A gloomy day

Today’s objective is to get to Le Puy en Velay where my daughter Amy is teaching English to 12-16 years olds at French schools.

It always seems to be grey and raining when I go through Paris and this time was no exception. I passed my three hour layover in the Air France lounge doing some DuoLingo and stretching. I left without checking my next flight to Lyon only to find out it had been delayed.

I decided to walk around and browse the duty free shopping. Then i remembered my friend Vicki had sent me a link to must have French skin care. The duty free had one item I wanted but not the other. Then nice saleswoman suggested an alternative. You know you get to an age when you don’t feel so old but your face says otherwise. So I bought it.

Then the flight got moved up ten minutes so off to the gate. Since I was flying the budget version of Air France to Lyon, of course we had to take a bus the board the plane out in the tarmac. We got on board and everything seemed to be quiet and normal. Then one of the flight attendants rushed to the back of the plane with the first aid kit.

The pilot announced a delay and my French was not up to understanding all of it, but I got something about then “équipage,” so I thought there was an issue with the plane. But there were police personnel and and ambulance outside.

Finally, a new flight attendant came on and announced that we would be on our way shortly but we had to get a new crew. When someone asks why another 30 minutes, he got upset and explained that a worker had a heart attack in the back of the plane and the flight attendant had performed “warm massage” but he had died before the ambulance arrived. He said she was quite upset as anyone would be in that situation. I felt terrible for the man’s family and the flight attenant. She had been so sweet when we were boarding.

The skies cleared for a bit and I had a great view of the snowy Massif Central mountains, a lake area and a nuclear power plant with four cooling towers.

At Lyon, I collected my luggage and made

my way to the Rhône express to get to the SNCF rail station. At the Lyon station, things started to unravel; it was very chaotic especially to someone with jet lag and a cold.

I had purchased a ticket for an earlier train thinking I would have plenty of time, but not with the delay. I purchased another for a 3:05 departure. I was not able to use the restroom

Because they wanted two euros and I could not find the euros I had brought with me and I wasn’t going to withdraw money, and buy something so I had small change. I’ll just go on the train. So I sat in the waiting room and charged my phone and ate my carrot sticks I had brought with me.

As I was going to the track, a nice man helped me with my extra suitcase. But when I got up there, I realized it was the wrong train. I went back down to regroup and got to the right platform. The sign said another train would depart that track at 3:02 and mine at 3:05 So when a train pulled in at 2:59, I was like ok next train. But it sat and sat and left at 3:06. And then my train listing was no longer on the board.

By this time, I’m pretty exhausted and stressed. Amy called me and I explained. She tried to tell me how to get to the SNCF help but I could not find it and when I did find an SOS office, it was closed. It is now 3:22 and there was 3:24 train but I didn’t have the right ticket but so far I had purchased two tickets for that leg that I had not used. I told Amy I’m just gonna get on that train and play sympathy card about my plane being late.

Back up to the track and I had to schlepp my suitcases up a few stairs to get to open seats. It turned out, there was no conductor checking tickets on that train, so all that stress for nothing! By now, I’m feeling really sick and the guy next to me like so many other people is coughing and wheezing.

I got to the next station St Etienne le coeurcreve a woman helped navigate to the elevators to get into the station. I told her I was sorry my French was not too good and she said her English was not too good, but we made it work. There was an SNCF office in this small station that was open. I was able to explain to the woman that I had missed my train and wanted to confirm when the next train was to Le Puy. She was helpful and said I did not need to buy another ticket. I realized when I went to charge my phone that I had been showing her trains in the wrong direction but she still told me the correct information.

I made this train without incident and I was enjoying the scenery despite the rainy weather but then it got dark. I’m running out of tissues as my nose is running more and my phone is almost dead. I asked my daughter Amy to meet me at the station because I really did not feel like trying to find the hotel on my own. I did not have enough energy to get lost in the rain.

She met me and the Hotel Le Regina was a short walk away. It’s a quite lovely hotel and the staff was very nice. Amy had asked one of her fellow teaching assistants to join us for dinner. I said let me get to the room and drop my stuff and we’ll meet him right away at the hotel restaurant. I don’t want to pause yo test because I might crash.

Louis was a sweet young Englishman with whom I had so much in common, I asked him if he was actually my son. Our dinner as the co bc station was very good. The dark and stormy cocktail I ordered was nice but it was not much like an Amarican dark and stormy. Lentils are a big deal around here which is great for me as a vegetarian. There is also a green herbal liquor that is a local product. In the hotel lobby they had some water flavored with it; I found it to be too sweet for my liking.

Then it was off to sleep!