I was born during a hurricane, went to college during a huge storm and had to evacuate during move in day because of a tornado warning, and so it is only fitting that the day I leave to go abroad, South Carolina gets more snow than it has gotten in probably the past 5 years and my flight was cancelled. But sometimes things work out for the best, because my friend Claire and I were rescheduled for a flight out the next day that was a direct flight from Charlotte to Paris.
Saying goodbye to our parents was definitely very difficult and we both tearfully accepted the “complimentary tissues” from the security man as we went through security. We made our way to the gate and before we knew it we were picking up our bags in Paris (thank heavens they didn’t get lost!) Our plan was to then go catch the Air France Bus to a train station that was closer in town, Montparnasse. But what we didn’t plan for was us having to carry our two huge suitcases (I mean we were packing for 4 months) and carry-on bags across the airport to get to the bus terminal. We finally made our way to the buses, caught the correct bus, and had arrived at Montparnasse. Once again, we were faced with a “what next” situation. After lugging our suitcases down a flight of stairs, and unsuccessfully trying to buy a ticket from the machines, we finally found our way to the ticket counter. The whole reason we caught the bus to go to Montparnasse to meet up with our group in Tours, France, instead of leaving from the train station at Charles DeGaulle airport was so we would not have to switch trains. Welp, the only train going to Tours required us to switch trains and only gave us 7 minutes to do it. After waiting in the train station for about an hour, our train’s gate was finally posted. They do not post the train’s gate number until 20 minutes before the train is suppose to leave. We quickly ran, with all of our luggage, to our train gate, and with the help of one man telling us how to swipe our tickets, another man telling us which car we were assigned to, and yet two other men helping us hoist our luggage onto the train, we triumphantly made it to the train. Being as prepared as we always are (haha), we were waiting at the train’s door to get off the train to race to our next train that was leaving 7 minutes later. Once again, with the help of two other nice men, we made it off the train, but had no idea what to do next. We literally threw our luggage down a flight of stairs and ran after it. Only to realize, once we were one flight down, that we needed to go up again. But this time, we took the elevator. When we arrived at the train, the doors were shut. Being the smart girls we are, we banged on the door. Thankfully they opened the doors and we literally squeezed in. We ended up sitting on our suitcases for the 5 minute train ride from St. Peirre to Tours.
We thought we had finally made it, only to realize that cabs only go to one side of the train station, and we were on the wrong side. We walked around the entire train station and finally made it into a cab and were on our way to the hotel. To say the least, the hotel was not our ideal vacation spot. We decided we deserved a great glass of French wine, and stopped and enjoyed our 1 euro glass of wine. After spending about 3 euro each, we finally met our group at the hotel. The wine gave us a second wind and everyone seemed pretty normal as we met them for the first time. We ate dinner with the group at the hotel—it was fish, we think. It had a sauce on it that just made it taste fishier. But since it was our first meal since the Charlotte airport, we thought it was edible. We were zombies at dinner, barely caring on conversation as our new friends tried, unsuccessfully, to speak to us in French. We called it a night and decided to rest up for the next couple of days.
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