Val. She pulled out all the clothes she had bought for the pub crawl, which included zebra leggings and a red sequin hat and I was joking, but more serious when I told her that my cousin pretty much dresses like that all the time. She was amazed. Lol Carrie, I definitely thought you would enjoy hearing that. But not only is that the most popular song in the US, it is the most popular here.
After sitting there awhile, Krista finally had to head to the airport. For the past 2 hours I had been hearing about how she should be going to Orly airport at 630pm. She had made a big deal about it because as much as she travelled in the past year, she hated doing it alone, so getting on the metro and to her plane by herself was freaking her out. So at 625pm, she pulled out her ticket one last time and was saying, ok, I just have to get there by metro and then I'll figure out where the Charles de Gaulle Terminal is. I just looked at her, with the most ridiculous look on my face I'm sure, and I just was slowly like, you mean.... Charles de Gaulle Airport? She freaked out. Apparently, this whole time, she thought she was heading to Orly to catch a flight out of the Charles de Gaulle terminal and had prepared herself to take the metro to Orly. But, within 5 minutes, I told her the correct metro stops and stations to take and where to get off when she got to CDG. I know she was thankful for me at the moment, because if she had gone to Orly, there is no way she would have been able to make it to CDG on the metro to really catch her flight. A potential horrible situation was turned to a good one, and once again, I'm thankful for my map reading skills and being able to know how to get one place to another without having to contantly look at a map (like Dad).
After that, I went to pack up and ended up downloading the newest episode of Necessary Roughness, which I watched right before I went to sleep. And between the Dramamine and just being tired all the time, I'm exhausted right now. But in about 4 hours I'll get to Milan and will have more tourist-ing filled days.
