Saturday, June 14, 2014, 12:47 PM England,
9:47 PM France
Starting with yesterday afternoon after
arriving at Holiday Inn Express at Stanstead and checking in I start to use
their “free Wi-Fi.” The deal is the
free Wi-Fi is for 15 minutes then it gives you an option to purchase Wi-Fi for
an hour or day. I’d call that “bait and
switch” which is illegal in the U.S.
Mark and I SKYPED for a while having to reconnect every 15 minutes. This did not happen in Winchester where the
wifu worked without asking you to buy time.
So I when down to the front desk and was told “that’s the way we do it
here.” I smiled and when to dinner
which was a decent meal of salad, all most salads here look like they when out
back and picked some weeds, a vegetable loaf, and new potatoes with a nice
glass of white wine. I had earlier
walked over to the convenience store and picked up a few things including my
own bottle of wine. After dinner I when
back to my room and relaxed working on a section of my blog that has become
quite difficult to write. I have to get
up at 4 AM tomorrow in order to catch my Ryanair flight. Good Night.
A free breakfast is included in your stay
which consisted of cold cereal, coffee, orange juice, and toast. You basic motel breakfast which also offers
some other snacky foods, cheese and fruit.
Off to the airport which is packed.
There must be a couple of hundred flights going out around this
time. Zipping through inspection after
my gate is called I’m the first to arrive.
Now getting on a Ryanair flight is just a tad different from say one of
our low cost airlines. There are two
queues, that what we call lines, one is for priority boarding and one is for
plain Villella boarding. You get
priority boarding when you reserve a seat which cost’s either and extra five or
ten pounds depending on where you sit. I
want to get on the plane first and get off the plane first and have gotten quit
good at it. I’m usually the first in the
priority line so I get to walk out to the airplane and board. Yes I said walk out and clime up the either
the stairs that the plane has built in or ones that roll up.
My seat is the first one by the door and I
settle in. Everything on Ryanair cost
extra so I have my own snacks and water.
They sell Ryanair lottery cards and supposedly all the money collected
goes to children’s charities. I have
purchased them a couple of time just for kicks as they are really cheap. The flight is nice I guess because I slept
most of the way to Bordeaux. Now the fun
starts! There is two ways to get from
the airport to the Gare, train station. One costs 6 euro and takes 30 minutes, the
other costs 1.40 euro and can take 60 minutes.
However, the 6 euro bus only runs every hour. At the time I arrived the 60 minute bus would
get me to the station first. I jump on
and off we go, so far so good. There are
kiosks in the station that you can buy your ticket from or wait on the long,
long line to buy them from a human who may speak some English.
However, credit cards in Europe have chips in
them so you only have to put the card in a little bit instead of swiping
it. These machines only take those
credit cards so I have to get on the long, long like. Upon reaching my agent I request to go to St
Jean Pied de Port. He tippy taps on his
computer and says the famous “Es No Posseble” followed by “we are on
strike. Not today nor tomorrow. “Monday” I quary? He shrugs his shoulders and I walk away. My little brain goes into overdrive and I get
back on line to talk to another agent.
But this time I ask for a ticket to Bayonne where you change to get to
St. Jean’s. She says nothing about a
strike but tells me both trains to Bayonne are booked solid. I’m thinking they must be loaded with
Pilgrims however, I’m in correct. They
are loaded due to the strike with passages headed to the beach for the weekend.
O.K. now what I keep thinking. I purchase a map of France to see if there
are other towns I can get a train to.
BUS jumps into my head let’s see where the terminal is. While I’m thinking about the bus I keep
thinking if I can just find out what platform the train will be stopping at I’ll
just jump on and pay the conductor. Finally
I find a like-minded attendant who tells me the train will arrive on platform
2. I arrive to find the platform packed
with people; I wait. The train pulls in
and it already has people standing for the ride. Everyone begins to climb into the train I’m last
to push in standing on the steps waiting for the door to close. This is a ten car train which is packed from
one end to the other like one of those trains you see in films about India. I expect people to start climbing on the
roof.
The train is not moving, people are sweating,
I back up a bit to get a little air.
There is an announcement in French that, of course, I do not understand.
People start getting off the train and I hear one woman say they have added
another train. We get off and walk back
to the next train which is actually attached to this on making it now a 20 car
train. I get in find a seat and we are
off Bayonne. Es not imposseble! There are times we go around bends in the
track and I can see the front of the train that is how long we are. We arrive in Bayonne at the ticket window I’m
sold a bus ticket to St Jean which will leave at 18:00 arrive at St Jean
19:30. I have two hours to burn so I
walk about, have a biere and am able to get on the internet. The bus comes and is full this time with
mostly Pilgrims. I am sitting next to a
young couple who are from Switzerland. They
are walking the Camino for the first time.
We chat a bit as we ride, meanwhile the seat behind us, the backseat of
the bus is filled with a group of young boys.
They proceed to talk in loud voices for the whole 1 ½ hours.
At St. Jean I head to the Pilgrim office to
get my Credencial del Peregrino. The
office is packed at 7 PM and I am surprised to find it still open. I’m told that all Albergues are full except
one so off I go. I was thinking about
heading to the campground that I stayed at the last time and sleeping under the
stars, however the weather is not looking promising. So I book a two day stay for 24 Euro and have
dinner of 12. Don’t ever tell me “Es no posseble”
as that become the forces to prove them wrong.
Time and time again I’m told in Europe it can’t be done and I find a way
to do it. I want to go back to the
person and teach them it is “Posseble”
Good Night! Love you!
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