Look Out France! Here I come! Part 1--the Journey to Strasbourg

April 11-12, 2012

Time crawled at a snail’s pace the day of my departure for France. Despite the excitement of my first trip to Europe, the day dragged on and on as I waited for 4:00 to come so I could leave work and head to the airport. You would think that a seasoned traveler like myself would learn that you don't plan on working a full day the day you are flying out of town for a vacation. Nothing stops the clock at work like the anticipation of a vacation. 


But somehow I made it through the day, and out the door just a few minutes after 4:00 to head to Logan Airport, where I would be meeting my sister Linda for our 7:45 p.m. flight to Paris! I was just bursting with excitement as I made my way to the subway to head to the airport. After months of researching and planning, I was finally on my way to France!


The journey to the airport took a bit longer than expected, and I had the grumpiest driver ever on the Silver Line. He yelled and screamed at passengers for blocking the aisle, or boarding the bus at the backdoor. He had everyone on that bus stressed with is grumpy demeanor. 


When the bus finally pulled up at terminal E, I was one of the first ones out the door, and found Linda near the Air France ticketing counter. We soon checked in, and made our way through security. We grabbed some sandwiches at Earl of Sandwich, and exchanged some U.S. dollars for Euros. 


Soon, we were able to board our plane, and take off for a week in France! The flight was uneventful. There was a little bit of turbulence here and there, but overall it was a relatively smooth and quiet flight. 


Our flight attendants came by with a menu with our dinner options. The choices were either chicken in wine sauce or salmon shepherd’s pie. We both opted for the chicken, which was served with noodles. It came with a side of rice with flaked tuna, rice pudding, montery jack cheese, and cranberry orange cake for dessert. It was better than I expected considering it was airplane food (it wasn’t like the nasty cube steak I can remember getting on my first flights to Orlando in the 1980’s). 


We passed the time watching movies on the in flight entertainment program. I wound up watching “The Descendents,” which was very good. I tried to doze off on the flight, but just couldn’t fall asleep. I was hoping that I would catch a couple of hours of rest, but it just didn’t happen. I did finally doze off while watching one of my favorite episodes of “Glee” (Preggers from season one for any Gleeks who may be reading this), but the rest didn’t last very long as I was woken up by the sound of the flight attendants getting ready to serve breakfast. 


Breakfast was pretty nasty. It was the a mini blueberry muffin, plain yogurt, and orange juice. The muffin was barely edible, and I don’t like the taste of plain yogurt, so I skipped that, but I did drink the juice. 


Soon, we were on the ground in Paris! I was so excited to finally be in Paris, a place I have been wanting to visit for years. Our plane taxied so long to get to the gate, I thought for sure we were halfway back to the States by the time they turned off the fasten seatbelt sign. 


We were soon off the plane, and on our way to customs, which was quick and easy. We grabbed our bags, and headed towards the TGV train station. We were heading to Strasbourg, and there was a train directly from the airport at 12:30, so we had a few hours to kill at the airport. 


Since I didn’t eat the nasty breakfast on the plane, I decided to get a ham and cheese sandwich at a little café in the train station. The sandwich was delicious. The thick slice of ham had a lot of flavor, and the baguette was crusty and chewy. 


While we were waiting for the train, I had to use the rest room at the train station, and was greeted by a cashier demanding 50 cents to use the facilities. It made me think of the Broadway musical “Urinetown.” When you gotta go, you gotta go, even if it means paying for peeing. 


We passed the time reading, and taking turns wandering around the train station.  I even dozed off for a few minutes here and there (since it was now 3:00 a.m. Boston time, and I had been up for 22 hours). 


Soon, it was time to board our train. We brought out bags down the escalator to the platform, and boarded the train. We were in the first class car. When we got on, we were trying to figure out where we could store our suitcases, and a sweet little old French lady pointed to a small luggage rack behind a seat where we could put our luggage. 


I was very impressed by the TGV trains in France. They ran on time, and were clean. I liked that they assigned seats to you so that you could have seats with the other people who were travelling with you--I wish they did that on Amtrak here in the United States. 


I wound up using the restroom on the train, and I was very amused by this sign above the toilet: 

In France, you are not allowed to put apple cores in the toilets on trains. OK, so I know that wasn’t exactly what they were going for when they created the sign, but that’s what it looked like. I don’t know if it was just because I was overtired, but the sign struck me as funny, so of course, I had to go back with my camera and take a picture. Aren’t you glad you are reading my trip report so you can hear all about my bathroom adventures? 


One of my travelling companions on this trip was a cardboard cut out of James Marsden’s head, which was given to me by my friend Cristen. Now, if you found your way to this trip report via my facebook page, you know that I love, admire, and adore James Marsden, and think he’s dreamy. What’s not to love about an actor who has played the charming journalist in 27 Dresses, Prince Edward in Enchanted, Corny Collins in Hairspray, and Cyclops in the X-Men movie?  So of course it makes perfect sense that I would bring James to France with me and take pictures of him everywhere we went. 


James made his first appearance in France on the train from the airport to Strasbourg. The sweet little old lady sitting across the aisle smiled at me and started to giggle when she saw me place him on the seat so I could get a picture of him. Maybe she is a James fan who gets giddy at the sight of him, just like me. Or maybe she just thought it was strange to see an adult woman taking pictures of a cardboard head. I’m going to go with the former--James Marsden is the new Jerry Lewis--the French love him, especially little old ladies who can’t speak English!

Our train arrived in Strasbourg right on time just before 3:00, and as we got off the train and started looking for the tram, we saw something that made us smile.