Fun at the Train Station

Story 1: The Night Train

If you have ever slept on a night train you will have some idea as to what this experience is like. When Matt and i traveled from Venice to Paris we were lucky to sleep in a nice comfort couchette for 6. It was memorable. Two of the people in our cabin were from Morrocco and only spoke French and Morroccan. They were very friendly; however, they continued to give us more and more drinks. First the wife gave me a very large size drinkable yogurt. I thought about waiting to drink it or maybe not even drinking it at all but then she opened hers and nodded her head for me to do the same. I did and took a drink. I figured I should drink it all because I did not want to be rude. Then the husband pulls out a glass cup wrapped in paper towel hands it to Matt and pours this juice in it. Matt took a sip and tried to pass it on to me but the man refused and insisted that matt had the whole glass. I thought I got out of it but unfortunetaly after matt finished his delicious salad in a glass, he poured me a nice glass full. What can someone do in that situation besides kindly drinking the whole glass. Needless to say sleeping that night was next to impossible because Matt and I had to go to the bathroom the whole time. But we did not want to to get up and disturb the 4 other people in the cabin.

Story 2: Panic Attack

Matt and I were now traveling from Avignon to Nice (a 4 hour train ride) and for some reason the time change in France (similar to daylight savings) is like Y2K happening all over again and all of the machines in the train station were out of order until 7. Well our train left at 6:58 and we had no way to pick up our prepaid tickets. I was waiting for the train and the conductor told me to get on the train. Matt came and said he was going to try and print them one more time and had me wait on the train (bad idea). I was waiting and all of the sudden I felt the train move, I started running out into the halls shouting "My husband is not on the train" the train helper men just told me that "the train must leave on time". I was hysterical and started to cry. They, in their best english tried to help me and eventually found a solution. I was to go to Nice and hope that Matt would get on the next train to Nice and we could meet there. This only made me cry more, the next train did not leave for 6 hours and I had no way of communicating with Matt to tell him what to do. So, finally (I think out of desparation to get the stupid American girl to calm down) they had me get off at the next stop they would wait with me until the next train to Avignon and hope that matt did not get on some other train. The whole time I was so nervous that I would not find Matt, but when I got off the train there he was waiting for me. It turns out that he was able to communicate with the conductor from the station where I was waiting to get me back on the train and back to Matt. We have both learned our lessons...hopefully.