My ferry crossing last night was uneventful - the boat was really nice! And much larger than the one I crossed from Ireland to Wales on, so there was less crazy rocking. I didn't get a cabin but instead a reclining seat which wasn't THAT comfortable but I managed to get a few hours of sleep. I had a very strange dream that I was hanging out with Jake Gyllenhaal. The funniest part of the dream (that I remember) is that I was texting someone to say, "I'm hanging out with Jake Gyllenhaal!" but then partway through the text I realized I didn't know how to spell "Gyllenhaal". Way to keep it real, subconscious.
We disembarked in France and again, border control/customs - nothing to get excited about. This time they did actually stamp my passport though. Then I got on a bus to go from Roscoff (where we landed) to the train station in Morlaix. While riding on the bus, I tried to recall the French I learned in my younger days, and put together some phrases I thought would come in handy.
When I got to the ticket counter at the Morlaix train station, I was ready. "Je voudrais aller a Paris," I said to the girl. She didn't look impressed, and said, "Today?". I persisted. "Oui." She typed a few things into her computer and then said, "That is not possible." I gave up on the French. "Whhhaaaa??" I asked. She explained that all the direct trains to Paris were booked for today and there would be no space for me. She typed a few more things into her computer and then asked, "It is okay to wait in rain? You can go today but you have a wait in rain?"
THE RAIN. MY ENEMY. Still, if I didn't get to Paris tonight my (expensive) hostel would charge me for the night anyway, so I said, "Okay, that's fine."
Turns out she was saying RENNES - the way to get to Paris was to take a train to Rennes, wait five hours, and then catch a train to Le Mans, wait 45 minutes, and then finally catch a train to Paris. Well, better than being stranded in Morlaix, although I did consider catching a train to Brest, famed former home of Alexa Cottrell. :)
When I got to Rennes, I wandered around the train station for a while and eventually found stopped at a coffee shop. Here are a few of the things I contemplated while I was waiting for my next train:
- I always have a terrifying moment between the moment when I open my bag to retreive my passport, and the moment where I locate my passport. I keep it in a consistent, safe place, so it's not like I have to do a lot of rummaging around, but no matter how well organized I am, I can never eliminate that split second of pure panic.
- I feel like I've done a good job of adjusting to traveling alone, but the actual travel part is what I find the most challenging to do by myself - going from place to place. For one thing, I don't have an other person to confirm my decisions with, so I wind up having internal conversations along the lines of, "Yes. You are on the right train. You looked at the monitor, and it said platform one, and at the correct time, a train came to platform one and you got on it. Therefore, you are on the correct train." Even worse than the lack of reassurance is the lack of entertainment. As I learned today, the difference between a five hour layover with someone to talk to and a five hour layover with a book you've nearly finished and some Sudoku is HUGE. Having people to talk to when I'm actually AT a place isn't a problem. (My favorite conversation I've had this whole trip was at my hostel in Cork, when a group of us got in a lengthy debate about whose home country had the most dangerous animals. After weakly trying to support "the wild boar", the German guy gave up. The Korean girl was never really a contender, so it just came down to me and an Australian guy, along with a French guy who kept interjecting with "ZE PYTHON!!") Anyway, I haven't had much luck finding people to talk to on trains or on the ferry, so mostly I spend my time trying not to finish my book.
Adding on much, much later now...
I got to Paris at a little before 10:00, and got on the Metro to go up to Gare du Nord, the closest Metro stop to my hostel. I was going to be really glad to be done travelling for a few days! The hostel was easy to find, just several hundred meters from the train station, and as I walked up, it looked like a cool place - lots of people sitting in the downstairs lounge. But then I got to the reception desk and gave my name.
Okay, so I really messed this one up. I completely forgot about the night I was going to spend on the ferry, and since I knew that my last night in Penzance was the 11th, I reserved my first night in Paris as the 12th. Well, I hadn't shown up that night so they cancelled my reservation for all three nights.
Here's a helpful travel hint: if you want to find an empty, affordable place to sleep in Paris, 11 PM on a Saturday night is not the best time to be looking. Luckily, the hostel I was SUPPOSED to stay at felt really bad about the whole situation, so the desk guy was calling around for me. He called seven or eight places, then finally found one that had space. He gave me the name and directions and I set out again.
Now, I was pretty sad about having to get back on the Metro. For one thing, it was now after 11:00 and I was tired and hungry. Even worse, it was Saturday night, so while I was hauling my two backpacks everywhere, wearing boots and having not showered in two days, all around me were French girls dressed up and going out on the town. If the Paris Metro were an African savannah, they would be the elegant, long-legged antelopes, and I, the lumbering wildebeest.
I finally reached my new hostel. I was worried on the way over - the name of this place had "hotel" not "hostel" in it, and I was worried that it was going to be way nicer (and way more expensive). No worries though - this place is super hostely. My dorm room has 12 beds in it, and it was full last night so I got the joy of having 11 roommates - quite a change from my cozy room in Penzance. Everything here is institutional tile, and their white and blue color scheme (along with the VERY bleached sheets) makes it feel slightly like I'm living in the locker room of a swimming pool. Still, it's right near a lot of good sights and it's clean and comfortable, so I'm okay here.
I went to the Louvre today but this entry is already quite long, so I'll go ahead and post this (I've been typing it offline) and include Louvre stuff in my next entry, which will either be tonight or tomorrow.
Yay for Morlaix and Rennes! I'm glad you thought of me and Brest :) Are you really only in Paris for 3 nights?! I wrote to you on facebook, so write back & maybe you can figure out meeting up with Suzanne, if you and she have time.
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