The Dax Connection or "You're not dead!"

Adventures have a way of jostling all the best laid plans. Despite my plan to fly into Paris, jump a shuttle to the airport, and take a direct train to Pau, I ended up in an unanticipated situation.

The non-stop flight from Cleveland was great and I had even lucked out by getting a seat in the emergency exit aisle. Extra leg room ahoy! Unfortunately, it turns out the extra leg room comes at the cost of reclining the chair even the tiniest bit. Now, I know those chairs are not La-Z boys in any sense, but I'll tell you what, those two inches make all the difference on an 8-hour flight. Well, a 7-hour flight normally, but with the huge thunderstorm that rolled in 20 minutes before the flight was scheduled to leave, we had about an hour delay.

This kind of threw the whole schedule out of whack because I foolishly had only scheduled 2 hours and 45 mins to get myself from the airport to the train station. In any case, as I landed, I got myself as quickly as possible to the shuttle stop. I had planned it so that if I got on a shuttle between 8:00 and 9:00, I could make it to the train on time, with a bit of time to spare. So, when I boarded the shuttle at 8:45, I thought to myself "I'm still in the window. I can make the train."

Then we hit the traffic.

I'm not sure why I thought the shuttle would only take 50 minutes when it was in the thick of late morning rush hour in one of the BIGGEST CITIES IN THE WORLD. Dumbass. Anyway, the shuttle took about 1 hour and 35 minutes to get to the train station and I rolled up at 10:25, 15 minutes after the departure of my train to Pau.

Now, some of you may be familiar with the problems I've had scheduling this train to begin with. When buying the ticket the first time around, in my haste, I forgot that I was landing on the 9th, but leaving the States on the 8th. So, I was forced to exchange my ticket for a hefty $50 USD fee. Luckily, it ended being cheaper to take a seat in First Class, so I thought that at least I would be on a direct train to Pau and I would be riding in comfort.

So here I am in Montparnasse, which in the 6 years since I've been has become a rundown craphole filled to the brim with incredibly impatient people, with a useless ticket and bundle of nervous energy in my stomach. I had already resigned myself to having to buy a new ticket on the shuttle, but I was worried that I didn't have any contact information for my friend Ryan. No phone number, no address, just a name and a city. So I really had no way of telling him that I wouldn't be on the train, nor of telling him when I would get there. Mistake number 2.

At this point, it's 10:30 am (about 4:30 am my time) and I've been up for about 22 hours or so and was seeing no end in sight. So I make my way up to the counter, after being yelled at for zoning out in line behind a woman who had also zoned out and wasn't moving, and attempt to tell the woman what has happened in my rusty, rusty French. It must have worked because she only giggled at my broken French once and I got a fresh ticket for a train leaving in a few hours. Luckily, I didn't have to buy a whole new ticket, but I did have to pay an extra 22 Euro, making this ticket officially the most expensive one-way ticket of my life. In addition, I had been bumped back to 2nd class and would now be changing trains in Dax, with a one hour wait between trains. Ack!

As I wait, I concentrate on not falling asleep and not having my passport stolen. I become irrationally nervous that someone will try to steal things from me when I travel internationally, so I often hole up somewhere and stay until it is time to leave. Call it paranoid, but it has worked for me so far.

About a quarter to noon, I take my things into the large waiting area where the huge signs indicate the train schedule. It says that the sign will display the platform the train is arriving at 20 from the train's departure. So, with my train departing at 12:10, I look at the board anxiously and wait. 15 minutes later, it still doesn't say where this train is and it's leaving in 10 minutes. At this moment, the words of ticket clerk are running through my head. "Don't miss this train or you will have to buy a whole new ticket." As my nervousness mounts, I finally hear the clack of the tiles turning and our platform number appears. Suddenly a mass of people begin moving towards the platform to catch our train. It's a bit crazy as folks start running down the platform to get their car in the remaining five minutes before departure. I thank myself for removing as much extra weight as I could from my bags as I struggle to lift the gigantic suitcase I still have up the stairs and through the train car.

As I plunk myself down, I take a deep breath and just wait.

The rest of the train trip went smoothly and I even managed to get myself a bottle of water and a snack during the hour layover in Dax. The weather was beautiful and the temperature wasn't too hot. I still had now way of contacting Ryan, but I figured that he manages students all the time, so he must have some that miss a train. I knew he would be worried, but I hoped he would wait for the next train from Paris to see whether I was on it. I hoped that he hadn't called my parents and made them worry that I had gotten lost, kidnapped, or killed somewhere in France, or even that I hadn't made it France at all.

By the time I had pulled into Pau, I had come up with a plan. If Ryan wasn't at the train station, I would ask someone at the ticket counter about a man who had been there looking for me. I knew that he would have asked someone about me (which he confirmed when we did finally meet up) and maybe even have left a number or someway of reaching him. Luckily, when I stepped off the train I looked up and saw him waving his arms and smiling at me. He ran under the tracks and came over to meet me and said "You're not dead!"

So we made back to his place and I got unpacked. 36 hours was a long time to be awake and alert. Next time, I'm taking the train directly from the airport, no matter how many connections I have to make. I'd rather not hassle with traffic in the future.