tail end of france. aka paris to nice to italy.

i guess i'll fill in the end of this leg of the trip purely to tell you about both the TRAIN FIASCO OF PARIS 2008 as well as the TRAIN FIASCO OF NICE 2008. do we see a theme here?

on our last morning in paris, we all split up. rosie got up early to make her way to the Louvre. as i am on the whole uninspired by art and was also trying to fight off a bad cough/sickness thing, i slept in. melanie got up to go shopping and lindsey stuck with me. i had to go to the internet cafe to book my flight from milan to madrid for the end of the italy trip with my parents, and she had to sort out the huge mess that happened with all her credit cards... somehow both her credit card and debit card numbers got stolen and were being used to purchase huge amounts of stuff around london. uggggh.

after that got sort of sorted out, melanie found us and we all put our energy towards buying her a dress that she could say was from paris and she could wear out to a fancy dinner in las vegas or something. we finally landed on a nice, not TOO expensive (like €75) dress. just in time to head back tot eh hotel to meet up with rosie, grab our luggage and head to the train station.

upon arrival at the station, melanie discovered she had forgotten her dress in the hotel lobby and runs to grab the subway back. we all waited with her luggage for awhile and when time got short we moved down closer to the train and still didn't see her. we didn't know what to do so i offered to stay and wait while lindsey adn rosie got on the train. i figured melanie and i could catch the next train that left in about an hour.

so i'm chilling, ready for a long wait when rosie comes sprinting fromt eh train to exclaim that melanie's already on the train! we book it back, rosie with her flip flops in hand as they flew off during the run. we get there too late and miss the train. rosie's stuff is on the train. melanie's humongous bag is with us. i've never seen rosie so upset in my life.

so we lugged the stuff to the ticket counter, paid another €6 or so to change our reservation to a train that went first to Marseilles then to Nice. we arrived about an hour or two late. our phones didnt work. we couldnt figure out how to get to the hostel with melanie's directions that involved a tram and a shuttle and a grocery store. probably because we were stressed and upset lol. so we took a stupidly expensive cab to the hostel.

this hostel was basically spring break: EU. everyone was drinking and being ridiculous. a strange night ensued and i crawled into bed at like 3 or 4. i was set to leave for Genoa, Italy that afternoon so when my roommates got up to leave, i slept in and then spent time on the internet then headed for the train station.

ok so are you ready for the NICE to GENOA FIASCO?

i get onto a pretty nice train with compartments with about 6 seats each. i had mine to myself. i get my luggage onto the luggage rack and settle down in the window seat about 30 minutes before departure and wait. and wait. and wait and wait and wait. about an hour or more goes by and we're still there. i hear voices in the hall and see people getting off the train, so i follow suit. i dont know french or italian, which is what everyone was speaking. but an old lady in broken english said ¨strike.¨

the french had gone on strike since i'd gotten on the train! professor wilkerson always spoke of how often the french go on strike, but it had yet to affect me. so i follow a bunch of australians who followed a bunch of italian speaking frenchmen onto some other platform and jump on some random train. i was completely unsure of where we were going but i attached myself to an older australian couple also heading for Genoa and we ended up in Ventimiglia, just over the border in Italy and met up with the train we were SUPPOSED to take. it had for some reason departed from Nice completely empty and met up with us in Ventimiglia. we got on and ended up in Genoa an hour later than originally planned.

so far, i'm not in love with transportation here.