Here are two blog posts from a couple days ago - I didn't have access to wifi in France until now, so my posts were trapped on my computer for awhile. I will hopefully be writing more about my stay in France later, but thought I'd put what I have up now to avoid a complete dump of info in one day...
August 17, 2010
7:10 AM
I’m in France! Not quite to Paris yet, but will be there in less than an hour and a half. Right now I’m lying on the bed in my compartment, listening to Owl City and watching the end of the sunrise out my window. There are four beds in my compartment, but I’m the only one left at this point. There was an older woman and another girl in here with me, but they both got out at earlier stops. The girl was from France but spoke Spanish without even any accent, and we got along really well. The older woman however, also from France – apparently she’s lived in Spain for quite some time, but I don’t know how she possibly gets by, because her Spanish is horrible! It was also a mistake to tell her that I was trying to learn some French before I got to Paris, because she took that as a cue to speak to me entirely in French. I did more smiling and nodding incomprehensively then I have in two months in Spain.
I’m not sure what I think of night trains. On one hand, I found the bed really comfortable and sleeping took up time. But on the other hand, you’re stuck in a small compartment with three other people, and if someone smelled, or you didn’t like them… things could get bad fast! Also, no TV. During my six hours in Madrid, all I could think about was how excited I was to watch a movie on the train – so far on trains and buses I have watched The Devil Wears Prada, Where the Wild Things Are, Up in the Air, and a couple random movies – but alas. No TV. I was pleasantly surprised to find an outlet in the compartment though (those things are as scarce as cold milk here), so I was able to recharge my dead computer and take up time there. Would have been nice to have Wi-fi, but I did find a couple TV shows I had downloaded ages ago and never watched, so I watched the LOST Survivor’s Guide and this show about life at 25. Now if I ever decide to watch LOST, I’ll already know what is going to happen… yay.
Speaking of life at 25, I have been mistaken for being older than I actually am several times in Spain! This is a change, as I have been mistaken for being younger than my younger brother several times in the past in the US. Alejandro, my future Spanish lover, thought I was much older than 19 (but he’s 10, so I guess he doesn’t really count), and the other girl in my apartment wouldn’t believe me when I told her how old I was. She said it made her feel old to talk to me, even though she was only 23. Haha. I think I’m still at the point where I want to be appear older than I actually am, right? Not for much longer though… the show on 25 year olds was talking about the “quarter life crisis” and it freaked me out. What if I’m already through a quarter of my life? I think I’ll probably make it past 76, but who knows. I think the train is encouraging my morbidity right now, because it is going very fast and rocking around a lot, making me think more about death than I might if I was, say, sitting on a porch swing drinking lemonade.
Lemonade… I’m not even that big of a fan, but I have definitely wanted to order a lemonade a couple times here and it doesn’t exist! Only lemon Fanta, ick. I’ll make a list of things that don’t exist in Spain (or, that technically exist, but that I haven’t been able to have):
• Well, lemonade
• Cold milk
• Peanut butter
• Cereal
• Marshmallows
• Bread with BUTTER
• Cheddar cheese
• Any kind of good breakfast food, at least not for breakfast… fried eggs are a strictly dinner food here, etc
• Goldfish (I only mention this because they have things that look similar but taste more like ritz crackers)
• Chewy cookies! Only have these sweet biscuit things that you eat for breakfast to make you feel gross and fat for the rest of the day
• Deli ham. All their ham has lots of fat and is super flavorful. Apparently Americans usually love it, but I’m not really a fan.
Also, Papa, you were right. I could have cut my journey by quite a few hours by going to Valladolid and from there to Paris… but how was I to know? I trusted the guy at Madrid when he told me I had to go through Madrid. I’m telling myself that the faster way was probably impossible with the eurail pass, because that is very possible, and it makes me feel better. And honestly, I didn’t mind the traveling much, it was only the time in the Madrid train station that got me. Especially since the luggage locker refused to work in the station, and the bathroom didn’t have toilet paper. Waiting to get on the train to go to the bathroom seemed kind of counter-intuitive to me, but so I had to do. The only good thing about being in the train station for so long was that I got to do something I have been secretly wanting to do for awhile: sleep on my luggage. It was great, actually quite comfortable.
To explain the luggage locker thing a bit further, because it’s so typical of the kind of difficulties you run into in Spain: I decided to store my suitcase when I got to the train station so that I wouldn’t have to lug it around and could possibly go out and explore the city for a couple hours. When I get to the luggage storage place, there are no bottom lockers available (and no way could I lift my bag up to a top locker!), so I waited around. Finally one opens up. I put my bag in and go to pay, but it only takes exact change, which I don’t have. They don’t have change and their change machine is broken. I leave my stuff and run back over to the station proper to buy something and get change. The first place I go doesn’t have any change. The second place doesn’t have any 50 cent pieces, but at this point I have €5 in coins, and my locker costs €4.50 so I figure I should be okay anyway. But no, it won’t let you overpay, and spits my coins back out at me. Finally a guy gives me 50 cents. Success? No. This time the locker refuses to take any money and keeps giving me the message that my “deposit is impossible.” I go and explain the problem to the guy working there, who is texting and doesn’t seem inclined to help me. When I finally get him to pay attention, he doesn’t believe me and keeps telling me to try again. After another couple of minutes, he decides that he has to come do it himself, at which point he stands there perplexed for another couple minutes. After a while of that, he tells me to get another locker, which as I said before, was impossible because I couldn’t lift my suitcase high enough. He laughed when I told him that… ☹… but then said he would help me. At that point though, I was so annoyed by the whole experience that I just left. 30 minutes and ultimate failure for something that should have taken 5 minutes tops. So typical here! You can stand in line at the grocery store for 20 minutes to buy a pack of gum because the cashier decides to go talk to her friend in the middle, or just doesn’t care about efficiency. Not that the US is always efficient, but I feel like in general it’s much easier to get things done there.
Okay, well half an hour until I get to Paris and the guy just knocked on my door to give me my passport, so I think that’s a cue to get ready.
Au revoir,
Brianna
August 20, 2010
4:06 PM
Well. My time in France has been interesting, to say the least. I have had next to no time alone and am constantly exhausted from touring all the sites. Also, I have definitely gained at least a couple pounds from food being forced upon me – I hate it, eating fatty food that I don’t even want! But I can’t refuse, every time I try I’m met with a “But it’s necessary that you try this food while you’re in France!” etc., etc. Hence I have eaten dessert, wine, and bread at every meal. I feel so disgusting. I already have my workouts and diet planned for when I get back to the States, and I cannot wait to start!
Speaking of the States, I hate how I have to defend the United States at every turn. I like the United States. And not everyone in the United States eats McDonalds and is fat and drives a big car and can only speak one language. Yet people constantly mention things like that as justification that the US is a bad country, and seem to expect me to agree! I’m FROM the United States, do you really think that I’m going to agree with you that it’s a horrible place? I think that it is rude to say something like that in the first place - I wouldn’t go around insulting someone’s homeland, and I don’t think that it’s justified to insult the United States to me just because I don’t fit the stereotypes. Which, by the way, ARE just stereotypes. I have traveled around the United States, I’m from the United States, and almost everyone I know is also from the United States, and I can bear testament to the fact that we are not like that (well, at least, there are a substantial number of people who are not like that).
Okay. that's all for now. More later from my hostel in Madrid!
Brianna
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