Saturday, April 6, 2002 20:22
Weather: cool & cloudy
Location: restaurant of the Warwick Hotel, Geneva, Switzerland

I got up early this morning and tromped up to the Sants station for my train. I was running a bit short of time, so I picked up a coffee and a salami sandwich and took them onboard. The car I was in was mostly full of older American couples travelling through Europe on Eurail passes, and they seemed quite concerned, appropriately as it turned out, as the train sat in the station a full half hour after the scheduled departure time before shuddering off.

The journey to Montpellier unfolded smoothly, but as the miles went by we did not at all catch up on the schedule. Indeed, we continued to fall behind, slowly, so that we arrive 40 minutes late. I had hopes that the speed change would help--once at the French border we switched engines and started going much faster--but it was already fully planned into the schedule. It turned out that the only train that was on time the whole day was the TGV that left Montpellier for Geneva 10 minutes before we arrived--the TGV I'd been aiming to get to.

By Montpellier my translation skills had been called upon by the Americans. When a French railway official came through the train to announce our late arrival and the probability that travellers to Lyon & Geneva would miss their connection, there were a lot of blank stares in the car and I stepped in to help. In Montpellier I had a full gaggle of followers as we progressed to the Salle d'Acceuil, where the SNCF staff were gamely (and with impressive calmness, politeness, and multilingual fluency) dealing with the horde of displaced travellers.

My flock and I were steered towards a 14:44 TGV to Lyon, and told that although seating would not be assured, our lack of reservations would not be an issue and we could grab any available unreserved seat. I passed all of this on, and as we had an hour to wait I left the others and went off to buy lunch and a newspaper.

The TGV duly arrived, and I got on. There were two halves, but as the train was not due to split until after Lyon it didn't really matter which half we boarded. I ended up on the Brussels half, while the rest of my former flock went for the front cars, bound for Lille. As it turned out, my half had just enough unreserved seating for me to score one for the full journey to Lyon, while my Americans ended up standing most of the way. However, in my half the air conditioning seemed to have failed, so it was quite warm and I shed my Goretex jacket.

En route to Lyon, I had two neighbours, for different stages of the trip. Until Nimes, there was a student next to me, who explained why all the trains were so full: spring break had just started. From Nimes to Lyon, my neighbour was a French author, on her way up to Belgium where she is involved in the creation of a unique work of art. A little village is recording the aural history of its current inhabitants, which will be inscribed onto durable materials (successive, and large, layers of glass, it seemed) and formed into a sculpture which would be placed in the village square. My neighbour's task is to take the raw, unedited transcripts and to edit them into a semi-coherent narrative. It's a wonderful idea, a sort of artistic time capsule for the future inhabitants of the area, to capture the spirit of the generations living out life there in this time of great change.

Back to the journey: in Lyon I got out and found the track for the train to Geneva. Another train, to Strasburg I think, was on the track, but I was assured the Geneva train would soon replace it. My American friends soon showed up, and a few minutes later the Strasburg train chugged off.

We had a major shock when, a few minutes later, the Geneva train showed up; it only had four cars! It pulled up to the front of the platform, leaving those of us at the back of the platform to scramble forward. Worse yet, the back two cars of the train were due to split off and not go to Geneva at all! So we were many too many for the available seats, and I ended up sitting on my pack for most of the way, and standing for the last half hour.

Despite this, I was in pretty good spirits. I had, after all, successfully made two connections without a prior reservation, and was set to arrive in Geneva several hours before my original "Plan B", though two hours after my original "Plan A", that uniquely punctual TGV from Montpellier. I was thinking warmly and with some pride about my skill in navigating this complex and somewhat frustrating system, when I realized I'd forgotten to pick up my jacket from the TGV to Lyon. It's now somewhere en route to Brussels, and I hope somebody gets good use from it as there's basically no way I'll ever see it again.

On arrival in Geneva, I unloaded and passed through customs. I'd avoided visiting the washroom on the train, not just because it was a washroom on a train but because on the Lyon to Geneva train there were so many people that two people were actually sitting in the washroom the whole trip. In Geneva I expected to find clean and well-serviced washrooms, and so I did, but they had been outsourced to the "McClean" company, and were charging [Euro] 0.80 for a urinal or [Euro] 1.50 for the use of a toilet! How Switzerland has fallen.

Amazingly, the only other option for the whole place seemed to be in a restaurant which had a little sign indicating that the washrooms were for customer use only. Here I drew the line, and used the damn things anyway.

In short order thereafter, I made my ongoing train booking for Tuesday, got some Swiss francs from a bank machine (damn their lack of Euros!) and reached my uncle on the phone. They're at a diplomatic function, but will be picking me up in a few minutes. I't just time to finish my coffee!

[Later note: though I'm infuriated by my stupidity in losing my jacket, I'm going to gamble that I won't need to buy another Goretex for this trip. I'm sure they'll be cheaper at home, and the rest of my trip will be through warm countries. I'll try and pick up a light, packable raincoat, and replace it when I get home.]
posted by Tom at 10:25 PM | link |