I have to admit, neither Zach nor I knew what we were going to do once we got there. Granted, we had a basic plan (see the Eiffel Tower and get to our departing train station), but neither of us knew any French, and we'd heard some disheartening stories about how the Parisians feel about Americans.
We took our time getting around the station and managed to buy a map, get some breakfast (which involved a lot of pointing and nodding), and paid to go to the bathroom. I don't think that the train station where we actually were was on the map, so Zach kind of took a guess, and we headed out the direction in which we thought the tower probably was.
I knew one shouldn't judge a place by the area around its train station, so I thought I'd give Paris a little time before I declared it gross, but it never really seemed to redeem itself for me. It took us over two hours (on foot) to get to the Eiffel Tower, so I'm pretty sure we saw a good bit of the city, and it was always smelly and dirty. Also, I am fairly confident that most Parisians start smoking at the age of 10.
We finally made it to the tower, and I was at the point of a meltdown, though I'm not really sure why. It was probably a combination of being so tired and hungry. It was at this point that Zach started carrying my backpack for me (I know he's just a human, but sometimes I think he's unhumanly kind and noble, and I feel like a piece of *%#! because I'm not that kind) in addition to carrying his own pack. I didn't want to let him, but my shoulders were hurting so bad. He tried to make me feel better by telling me it was better for him to carry mine because it evened out the weight of his pack on his shoulders (as I think about the logic of that now, it doesn't really make sense. However, it worked for me then).
As if I wasn't grumpy enough, we ran into a giant crowd of people beneath the Eiffel Tower. There were African peddlers everywhere selling every imaginable souvenir form of the tower. There were soldiers with guns patrolling the area (Branson cops with guns scare me, so this whole scene really made me uncomfortable). Zach and I decided we were content with just taking a picture, so we did just that. I bought the French equivalent to a Snickers, and we walked on through.Hunger really must have been a huge source of my grumpiness because I felt much better after eating the candy bar. It also felt nice to have the Eiffel Tower experience behind us and know that all we had left to do was get to our other train station.
As we were walking on the other side of the tower, two teenage girls came up to us and asked if we spoke English. I had a bad feeling about them. One of the girls then handed Zach a letter, written in English, that said her family was in trouble and needed thousands of dollars. We just gave it back and kept walking.
We walked through a little park, which was nice and quiet. One of my secret goals on the trip was to get a really cute picture of my hubby and me at some scenic spot, and, ironically, my favorite picture is the one we took there.
Exhausted, we decided to take a break and find a good cafe. We spotted a lovely place just down the road. Well, lovely is an understatement. It was one of those places where you just want to walk in and take a picture of the food (there was actually an Asian tourist doing just that when we walked in). They had quiches, tarts, pastries, sandwiches, and many other things that looked delicious, but I had no clue what they were. So, again we pointed and nodded to order, and said "Merci". I had a large spinach quiche, ate the whole thing, then went back for a tart topped with pretty much every red fruit imaginable, and ate it as well. I'm not sure what Zach had because I don't think I looked up from my plate as I inhaled my food.
After eating, we walked for another 2 hours or so to our train station and waited. We had reserved two beds in a 6 bed compartment, so we were a little intrigued to see who our train mates would be. We noticed another young American couple waiting for our same train and hoped they would be in our compartment...but they weren't.
We boarded the train and found our little room. Two men were already in there. One was snuggled in his top bed and was reading (I'm not sure if he knew English as he never said a word the whole 12 hours), while the other was an old man who knew no English. Finally, a guy named Sam, who was from London and was about our age, came in. Besides the fact that he was friendly and interesting, he proved to be very useful because he was fluent in Italian and could talk to the old man. We thought it would just be the 5 of us, but a South African man came in at just the last minute.
Zach, Sam, the South African (we never did get his name), and I talked until bed time. Then, we folded down our cots and tried to go to sleep. I took the other top bunk which had been assigned to the old man, but it looked like it was really hard for him to climb up onto it (all this was translated through Sam). Zach was folded up like a sardine on the bottom bunk on the other side.
It was sooooooooo hot and miserable in there that night. Had we been alone, I probably would have stripped down to my undies, but as it was, I had to remain fully clothed and just let the sweat roll down. Poor Zach wouldn't even take off his shoes because he was afraid it would smell too bad. Between the heat, the constant stopping and starting of the train, the snoring of my bunkmates, and the fear that we would miss our stop, little sleep was had that night. I was so ready to get to Florence
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