Lost in Spain/France Thanks to Eurail

So now we get to today. Today was both very adventurous, and a nightmare. So apparently, Eurail works great for INSIDE countries. But anytime you want to cross the border, it becomes something of a pain. All the trains that cross the border must be reserved, and most are reserved well in advance. This was not made very clear in the literature for Eurail. Not that it isn't in there, it is. But they didn't make it clear just how quickly these spots fill up. See the trains only allow a certain number of Eurail passengers per train. (The part they don't publish very well.) That number, I'm guessing, is very very low. So you do the math.

So that was problem one. Problem two was that I didn't learn this until 7am today, when I arrived in Barcelona asking to organize a trip to Paris and the attendant stared at me with a blank face. She looked through todays trains and said I could go to Cerbere and catch a train. So I do just that I catch the 8:45 (not the 10:45 like SHE told me). A very nice beautiful scenery local train to Cerbere, just inside the French border. The smallest train station on the planet! With only one North outbound train every 2 hours! Which I promptly ran for as fast as I could to ANYWHERE else. It seems the Spainish train operater just wanted to get rid of me and pointed me in the direction of France.

While on this new train, I quickly looked at a map for the biggest city on the local route I was on. There I found a nice French ticket person who didn't just blow me off, and helped me get to Paris. He really did some research too cause he was looking for like 30 minutes. Even got me bumped to first class somehow. Really nice guy. I got my fluently French speaking mom to call my hotel (cause I couldn't for some strange reason) and tell them I'd be a little late. The train ride was goregous and relaxing. Just what I needed.

So now I'm in Gare-de-Lyon, and I go to the booth to try and see if I can reserve a ticket to Stuttgart for sometime in the near future, doesn't have to be soon... and I get blown off again. I think it's just the major cities maybe? All their ticket operators are either disgruntled or just plain stupid or both. I'm not saying I shouldn't have made a reservation, but their job is to help me. I don't know the language well enough to be impolite here. I say merci and gracias like they were commas.

Anyway, new plan. Gonna stay a second night in Paris, gonna go to the Eurail help office, gonna plan out every international crossing from here to Greece with the Eurail official. Thankfully my trip is very flexible, so I should be able to make some crazy connections, and get where I want to go... which is kind of what I like about all this. What I don't like is disgruntled ticket operators and bad Eurail documentation. So let's cut those two out and get back to the awesome train rides, and crazy adventures that don't get me stranded in the south of France with no place to sleep.

Madrid and Barcelona

I haven't updated in a while, so you guys are about to get several posts. First let me update you on travels from Ireland to Spain. Small delay in Dublin, which they tried to make up for in flight... by shooting us down like rocket into Madrid. My hostel in Madrid, Cat Hostel, was very... hostel-y. It was built into an old palace which from the architecture looked Middle Eastern in nature. It was really nice. Stayed in a dorm. Smelly rooms, cold showers. A hostel. Had dinner with some guy from Florida I met named Hugo, nice guy. He just finished his trip to Valencia, Barcelona, and Madrid.

Next was Barcelona. It was supposed to give me a better jumping off point to get into France. More on that later. The train ride to Barcelona was gorgeous. Sunbaked plains, always w/ mountains in the distance. Very Spanish. Brand new high speed trains too. My hostel in Barcelona, Agora BCN, was a dorm from a university that was changed into a hotel/hostel for the summer. It was really, really nice for the price. It was on the mountains overlooking the city. Had laundry so I got some detergent, shampoo, and soap and finally gave myself and clothes some proper cleaning. I went down to Barceloneta, the famous beach in Barcelona. I forgot that it was the weekend, and boy was it packed. Definitely worth the spectacle of it all. Not sure I would want to join in though.