being convinced that the best way to overcome your fears is to grab them by the ** and go for it, on 1 jan i started on an adventure that, frankly, made me very nervous beforehand: traveling back from napoli to málaga alone by train.
interrail (eurrail for those without a european residence card): the best (and worst) way to travel by train in europe. i should have known that throwing caution to the wind and embarking on the spontaneous voyage of a "global" pass would have its downsides, especially when dealing with 3 different countries who have each received different info regarding the use of said pass.
italy: hopped on the train from napoli to roma, pass never checked. in roma hopped on the train to pisa--checked, wrote in day as instructed. all good. arrived in pisa midnight--trying to get to nice (france), saw only option night train (leaving 0.38, reservation required). tried to get reservation but everything closed. station worker (no English) said just to get on. 2 guys (suppose they were workers, no uniform) first told me i had to sit in aisle, then shoehorned me into a compartment with 5 others...very uncomfortable night--8 hours--but again the pass never checked. summary train travel in italy: dubious and cheap.
france: after 2 refreshing nights at the hostel i braved travel on french trains. arriving at the station, found huge line, train i wanted leaving in 20 min and needed reservation...so i took my chances and hopped on anyway. very official conductor first accused me of subterfuge b/c i hadn't written the date yet (being my 1st trip and later realizing that i hadn't read the fine print very well, ok, not at all) and i argued that no, i was not a dirty american trying to beat the system--in fact, i had even written in the 2nd day though it had never been checked. practically in tears i refused to pay (not knowing what would happen) and he asked for my reservation...to which i sheepishly replied that i didn't have that either as the interrail book said none needed ("ridiculous" he responded). in the end he settled for just the exhorbitant reservation fee of 10 euros (in station 1,50 euro normally) and i continued to montpellier. there, i took the safe route of getting a reservation and the french lady was preparing to book me to madrid (shrewdly noting that i had to pay 50% in spain b/c i bought interrail by claiming spanish residency and, accd. to unread fine print in doesn't work in your country of residency)...but she could only get me to port bou (3 euro) so on i went, noting in persignan when i changed trains 4 grendarmes with machine guns mingling with the crowd. ticket never checked in either train.
spain: id checked (nie worked like a charm) to get into the station in port bou, perhaps fears of basques or shadows of napoleon haunt the spanish-french relations. relief to be back where i could communicate better. went to counter to try my luck at the night train to madrid, only bunks left but the lady only charged me the reservation fee--no hastle about the 50% (ah, to be home to "no pasa nada"...so nice). stayed 2 refreshing nights with kind missionary couple and then tried my luck at the infamous puerta de atocha (11 may), again only charged the reservation fee not the 50%! it's good to be back, and i won't do that much train travel again (in one stretch anyway, and overnight 21 hours is hardcore).
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Gosh, I feel old just reading your post. I'd like to think I'm still adventurous but probably not as much as you. My "mamma" instincts were shouting, "No, Abigail, it might not be safe!Who knows what kind of scurvy creatures ride the trains?" but obviously God watches over us all. :)
ReplyDeleteyeah, the scurviest was this french guy in the station at port bou--even without makeup and with glasses he still insisted on hitting on my in a mixture of spanish and french. and God does indeed take care of the naive. lol
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry it wasn't FUN, but you were awesome to cross all those countries yourself. I enjoyed train travel in Europe, but more so during daylight when I could meet people. I remember one night train, though, where the 6 of us in our bunk room decided to ditch the place and head to the dining car at about 11pm. We stayed up all night, (it was so surreal for me), drinking beer and wine, eating cheese, and talking politics--in French. It was quite the experience. Add to that the fact that my bunkroommates were a children's book publisher, her husband who was a farmer, a scientist, a hippie, and a school teacher. Unbelievable!
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I vote for MORE of that for you and LESS of slimy hitting-on-you guys!