Wings: Leaving Italy...Friday

The breakfast at the Holiday Inn did not disappoint. We stuffed ourselves and left almost shedding a tear or two. Now for a small-ish bump in the road...

The night before, when we got into Paris we decided to get our ticket then for the morning train out. The man at the ticket counter was not helpful at all and just sent me away, telling me "No Ticket, No paris" Whattt??? He pointed at a sign that said "We have no ticket and no information on train to Paris, do not insist" He then pointed in a direction and so I went that way. All there was in that direction was a closed customer service office and the exit to the station. OK. Nice. We decided to go to the hotel and get online and see what the deal was. We figured out that the line to Paris left from another station, one across town. After breakfast that next morning (did I mention how lovely breakfast was??) we had to take a taxi to the other station- good thing we ate for free that morning! We also had some sandwiches we had made before leaving Italy, so that would be lunch. We get to the next station, and I get right in line for our ticket. At this point we were happy to see the train to Paris on the board with a departing time as well as a platform, so we figured everything was fine. Nope. When my turn came, I asked for 2 tickets to Paris. The worker said NO. No tickets to Paris and pointed for me to leave! What??!! I tried to ask and he put his hand up and said NO. SIgh. I then waited in line to talk to a customer service lady. She also told me "We don't sell tickets to Paris. I don't know about them. We have no information."
"What? There is a train to Paris on your board. It's in my book and it says it leaves from this station. Your board says it leaves from platform 3." I honestly was getting worried and a little flustered at this point.
Basically, the best I could figure was that the company that runs that train doesn't have a working relationship with this particular station, they are separate companies. She told me maybe I could ask the train attendant when the train comes. There was a train coming to that station. It was stopping to let passengers off, and pick up passengers that had purchased tickets online or at another station that sold tickets for that company. Our options at that point was to take a train back to Milan (2 hours in the opposite direction) and then get a train to Paris from there, or find internet and a printer and buy a ticket online, or take a chance that they would sell us a seat on the train when it came. We went to the platform. We sat and both said a little prayer to know what to do. We both felt that we should wait for the train, so we did. I'll spare you more details...and yes, there is more, but we got on the train. They sold us seats..which were twice what I have paid for all our other tickets we have bought at the stations. We were on our way out if Italy...whew!

The ride was long, the train was much slower than the other trains we had been on to this point, but the scenery was really great! We went through little italian, and then french villages and towns. We traveled through a part of the swiss alps and past a beautiful lake that reminded us of Scofield, only bigger, and bluer. There were a lot of towns that looked a lot like Park City and Heber. There were old churches and castles on hills, and farms with cows and lots of corn fields. By the time we were almost here we were both about to go crazy from sitting for so long, but we survived!

We were finally in Paris! It was only 8:30 or so, but already dark outside. With everything we had been told by multiple people back home as well as on out trip we were a little nervous to try to figure out the metro with all our luggage in tow and not knowing where we needed to go, so it was another taxi ride for us. Can I just say how much I love driving at home? The driving here is CRAZY! They just weave in and out and turn within inches of each other. There was one point that there was an accident or something and we went through this big intersection and there was literally cars filling the whole intersection going in all different directions within inches of each other honking and inching forward until someone would let them go between. Seriously, it was crazy! Our hotel was quite a ways away from the train station, so we were realllly glad to be taken right to the door and not have to drag our luggage through the streets trying to find our hotel. We checked in and were told our room number was 67. That was on the 6th floor. There is no elevator. We then lugged our stuff up 6 stories of a very small and tight spiral staircase. NOT fun. Really, I'm telling you, talk about a workout! If I lived here for long I wouldn't need to workout anymore! Our room is cute enough, we have our own bathroom and it's sort-of divided into 2 areas so we are kindof in our own little room-ish. The bathroom is clean, and functional, even though it's so small you have to sit sideways when using the toilet! We have towels...we are happy! There are 2 radiator heaters on the wall...neither of them work. It's reallllly cold, but there is no way we are changing rooms till we leave, no way we are hauling suitcases on those stairs until we have to!

Seeing the snow tipped Alps reminded us of home!