What it be!

If you don’t know, this summer I am starting off by walking the El Camino de Santiago. It is a 497 mile pilgrimage that starts at the border of France and Spain and ultimately ends at the statue of Saint James in Santiago de Compostela.

Basically, I’m walking alot.

Today has been a travel day. I had to meet up with Debbie in the airport in Paris after a 10 hour flight. Flight left late, which was frustrating, but otherwise, everything went smoothly. I picked the front row of a section and it paid off in leg space. I had a comfy flight filled with watching Eat, Pray, Love, Goodbye Christopher Robin, and The Big Bang Theory. Also, lots of sleep. The French countryside is so beautiful.

Got to Paris, found Debbie, got my bag, everything was going well, which we all know can never happen. And don’t worry, it didn’t stay well. Turns out the Trains and rails systems around Paris are all on strike. Today. Right now. Apparently, everyone knew but us. Apparently there’s a whole schedule online telling is which days are strike days. Apparently, this has been going on since MARCH. Well, apparently, I missed the memo.

It was so unbelievably frustrating. We saw a sign in the airport, explaining today was a strike day and there may be changes to train schedules. The stop we needed to take the train to was not an option. The only train running went to one specific train station that was closer to the city, but (as we learned later) one that has the line connections we need. We looked into options from the airport, knowing a taxi would be real expensive. I contacted our Air bnb host and she recommended Uber as a cheaper option, which was €50 for an hour and half trip. Train was €20.60 and so we decided to take that train, check out Uber when we arrive, maybe find the line we need, something. So we take this train to du Nord station in Paris. Get there, spend more time then I care to admit trying to figure out where the heck to go. We learned quickly your train ticket not only allows entrance to the station, it’s what let’s you exit. The problem was figuring out which exit to leave from and what direction to go. It was incredibly frustrating. Trying to read the French, figure out how we could take a train to the line we needed, not even sure if it was running, plus all of the other people that this station has an influx of because of the strike, and we couldn’t connect to WiFi to get other answers. Frustrating.

After me not being able to find my ticket to exit, a kind stranger letting me use his pass, us realizing we went out the wrong exit to go outside, and having a worker point us in the right direction, we finally surfaced outside of du Nord station…somewhere in Paris. Debbie insisted on a photo.

We were over it and voted on taking a taxi. We walked out and around to what looked like a main Street, turned the corner and found ourselves at the front of the station, looking at a nice long line of available taxis.

We get the first taxi we can, show him the address, and go. I was fighting sleep at this point, but what I can remember thinking after viewing this part of Paris through this taxi was that there was a lot of trash around, graffiti, and a lot of (assumingly) transient people. The taxi ride was €64.00. We should have just Ubered in the first place. Oh well, at least we made it!

Our hosts name is Stephanie and she is lovely. Showed us around her place and to our room. We asked for food recommendations and walked just down the way to Chateaux Arthur de Juliette. It felt very European, as many people were sitting at the tables and chairs on the sidewalk having drinks, playing cards, or just chatting. We had a kind waiter who helped us with the French menu and ordered dinner… And beers 🍻

This beer is 1664. The waiter’s favorite. It was light, reminded me of Heineken.

We headed back, relaxed, discussed the future day, rearranged packs, and went to sleep. It was light out pretty late into the day. I remember at 9:30pm thinking it was still to bright to sleep. It was loud, at night. The streets are so narrow and buildings so high, everything echoed upwards. Motorcycles, friends laughing, you name it, we heard it.

Next day we woke up early, intending to go back to Chateaux Arthur de Juliette for some coffee. I had mentioned to Debbie that someone told me once that in France, you can only eat at restaurants certain times of the day. That for lunch they are only open for a small window, then close, and reopen for dinner, or something like that. In researching places to get coffee the following morning, nothing opened until 12:00. Some didn’t even open until noon, on Tuesday! The only place maps said was open at 8:00 was the same Chateaux place. So we get up, get ready, and go.

Well, it was open, but they weren’t serving anyone. No one was around. Literally, anywhere.

Debbie was hellbent on getting coffee. She did not want a headache for the day. We walked in, saw fresh delicious pastries on the counter in their delivery box, and not a single soul around. In Debbie’s frustration, I offered to walk around the park across the street. We had arrived RIGHT at 8:00. Perhaps we just needed to give them some time to get it together. I told her we were being those people. We decided to cross over and stumbled into this beautiful park. Scoped it out a little, admired all those people jogging and biking through it, talked and headed back to the cafe. This time a person was there, who told us to come after 9:00 which was not going to work for us.

Heading back we were discussing options when we saw a woman with a stroller walk into a baakery that had construction all around it. We could see the workers setting up pastries through the window. We raced in delighted to find an array of pastries and coffee. I got a double espresso and a croissant. I don’t really like pastries, but hey, why not. It was pretty good. Debbie enjoyed her chocolate croissant. We enjoyed our breakfast, headed back to the air bnb and ordered an Uber to the train station. We got there with plenty of time before our train and hung out.

Trains were a bit confusing because, well, French. We got on the wrong train at first, realized it quickly, was confused, found help, and got on the right train in the wrong cart. We didn’t find that last bit out until much later when we were in someone’s seats. But, once again, someone kindly helped us and we moved to our correct train cart, which was way better. The first cart we were in, we were seated backwards and my gosh, did that make me sick. I layed across two seats until we picked up more people, switched carts, and our new seats faced forward. Waaaaaayy better. We snacked and talked about our plans for the end of this trip. We still hadn’t decided what we were doing once we reached Santiago or how we were going to get back to Paris. Now we are flying to London so Debbie can see her friend for a few days before heading back. We arrived in Bayonne for what was suppose to be an hour layover for our final train to Saint Jean Pied de Port. But once again, strikes.

The train strikes…strike again… Ha. Ha. Ha. Stick with me here, it’s been a long two days.

We talk to a worker who told us there is only one bus going to Saint Jean because of the strikes at 6:12pm. Coooooool…glad it’s 2:00pm now. So, that was fun. Sitting at a train station. Again. Waiting. Again. It’s a small little town and has begun to rain. We’ve also heard thunder. Those storms are rolling in.

The station smells of cigarette smoke as it blows in from outside. It’s not fun.

We got on our bus and it was literally the worst ever. In summary, I threw up. A lot. If you want to know the details of this super awesome story, find me when I get back and I’ll share. We got to Saint Jean Pied de Port, got our first stamps, found a lovely place to stay with the sweetest French woman who speaks no English and was absolutely fabulous. Showing us around, using lots of gesturing, she took us outside to show us the bathrooms. During this we saw the view out the back of her house and Debbie began to cry. It truly was remarkable.