This morning, we awoke to the sound of my ever persistent 'crickets chirping' alarm. Alive and well! While the guide book, forums, and even Google Maps warned us to caution (did you know Google did that? Gotta love those techies with a sense of humor!) we arrived at our hostel with only a few minor run ins. Still, the hostel had a TV where we watched a documentary (in French) on creatures of the deep. Documentaries in a foreign language are much more comforting than train announcements in a foreign language, just an FYI.
So now we're on the first train of many today, heading to the, what I can only assume, is the lovely and nice town of Nice.
Along the journey, since it is doubtful I will get wifi until late tonight or tomorrow, I will write here if anything interesting happens, though it will take some time to actually upload.
Can you tell I'm tired? Farewell, for now!
It is now 1:25, and we are in the Nice station waiting for the train. We walked to the ocean and sat on a bench by the brilliantly blue waters, ate lunch, and arrived back. It's been a somewhat stressful experience, however.
As I worry more about missing the connecting train (the one with a ten minute gap) there is less I can do about it. Missing the train means missing the next two, losing the money on the hostel in Rome we already booked, and most importantly, missing even more time in Italy. But, no one here speaks English, or understands what little French I can manage or what my pointing and distressed hand signals mean.
I'm optimistic that Eurorail ticket office would not lead us so astray, but I will continue to write this massive 'Day in a Life' post in either case.
It's 3:04pm and guess what? We made the train! After a mix up with some pretty awesome fellow American youth backpackers, we found our compartment and although it isn't as magical as Harry Potter made it sound, it's still as magical as muggle second class trains get.
Can't wait to get to Italy, even though we arrive very late tonight. It'll be great!
It's 7:38pm now. We are on the road to Rome! If everything goes according to plan, we should be arriving in Rome 10:45. But, as we are learning, trains do not rub on time. We learned this lesson just a moment ago, in fact, when our twenty minute connecting time shortened to a five minute sprint to the next platform. Apparently, being fifteen minutes late is not only reasonable but is anticipated here. Like Greek Standard Time. It must be a European thing.
But, alas, we made our last train of the day! We've been on trains and waiting for trains and running to trains for twelve hours now.
It's 11:54pm and we are safe in the hostel! Which, as usual, doesn't have the wifi it much promised. We were greeted by a somewhat flustered woman who explained she thought we weren't coming, and therefore we need to change rooms tomorrow since, from what I gather, she gave our room away. I tried to explain that I had emailed her of our late arrival, or, at least, thought I did. Internet here is spotty, you never know if an email goes through.
Tomorrow, we wake up early for free breakfast, room swap, and then city exploration!
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