train stories

Taking advantage of my mercredi libre, Alison and I hopped on an 8am train to Lille. Rumor had it that besides great northern architecture, there was better shopping there. As to be expected, the ticket distributer at the station in Poix was out of order. We told the contrôleur as we boarded the train that we needed to buy tickets. No problem, she said, and we hopped on.

An hour later and still no tickets. I was beginning to think we were going to get a free ride! Then, the train stopped in Arras, and my mind clicked to Cyrano de Bergerac, which takes place during the siege of Arras in 1640 during the Thirty Year's War. Such an eloquent speaker, that Cyrano. And the death scene at the end of the movie...

We were treated to the not-so-eloquent speech of a fellow passenger who joined us at Arras. I had spotted him running to catch the train, and then he chose to sit next to me. Feeling crowded, I switched seats to join Alison. My new seat gave me a clear view of his performance. When a contrôleur finally came into our car, my former seat mate stood up and yelled something like "You dare to come check our tickets when you were on strike last week? You can stay where you are. I'm not showing you my ticket." Alison and I looked at each other incredulously. The train man walked through our car and a woman applauded the passenger. Then suddenly, we had two train employees in our car checking tickets. I was really nervous to explain to the contrôleur that we had gotten on at Poix and didn't have our tickets, afraid he'd be in a bad mood after being verbally assaulted. Thankfully, he was really nice and we even joked with him about how nice he was to think we qualified for the 25-and-under discount. After all the tickets were checked (including our neighbor's) the conversation continued. The man was pretty much told that he could have taken other forms of transportation to get to work in Lille during the strike, or he could have stayed in town in a hotel. It was pretty interesting how it turned into a discussion among strangers.

Then next day, Alison has an entirely different experience while taking the train between St. Quentin and Laon. A train employee passed through the car and asked if he could offer her the new timetable for the train. With it, he offered her a package of macarons d'Amiens and chocolates. How very kind, we both thought. And then Virginie said they were probably trying to make nice after the strike. Probably, but I bet those macarons are pretty tasty...