Paris

Yesterday I took the day and went to Paris to see my old college roomie Jiji and her hubby Mr. X ;-) They were just in Paris for a few days and since I hadn't seen her since her wedding 2 years ago I couldn't resist jumping on the train to spend the day hanging out and catching up.

We walked all over Paris since the weather was just stunning. Starting from Saint Lazare, through the Louvre and down to St Michel for lunch in a creperie.

Saw some military dudes and scoped out Sarko's house. Talk about some high security areas of Paris! His house is on the same strip as 3 or 4 embassies (including the American one).

Then they met up with some friends to go to the movies and I made my way back to Saint Lazare to meet up with another old college friend who recently moved to Paris. I hadn't seen him in about 6 years so that was fun to have a little coffee and a chat before catching my train.

Couldn't resist taking this picture on my way to the station tee hee.

Anyway you would think that was my adventure for the day... ohhhh noooo...

I decided to take the 5:30 train back to Caen. Got on and finally found a seat. Then the announcer came on and said there would be a short delay. We got underway at about 5:50. Then 5 minutes outside of Paris the train came to a screeching halt...

We hit a shopping cart, said the conductor.

Yup. Someone put a shopping cart on the rails and we ran over it. Apparently it got lodged under the train so they had to call the maintenance crew to get it off/out what have you. During this time there was a group of high school kiddies sitting right behind me that were hyperactive and playing with their phones. Yes, we all loved hearing horrible french hiphop on horrible cell phone speakers for hours on end. That was wonderful entertainment. Then since we were in the last car the area by the toilets became the smoking zone (yes, trains are now supposed to be smoke free...) but if only they were just smoking cigarettes...

They arrived 1 hour later. and at about 8:45 we got underway - again. Then someone had a "malaise" and the firemen had to come and take them to the hospital.

THEN we stopped at an unscheduled stop (Mantes la Jolie if you're interested, this is how far we were from Paris...) to check things again and lucky us the lovely SNCF people ::snicker snicker:: let us have some bottled water.

I got home and in bed at midnight, it should have been 7:40pm...

I'm pooped and going to go have a talk with the SNCF people this afternoon to see about getting my ticket reimbursed. That was insane to say the least!

***Edit*** Just got back from the SNCF boutique, apparently when it is not their fault (ie they did not put the shopping cart on the tracks) they do not reimburse the tickets. I'm so writing customer service. The least the could have done is kept some order in the train. ::fuming::