European Vacation: End of Day 1

So we got back to Frankfurt and waited around for our train to Paris. It left very late, around midnight, I think. We walked around outside and inside the station. There was a little beirgarten right outside, so we tried the beer. It was very expensive and I didn't think it was that good.

Inside that station is practically a mall. Lots of produce stands, sandwich stands, drink stands, a tiny grocery store, a Burger King (or was that in Munich? Yeah, that was Munich.) (The stations were pretty much the same all over Europe, a lot nicer than what I've seen in the US.) We bought sandwiches, a salad, something to drink. The prices were good and the food was good. The food court had real food. We would find this to be true everywhere we went.

We walked around for a while after we ate, then I paid €.70 to use the station's bathroom. That's equal to about $1, and it was worth it. They're different from the pay toilets in the US. You put the coins into the stile which then opens for 15 seconds, allowing one person to go in. The bathrooms were clean but still a little smelly, but.... Any port in a storm!

After waiting a while longer, this time sitting on a bench between two tracks, the train finally pulled in. By that time we were more than ready for a nice long nap.

We took an overnight train from Frankfurt to Paris. We planned to do this as often as possible to save money on hotels. Turns out that the only way that would happen is if we just slept in our seats, as we did this night. It didn't take more than a few minutes to realize that sleeping sitting up just wasn't going to cut it.

We did as Rick Steves, the travel book writer, suggested: Get into the compartment early (did you see the movie "Trading Places" with Dan Ackroyd and Eddie Murphy? The train compartments are just like the one in that movie, six seats, three facing forward and three backward.), pull the seats forward (the seats could be pulled out to "recline" just a little, but not enough to be comfortable), and pretend to be asleep. We tried. We pulled the curtains and turned off the light. But still, a young man came in and got comfortable. Unfortunately he had a reservation for that compartment, as we did. So, a little grudgingly, we moved our luggage and made room for him.

We figured we might as well be pleasant since we'd be together till around 7 the next morning, so we asked him where he was from. We were floored when he said James Madison University, which is in the city I'd lived in for most of the last 16 years and where I still work. What are the odds of that? Anyone? He was working in Germany for the summer and wanted to go to Paris for Bastille Day. We'd hoped to miss Bastille Day because of the crowds, but our Paris tour (a Da Vinci Code tour) only operated on Fridays and Wednesdays, and we hoped to be in the south of France by Wednesday.

After a few minutes we all settled down and tried to get comfortable, which was pretty much impossible. But we were really tired, so we slept. Fitfully.

Which didn't help my disposition any.