Back to Paris

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Saturday, the 24th of June

Started out our train ride today by almost missing our train. We were an hour early, and a train pulled into our platform within 10 minutes of our being there. We thought it was a different train and would be moving on, but time wore on and the train didn’t move. Margaret had gone down off of the platform looking for drinks, and Erin and Jesse were on the platform looking at the train, looking at their watches, looking at the train, etc….We finally looked closely at the train and noticed a digital sign that showed our transfer station, looked at the tickets again, and realized that after a good 15 or 20 bikes had already boarded, and filled the bicycle car, that we were supposed to be on that train! After trying to cram our bikes on, and running out of time to board, it eventually got communicated to us through rough English that if the bike car was full, it was acceptable to take the bikes onto another area of the car or another car entirely. We did, but at the same time as another group of touring riders that were 2 pairs of husband and wife. We worked out through some rough English from one of the wives and Margaret’s rough German that we’d get our bikes out of the way to unload there’s when the time came. From then on, we had a grand ol’ time sharing remedial sentences back and forth between English and German, and in sharing a few songs back and forth that that Margaret and the one English speaking lady knew. We spent two hours of the trip laughing our heads of and having great fun, as the train back-tracked our trip along the Mosel for probably half of what we’d pedaled. Through our discussions we found out that they we going to the stop past Triere, where we’d started, and were going to go back to Koblenz, where we’d just ended our bike ride and hopped on the train, duplicating the ride through the Mosel Valley that we’d just completed. They’d just be be taking a day longer to do it than we did and going an extra 10 miles. We bid them “aufwiedersein” at their stop, and continued on to our transfer station. We were starting to get a little concerned as our train was a little late getting into the station and we were worried about getting to the next platform and boarding the train that would take us the rest of the way to Paris. Luckily the platform was the other side of the one we disembarked at. How do platforms 5 and 12 share the same space, anyways? Weird. Our Paris bound train pulled in and we hustled down to the car we were supposed to be in, only to find the doors into this train were the narrowest we’d seen all trip, and we had to make a tight 90 degree left turn into the passageway, followed by a tight 90 degree right turn into the storage compartment. Had to pull Erin’s panniers to get the last bike in, but we got it done and settled down for the five hour ride to Paris. It was a lazy and enjoyable ride through the countryside, with intermittent napping being the order of the day. We exited the train station in Paris to the sight of a nice big Accor affiliated hotel directly in front of us. And next to it, to Erin’s eternal joy, was a Tex-Mex place that we could have dinner at. Erin has been CRAVING Mexican food for at least a week. We checked in to the hotel and found the very first air conditioning of the trip. Could have used it weeks ago, for sure! We headed down to the Tex-Mex place, which was called the Indiana Grill, and had an Indian Head logo and Indian decorations inside, with somewhat blaring disco and early 80’s music playing. Too funny!!! The food wasn’t too bad, but they could definitely improve if they imported a chef from California and could get the correct ingredients.

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Comments

[Dorothy Dargie]

Shame
Erin ~~ Shame on you. Eating Mexican food in Paris!!