It's like they speak, read and write in a foreign language here.
I can read enough to get a rough idea, I can understand a bit too, especially if given time to translate in my head, and if they use simple language and speak slowly. My speech, of course, is heavily accented, I really do try to properly pronounce things, but I know it must be atrocious. We decided to try the RER to the hotel rather than calling for pick up. I regret that decision now, but it was, now looking back, kind of humorous. We found our way to the RER station, taking a train from our terminal to the next. We found the ticket machines, though it took a couple of machines to get one that would accept our credit card, then we tried to fathom the directions on which gate to go through for the train we wanted. The real confusion started then. We had the tickets, but couldn't get it to work. I noted a sign that displayed a ticket saying ti wasn't accepted at the airport depot...but that's the one we had. We finally got the correct ticket to get us from the airport to Paris, then from Paris to Goussainville. There was no direct train. Up to this point I had been pronouncing Goussainville like Goose ane vill, but at the airport they couldn't understand that and it turned out that Guiss ane vill was the accepted pronunciation. More about this later. We figured out which stop to get off the train from the airport into Paris, Gare du Nord. This is a large junction where several RERs can be transferred to and you can transfer to the Metro (subway) or to a train. I believe on the surface you can also catch a surface bus. They have 5 public transportation systems in Paris. We knew which train we needed to Goussainville, but found it difficult to determine which bay we should be at to make sure we were going in the correct direction, north, away from Paris. The display information on the incoming train showing where they will be going next, so that is very helpful, but they never display the station you are at. The permanent schedules displayed can be more helpful there. After much milling about, a little arguing on interpretation we found the correct bay and train. We bought some of our first French food there too. Donuts are called beigne, I got some mini beigne de caramel (filled donut holes) and a friand fromage, a cheese filled square croissant-like bit of heaven. We got on our train, a bit of creative seating to accommodate our luggage. I packed light, but I still brought along a larger bag - room for treasures to bring home! AM suggested one set of seats, but I knew it would end up blocking the way with our luggage. We found a set of facing seats and crammed our luggage in, standing next to the filled seats. For a Sunday afternoon, the train seemed to have quite a few people. We carefully watched for the stations we stopped at, not quite catching what the soft-spoken announcer said. We then had our next surprise. As we approached our station, we prepared ourselves at the doors. The train stopped, the doors did not open. We tried pushing the button, turning the latch, but I guess we had waited too long and the train started off again. At this point we did think it was funny, we knew we could just get off at the next stop and take the next train south. I also was frustrated because I had this huge luggage that had to be lifted off the train and carried anytime we had to navigate steps. We got the door figured out and got off the train at the next stop and then proceeded to figure out how to get to the other side of the tracks to catch the next train south. This required going down stairs, under a tunnel and up more stairs. Oh joy. The next train came soon and we got on staying at the doorway since we were getting off at the next station.
At Goussainvile we managed to yet again figure out the door and got off. We weren't there yet, though. Once we figured out how to get out of the station, we needed to find our way to the hotel. AM kept saying that it was only 10 minutes walk, but in which direction we had to figure out. Lucky for us the station attendant spoke a little English and had a map to help us.
Her map, though, did not show some newer developed areas and her directions got us lost. We were supposed to walk all the way to the end of the street from the station then turn right. We actually needed to turn right before the end of the paved road. At this point we had been up for more than 26 hours with only plane naps, I was very tired and annoyed because I had stated that I did not want to be dragging my luggage through the streets. As long as we had paved sidewalks I had said it would be OK, but we didn't. We walked for more than 10 minutes, came to the end of the road and found we could turn right. We backtracked, discussed the situation. AM offered to scout, but I was not going to wait so we all started off across a dirt path. Not what I wanted to be doing with my luggage. AM was out front and shouted back as she approached the end of the trail that she saw our destination. Good! We still had a ways to go, because the parking lots to businesses are all fenced in you cant walk through them. We skirted the store's lot and found the hotel. crossing to it, though, was a dangerous proposition. We finally managed to get across the busy road with the blind corner and found the hotel completely fenced in. We finally hit an intercom button at the car gate and got someone to open the gate for us. Once inside the hotel we thought our adventures were coming to an end for the day. Wrong. At first the reception desk lady, with pretty good English, said our reservations were cancelled. We were about ready to panic. AM had made reservations through Expedia and they had booked the hotel rooms with her and I together and SK in a room by himself. AM had cancelled those reservations and had them do it the right way. So she kept trying to explain that to the reception lady and she took another look through her pile of papers. She found our reservations and we heaved a collective sigh of relief. Then we had to decide if we wanted the breakfast they served and WiFi. We said yes to both. Our key cards, codes for WiFi access were prepared and we were given instructions on what to do if we came back late, when breakfast was served, what breakfast entailed and how to get to our rooms. I immediately started up the stairs, thinking it's only one flight to the second floor, I wasn't going to trust the elevator, yet. I get to the second floor and it's not ours! They have designated the ground floor as single digit numbered rooms, then what we would call the second floor is the first floor here. I climbed another set of stairs, arriving at about the same time as the adventurous AM and SK in the elevator. We got to our rooms, and as far as I was concerned, I planned to stay until I had gotten at least a few hours of sleep. Mind you, we landed at CDG airport at about 1:30 pm local time (that's about 3:30 am back home). We left Kirkland at about 11:00 am (the second time). While AM and SK had managed to sleep a bit on the planes, I had only nodded off for a few minutes at a time. It was almost 6 pm local time and I was utterly exhausted and starting to get a bit cranky. We walked down a hallway of many doors, found chambre 220 and opened the door.
I smelled the stale odor of cigarette smoke, even though the room was supposed to be smoke-free. Besides that, our hallway sized room, with a small queen and day bed and postage stamp sized shower filled bathroom was home sweet home for the next 6 nights. I almost immediately unpacked my essentials (toothbrush, etc.) found the shirt I brought along to wear as a nightie and collapsed into bed. We had arrived in Paris!
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