The Train Ride

Update: We are back from Paris and had a fabulous time! I will write more later on that with lots of pictures. (my camera is still charging....) I'm going to write about our train ride experience while it is still fresh in my mind.
My sister and I boarded the train to Paris on Sunday evening. We were to take a "sleeper car" all night and wake up right before we arrived in the city. When the train pulled into the station in Zurich, we (of course) didn't know which car to get on. After much broken english and german we were shown to the last car. Once on, we were taken to this small little room with bunk beds -two on top and two on the bottom and told that we might have to share with another couple.

Advice: Do not pay (a bunch of money) extra for a sleeper car in Europe. I think my sister paid almost as much as a plane ticket to upgrade our seats to sleeper. You will never be assured of actually getting your moneys worth.
(This is my sister -laughing or crying?)
(This is me saying "it's a bit like camping...)

This is when my sister starts freaking out. Yeah, she has never camped before and this was sort of like that. I was actually fine with it and once we hoisted our suitcases to the very top bin of the cabin - climbing up this little latter to leads to the top bunk and lifting the suitcases above our heads and almost getting a hernia in process - I laid down and tried to get some sleep. Just when I was drifting off the conductor came around and opened the door, turned on the light and wanted our train tickets and passports. My sister started telling him that we got an upgrade (apparently this word is unknown in any languate except for English). He wrote something on our tickets, took our passports and left.

When your passport leaves your person in Europe this is never a good feeling.

But, oh well - I laid back down and tried to get a little sleep before we pulled in. We woke to the conductor knocking on the door again and by the time I found the handle to pull it open he was gone - I guess this was our wake up call. Where was the coffee (expresso)? Where was the pastry? For the amount of money paid we should have been eating and drinking on the queens silver.

Flash forward to our ride back (was that really just last night?). We had been camped out at one of the train stations in Paris for 2 hours in the cold. The station was packed full of people and there was no where to sit. The station was very dirty and did I mention cold? There was a guy throwing away cardboard and my sister being the industrious person that she is dragged over a couple of pieces for us to sit on. (sitting down at the train station - what a novel thought!) Just then a drunk guy came over and laid down on the pile of cardboard beside my sister. (yes, she seems to attact the weirdos for some reason). This guy is crashed out snoring when a train employee comes by and wakes him up and starts yelling at him in french -probably something to the effect of get the fuck up. He gets up yelling, too, and trips over my sister. Just then we decided to beat it out of there because he looked like he was going to throw up. Yep, we were right. We moved off to another area of the station and crammed ourselves into a little room to wait.

Finally, the train came. We got on board -after talking to half a dozen conductors about what car we needed to be on. All the sleeper cars were full and everyone was mad because they had all paid for an upgrade, too, and thought it would be nicer and no sharing. To my sister and I this was just par for the course. We found our car and there was a grumpy german couple in it who wouldn't let us in. We had to physically drag the conductor on board to get him to either tell them that this was our car, too, or find us another car. The german couple wasn't budging. So, he found us another car with another (older) german couple. Once they realized that we were there to stay they started climbing the latter to put their suitcases the size of my house on the shelf above. During this time my sister and I are waiting in the hall until they complete this task because unless they are on their top bunks we can't fit into the cabin. I watched the man climb the latter with this huge suitcase that would not fit between the shelf and the ceiling of the car. It was a little like watching those pack mules that haul everyone's things to the top of the mountain. Also, during this the lights of the train would flicker out leaving us all in darkness. At one point I heard a crash and thought for sure the man had fallen off the latter with the wife's suitcase landing on top of him. "Great, I'm going to have to do first aid on this guy if he ever gets up again" Finally, after what seems like hours they are settled on top and we can move in to our bunks on the bottom. I threw the scratchy blanket over my body, put my earplugs in and prepared to fall asleep when the conductor comes in and turns on the light asking for tickets and passports. After that, I go through the same process and then the old guy on top is snoring so loud my earplugs have no effect. then, the cabin turned into a freezer and I got up and put on my leather jacket and my hat and covered up. At some point I drifted off for a few hours. When I woke up I was covered in sweat and the cabin was stiffling! Just then the conductor knocked on the door -no surprise there- and it was time to get up. He kept knocking until I reached up and flung the door open turning on the light and the old guy in the bunk on top of my sisters was NAKED! This was not something I wanted to see EVER let alone before my morning expresso!
We beat it out of there in record time and spent the rest of the ride in the hallway of the train. I was never so happy to see my sisters apartment as we wheeled our bags up the ramp from the train station in my whole life!