Travel Day

Sunday, October 11th:

5:30 AM Wake up

6:00 AM Clank down awkwardly small spiraling staircase of Hotel Baudin with luggage.

6:10 AM Walk through the creepy streets of Paris on our way to Gare de Lyon (train station) when the moon is still out and no one else is around.

6:30 AM Arrive aching and sweaty at Gare de Lyon. Moon is still out. Validate tickets at ticket counter. Figure out how to stamp tickets in the little yellow boxes that look like they’re going to suck up your ticket and not give it back to you - but they don’t; go figure.

6:45 AM Sit on train station benches waiting for our platform number to show up on the board.

7:15 AM Platform Number 9! Let’s go!

7:45 AM Train leaves Gare de Lyon and we are officially on our way, riding through France on our way to Florence, Italy.

Meet Train Angel #1: When we first got onto the train and were boarding our car we realized that we were going to have to lift our luggage up above our heads to rest on the racks, which seemed a daunting task. However, as we were approaching our seats a random middle-aged Chinese man either rose out of one of our chairs or had been standing right next to them and suddenly started helping us lift our luggage up. First he helped Emily with her suitcase, and then he helped me lift mine too. He didn’t say anything, and I don’t even remember if I was able to thank him; we were so relieved to have gotten on the train safely that we plopped down into our seats right away, looked around, and couldn’t find where the Chinese man had gone. Hadn’t he just been sitting in or right near our seats? Yet he wasn’t anywhere to be seen, and we didn’t see him throughout our entire train ride. Hence…train angel #1!

This train ride was so miraculously beautiful! In the early morning as we left Paris we could still see the misty fog hovering over the fields as we each nodded off for a nap on the train. After resting for a couple hours, I enjoyed listening to music for most of the ride and munching on travel snacks, as I tried to soak in the reality that I was riding through the Alps on my way to Italy – unbelievable.

We spent most of the day on the train, so when we finally arrived in Florence it was nice that we only had to walk around the block to arrive at Hotel Erina where we would be staying. Emily, Nelly, and I were all tired, but we went out for a brief walk to find some groceries for dinner. Around this time I realized that I was really craving some alone time; I had forgotten that I hadn’t spent a day by myself in a really long time since I hadn’t really felt comfortable to wander around in Paris by myself, and before that we had been in Belfast on home-stays, and then in the country in Sligo; so basically my last “me day” was in Dublin. Therefore, I happily grabbed a flier from our hotel reception desk that advertised a “Best of Tuscany Tour”, looked it over for 15 minutes, and then signed up for the next day (8:30 AM-8:30 PM)! Tuscany adventure here I come!