Euro Adventure 2005

Arrangements can come undone as quickly as they are made so it seems. After chatting with the American couple in my couchette last night we discovered that we were all headed to Barcelona only they were without a hostel. After asking where I was staying, they’d decided to follow and see if they could get in at the Dream Hostel as well. It made me feel a little more comfortable heading into this new city with people I’d got to know and got on pretty well with.

Like I said, these arrangements didn’t last too long when going to get my onward ticket (the one I was told would be no problem in Paris), I was informed my train was full and I would have to wait. The couple who had already booked their tickets on the train said their goodbyes and I was left stranded waiting another hour (on top of the hour and a half I had already waited) for the next train.

A coffee and a croissant later and I felt a bit more ready to handle the day ahead. My train as it turned out was the stopping service to Barcelona and when I say “stopping service” I mean just that. I don’t think we ever got above 5mph on the entire run, stopping some 40 times along the way!!!! It wasn’t until we stopped at Gerona that I was convinced it was the correct train! A Columbian lass sat opposite was kind enough to tell me which station I needed to get off at and 3 and a half hours later I was getting lost looking for the underground at Barcelona Sants station!

Once I’d found my way to the metro and following the directions given to me on the website, I had negotiated my way fairly easily to Para-lel metro stop and outside. However, here my directions took me somewhat astray. Fortunately 10 minutes of wondering took me onto the correct road and to the hostel moments later.

First impressions can often be very accurate, on this occasion they were somewhat misleading! The hostel, with its spectacularly graffitied (they had been designed this way) walls and doors, the music blurting out in the corridors and the girl asleep in one of the beds as I arrived in my room (it was 3pm by the way!) gave me a slightly daunting view of what I had just walked into!!! It seemed there had been a bit of a party the night before at the hostel and one or 2 were still sleeping it off!

Now, like Paris and Lille before I was keen to get out and have a wonder round so took off for Placa De Cataluya in the hot Barcelona sunshine! The walk took me up the famous Ramblas with Placa De Catalunya at the top. Deciding that my 14 hours on the road had taken a large portion of my energy away I chose to grab a seat, read my book and watch the world go by for a bit. Now I chose my seat (a conveniently empty space) pretty well as it turns out. A beautiful lass was sat next to me and tried to get a conversation going with her.

Shari turned out to be just finishing her stay in Barcelona (a great shame) and was off back to Brugge tomorrow. We chatted a bit about what to do in the city and she passed on her guidebook to me (all in Dutch but it had a great map in the back) which seemed like a nice gesture. We wound up going for coffee (she was actually waiting for her friend who was living and working there) and we got on pretty well it seemed! I was really disappointed when she had to go and knew I’d likely never see her again but we swapped email addresses and went our separate ways.

After a good month of trying to initially get in contact with Alan, we finally managed to meet up!!! I braved the rain (I knew the mac would come in handy) and met him in the Hard Rock Cafe in Placa De Catalunya. “You come all this way, meet me to hopefully show you some local knowledge and I end up taking you to the most touristy bar in Barcelona” was his comment when we finally met! It was true, but I knew we’d head out elsewhere!

Something I hadn’t bargained for however, was meeting up again with Catherine, another friend from back home (and good friend of Alan’s) who I hadn’t seen for what must be at least 4 years! She just happened to be out visiting Alan whilst I was in town and couldn’t believe it when I saw her at the bar! As if to tie the trip together a little, she was the girl I had gone out to Lille to see some 5 years previous and the time spent there was the main reason I had wanted to go back and see Lille again! A coincidence, definitely but certainly made the night more enjoyable!

We ended up (6 of us in total including a few friends of Alan’s) at a great Tapas restaurant around a few backstreets off of the Ramblas. I couldn’t tell you where on earth the place was now as it really was round some rather dark alleys! The food though, was excellent!! For €16 a head we had more tapas than we could possibly have eaten (I lost count of the number of dishes!!) and as much Sangria as we could manage! Good food, muchos alcohol and nice ambience made the perfect backdrop to catching up with old friends!

I made a crucial mistake going back into my room at the hostel (must have been around 2am) when, not being able to see what the hell I was doing, I turned the light on. This flick of the switch brought several groans from my roommates and realizing my mistake it went off pretty quickly. Lesson learned here – Make sure you are ready to be able to just jump into bed when you get back from a night out!

I woke on my final day in Paris feeling a great deal better than this time yesterday! Fully recovered now but not really feeling like venturing too far as I would have to catch my train later in the evening and return to the hostel to pick up my backpack, kindly stored in the basement.

My replacement roommate arrived a little earlier then expected, when returning from my rather lame breakfast (a stale croissant and an orange juice – Yes they’d run out of coffee!), a pleasant enough Aussie girl was already sat on my bed awaiting my departure! Debbie and Sacha were both there for another couple of days so it was no problem to them but I did feel a little uneasy sorting the rest of my belongings out before leaving!

After saying my goodbyes, I opted to just kick around Montmartre for the day, deciding there was a good bit of it yet to see and I did want to go and have a look at the Moulin Rouge which was apparently pretty near by.

After a relaxing coffee (I’ve taken for asking for an “American coffee” in the vague hopes of getting something more than just an egg cup full!) in a nearby cafe, I headed out along the treacherous route of the red light district, down to the Moulin Rouge. Thinking that at this time in the morning I was unlikely to be harassed the same as last time I flung myself down towards Pigalle.

Now, in Soho, London, it seems that the place hides away its dark side during the day. This is definitely NOT the case here in Paris! The sex shops were all open and the “shows” seemed to be in full swing! And once again, I was harassed and chased (even keeping my head down and keeping walking) on several occasions on my trip to the great bohemian show house. I have to say I really wont be sorry to see the back of Paris despite not having seen several things that were on my “to do” list. I’m hoping Barcelona is a little more relaxed than here!

I eventually made it down to “The Temple of Music and Dance” that is the Moulin Rouge and still feeling a little creeped out by my walk here, managed to get some photos before scooting back from whence I came, this time opting for the other side of the road.

On my walk back, I passed an English bar and a few moments later, a moment of wonder struck me. Could it be possible, that here in Paris, they might, just might be showing the cricket? A slim chance surely and the debate raged in my head that only the off chance they WERE showing it, should I really be watching cricket with just hours left in this city?

The answer came back an emphatic “YES” when retracing my steps a few yards, and poking my head around the door I did indeed see a big screen showing the final day of the final test between Australia and England. How could I not take a seat?!

The bar was pretty deserted except for one English guy (and his newspaper!) who was killing time, enjoying the cricket, while his girlfriend was at work. I know that sounds bad but they were both students waiting till college starts again. I got chatting with this guy and ordered myself a small beer which pretty much did me for an hours watching.

Enjoying what I was doing, I decided that staying put wasn’t as bad an option as I may have seemed. I didn’t want to go far as I’d have to come back anyway and I couldn’t really do all that much as I wanted to give myself plenty of time to get to the train station later. I was enjoying myself and that alone was reason enough to stay. Add in the fact that Paris was kind of getting on my nerves and, hey presto, I was here for the long haul!

So stay I did, nursing just a coke for the entire afternoon! I ended up giving the barman a bit extra tip for putting up with me obviously only being there for the sport!

A triumphant day in English cricket but I had run out of time to see the presentation and had to make my way back to the hostel to pick up my backpack and continue on to Austerlitz station.

I was actually pretty early arriving at the station but I’d rather be here in plenty of time than have to kick about the station all night waiting for the next train tomorrow! When the platform number was announced and I’d found my way there, I couldn’t honestly believe the size of the train!! Now, back home, a large train will have maybe 10 carriages at most. This one had 50, with muggins here, in pretty much the last carriage! I felt like I’d walked to Barcelona by the time I reached my coach!

My first experience of a night train and damn are these couchettes small!!! 6 beds crammed into a space no bigger than store cupboard! There was barely enough room for everyone’s luggage we were just thankful there was one spare bed! Upon trying to sit up on my bed, I realized just how tiny this place was as my head banged on the bed above before my back was even vaguely past halfway straight! Sitting up in bed (the only space available to me!) was not, it seemed an option! The blow of having to live like a battery hen for the rest of the night was sweetened ever so slightly by the free water and somewhat strange sweet type thing that had been placed by each bed. Whist the water was consumed gratefully, the other packet remained, sensibly, untouched!

I was sharing this rather cosy couchette with 2 couples. Above me were a friendly American couple, recently married and backpacking Europe for a while before returning homes to life after Uni. Below were a particularly strange middle aged French couple whose grasp of the English language was limited to “hello”. Now, you may say, why were they so odd Dave? And you’d have good reason for asking. It seemed this couple didn’t put any value on sleep at all. Instead every half hour through pretty much all the night, one or the other would get up, attempt to open to the door (causing a loud ffffssshhhh noise in my earhole) and go out for a cigarette/ toilet break. If the door hadn’t made that noise every time it was opened it might not have been so bad but the constant fffssshhhhing was leaving my sleepless or at the very least, dozing for 30 minutes between ffffsssshhhhs. The other reason for calling them slightly odd was that to help aid their sleep they consumed a nice flask of coffee through the night. Now, in all reasonableness, I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt and say they were trying to stay awake (although why they went the extra yard and payed for a couchette is beyond me) but the addition of coffee smells to the ffffssshhhing wasn’t exactly the helping the rest of us!!!!!

The couple did eventually depart at Perpignon and the fact that I was awake to tell you that goes to show just how much sleeping I did! Around an hour and half later we had pulled into Port Bou and had we been in England, you might just have heard “all change please!”.