A True Trekk

Alright, our day took a turn. We aren't quite sure if it was for the worst or better, but it wasn't necessarily great so we shall say for the worst. Originally we had a long day set out for us. Heading from Barcelona to Nice, in the French Riviera. Now, when we have been arriving at cities we have been booking our tickets for our next journey so we know how to plan and to make sure we get seats. This time however, because we were crossing a boarder, they couldn't book us transfers, because it is then the French train company. So only one leg of our journey was booked ahead of time. 

We woke up at 6:50 am and got ready, packed our bag, as we were spread out, and left the hostel by 7:50. We took the metro, which we had to make a transfer, right to the train station. Arriving shortly after 8:30 we found some food. For Luke this consisted of a combo of a sandwich, cola and a kit kat bar. For my self I was lucky enough to get a sunny delight and a rice, ham, tuna, pea salad. Of course being me I promptly spilt the balsamic dressing all over self first thing on the train, good start. A little odd for breakfast but hey not going to complain for food with substance. Because they couldn't book our transfers we were heading to Montpellier, somewhere on the other side of the boarder into France. Arriving there at 12:23. From there we were going to book our transfer train to Nice, which we had looked up and was suppose to come in at 2:08 and get us into Nice at 7:05 with plenty of time to make it to our hotel and then to find food.

 WELL that was not the way that it went. When we got to Montpellier there were crowds of people. Some train, which we aren't completely sure of, got cancelled bumping all of those people onto what would have been our train leaving to Nice. SOO instead we got re-routed. We got put on a rain leaving at 4:26 headed to Valence. Now if you look at a map, Valence in approximately an hour an a half INLAND. Nice is very much so on the coast. And north further then we were. From Valence we caught a train at 7:30 headed to Nice. Putting us arriving at 11 pm. *sigh* what a long day.

Surprisingly it hasn't been an excruciatingly long day, but I wouldn't say it was enjoyable either. Managed to find a place to eat at the station in Montpellier that offered me a salad with shrimp. Again another meal of some substance. Dinner in Valence was not that way as they had nothing. So a nutritious and delicious bag of lays chips will have to do for now. Wow, what a journey. There were a few other back packers that were in the same boat as us, not sure what they decided to do as we didn't see them after getting our tickets. 

The sorta silly thing is that the original train that we were on from Barcelona was headed to Paris. Our afternoon train we were also on was headed to Paris, exact location with exactly the same stops. So had we known sooner, we could have stayed on the train for a few more hours and maybe caught an earlier train. AH well hindsight is 20/20 I suppose. 

Lucky for us our hotel is Nice both spoke English and was very accommodating. On their sheet talking about our stay it says if you are going to need a late arrival you have to tell them 72 hours prior. Well obviously this was much shorter then 72 hours. Well the guy was super understanding and gave instructions on how to get in to both the building and our room, and said he would put our package with our tickets for tomorrow in the room for us. SO GREAT!

For those who don't know we are going to the Formula One practice races tomorrow in Monte Carlo. We are pretty excited for these. It will be a full day out in the sun(hopefully) as there are few different races and times that we are able to go to. Luke even looked up the previous races and info to see how people are standing and who are competing closer. Apparently there is also a race in Spain somewhere that we didn't realize till we looked up the other info. Friday if we want we can head back as they take a separate class of cars out on the track. We aren't completely sure what this means but apparently Monte Carlo is the only place that does this. That is free to go to, we will see how we are feeling. Great thing is we are allowed to bring in our own food and drink so I can survive, and we won't get stripped of money due to inflation in the park or whatever they call it.

Jumping back to trains for a moment more. They are expensive. If it wasn't for our EurRail, which yea we paid a lump sum for but we even get discounts on tickets if we aren't using our EurRail for, it is so costly to travel this way. We also passed through Marseille on the way to Nice, which looks like a nifty place as well, I am thinking maybe it is similar to Nice, but not certain. We also have been travelling today on double decker trains!! Which is super cool for whatever reason. Well it's me and I don't need to explain myself because that is a reason in itself. ANYWAYS I was pretty stoked, and we even got to sit on both the top and bottom! Which I loved. I would say that I enjoy the top floor more. It is more relaxed feeling. And somehow more homey. They have benches you can sit on if you need a change of scenery and the roof is rounded, which I actually think makes a difference. Also I feel you can see more of the countryside and cities because you have the advantage of being higher up. Also I think it's cool and I am the top bunk kind of person, where as most people prefer bottom, or so I'm told anyways. 

Another slightly random thing is that they have air blowing through the windows somehow. I don't like this. For one you can't turn it off, plus it's cold air. Also because I don't like to have other people's germs blowing on me. Maybe it is fresh air, in which case alright that's okay still annoying coming straight down from the window but easy to deal with.

The train stations are neat though they are massive stations even when they are in a small city. They also have pianos in them which I love. Reminds me of my daddy playing, he plays much better mind you, but it reminds me of home. Luke was saying that they used to have them an then took them away for some reason and brought them back recently by popular demand. Personally I think it a great idea. Granted the people playing have also been good and not children banging around, I am sure I would have a much different opinion if that was the case. 

But guys the one thing that I can't get over is paying to go pee. I'm sorry but I need to dwell on this for a moment. How silly is this concept. Yes I understand it's someone's job, and they need to be keeping on top of it due to high volume of people, but how does that make a difference to charging people! Yes I know it is only 50 cents or 70 sometimes a euro but still it's not as though they are special washrooms and the people are hardly ever doing something they are on the phone or something. It is annoying and if it ever gets brought to Canada I will not be pleased. I really try my hardest to not support them cause I just don't want to, but today when we were spending majority of the day in the train stations I had no choice. We weren't on trains when I needed to go. So I had to give in. 50 cents at Montepellier and 70 cents at Valence. 

Well besides that there isn't much that happened with our day. I must say though. Luke back in London found me a free iPad app that compresses photos because he thinks that was contributing to why it was so difficult at times to post. So I don't know how things looks from your end but if you notice that they are blurry when blown up or something that is why. 

Today was a day when we were thankful for iPads as well as multiplayer games on iPads. We also started reading a few different books together. One we have been doing more as a devotional and the other is a book written by Ted Dekker. I love his books as well as Frank Peretti. It's fun reading it together, or at least for me, Luke hasn't really voiced an opinion one way or the other but he hasn't stopped me. I have been reading it out loud for us and I have been doing different voice inflections for the different people who talk. It is great fun. Nothing like I do when reading to kids. That is when it get even funner, yes funner. But it is good. 

Also trying to sleep on trains is a riot. No matter what kind of pillow you have you will always feel kinked somehow when all is said and done. But on a day like today any sleep is good sleep with how early we were up and how long the day was. 

But 11:45 made it to the hotel. It's a weird feeling when you are mentally tired but physically awake. Hopefully we can get some sleep.

And so the adventure continues...