Save google maps. Take the train.
Have you ever journeyed by train in Europe? Or anywhere? Did things go wrong? I want to hear about it. Because I’m betting they didn’t.
I’ll be honest. this post is not about the beauty of train travel. But of course it is beautiful. And romantic. Oh, I LOVE trains. But no. This is not about THAT.
THAT, being:
My ear tuned to the rolling and bending wheat fields of the French countryside that offer so many stories. I press close to the cool pane of glass. I listen attentively. They roll past. They pass. I turn and wave. Sigh.
My breath halts behind the book I’m reading. Why? An obnoxious aroma? A possible crime taking place? No. This won’t do. The hiding. I slide the book down so my fellow passengers can see What’s happening. I mean, we’re crossing the English Channel. I repeat we’re under water here! Under water. In a train! Helloooo. Hey! You! Hold your breath! Unless we all do, we’re doomed. Any minute the oxygen masks will drop from above like on the plane. Be ready. We’re in this together. Why is no one paying attention to me?
The heebie jeebies come on quickly again as we approach Paris. Why? Everyone else seems so calm, but this is it. It’s the same, the one and the same Paris that’s so alive in the pages of George Orwell’s “Down and Out in Paris and London,” what a gulf between the middle and upper classes who dine in posh restaurants and who have no clue about the extreme destitution and poverty of those who serve them. It’s universal. The story was written in the 1930’s but I have to pay attention. I might recognize someone! In face there goes Woody Harrelson. Oh. Wrong story.
Ok, I digress, but my point about all this is that trains, bless their little ol’ locomotin’ or steamin’ hearts, protect you from the outside world so you can be inside their world and just as important, save you from the horrors of driving in that outside world.
This is especially important to note if you prefer driving to taking the train. Do you want to keep it that way? It’s a strange activity, driving, but ok. I get it. I guess. No. No, I don’t. Beep beep Step on the gas. Turn at 45 miles an hour. Pass other cars on the highway. Woohoo! Buy a new car. Make it red. Sell your old car. Look in the blue book. Electric or gas? Who bloody cares! I can drive, but I don’t like it. Or anything that goes with it. Stopping for gas. Cleaning the windows. Little emergency lights that pop on and off and that mean exactly what? I’ve never been on a train that had to stop for gas. Or got lost. Ok there is one thing I like. Parking. And getting out of the car.
When I’m driving a car, directions are merely a suggestion to me. Like pirate guidelines to Jack Sparrow, if you will. Even when I’m driving alone, Google maps gets upset. And they’re supposed to be helping. Helping! Their proper British voice suggests strongly and more urgently that I turn left up ahead. Again. That doesn’t help me get out of the rond point!
But Google, there’s always more than one way to get there. And yes, if you miss a turn, Google will still get you there. In 12 hours and 52 minutes. If you haven’t pulled over and decided to sleep under a tree. But don’t think only of yourself, think how irritating it must be for Google to continue to direct you because you’re not listening, and you’re lost! You could be on the train; holding your breath, reading and listening to fields and to Paris as she spills the beans and makes cafe au lait at the same time.
So please, keep driving sacred. It’s for those special short trips down to the corner and back, when you don’t need Google maps. Be nice to Google. Save them the aggravations, and alleviate some of their must be teeming headaches when you don’t follow directions, and just hop on the train.
Of course there was that one time that the train was cancelled and we had to get on a bus to catch another train. Ok make that two times. But still.
Bordeaux market