I'm sad to report that my feelings of goodwill for the French bureaucratic machine somewhat dissipated after last night's attempt to get home from Lyon. After the McDo internet inexplicably stopped working -- ironically at exactly 7:00pm -- I decided to head over to the train station a little early. It's a good thing I did, because all the trains were running late, and consequently the station was about as packed as DC's National Mall at Inauguration (though maybe with a couple million less people and a couple hundred more suitcases). I bought a ticket and hopped on the next train to St-Etienne, which was actually the 6:30 train already running 40 minutes late.
I got the impression the train had already been waiting at the station for a while, since it too was jam packed, but I managed to find a seat. We waited for another 30 minutes. People were getting restless. A fight broke out behind me, maybe over the last seat, or maybe someone bumped up against someone else the wrong way due to the packed train? Hard to say; the angry, overlapping French voices were difficult to interpret.
Finally, someone came over the loudspeaker and said that they'd found a conductor for the train, and to please wait patiently for another 10 minutes. And the people rejoiced. Fifteen minutes later, another voice told us that the next train to leave for St-Etienne would actually be leaving from voie (track) E, and to please vacate this train for that one. A mass exodus ensued with everyone shoving and rushing to be first to the other train, because if that one had been sitting there a while too and this one was as packed as it was, there's no telling if everyone would fit on it.
Not having eaten since breakfast (yeah, yeah, I know I should have taken advantage of being at McDonald's earlier), I was feeling all the more grumpy for being hungry and decided to avoid the rush in favor of grabbing a sandwich. One look at the neverending lines was enough to convince me that food wasn't worth missing my train, and I joined the rush to voie E. Apparently someone was in an even bigger hurry than I was to make the train, since on the escalator I got shoved from behind and managed to bang my knee pretty solidly on one of those lovely, pointy metal stairs. I had to keep walking to get to the train, but thankfully there were still a couple seats left, and I was able to stretch my leg out a bit.
The train finally got going at 8:30, and by this time I was starting to worry about whether or not I'd miss the last connection to Feurs. In some small way, luck must have been in my favor, since the last Roanne train, which passes through Feurs, was also running late and still sitting at the station. What was less lucky is that the elevators at St-Etienne-Chateaucreux are still down, and I had to pass under the station to get to the Roanne train. Stairs + throbbing knee = a bit unpleasant. I'd rather not go into detail about how enjoyable the icy 3/4-mile walk back to the lycée from the Feurs train station was. At least there was asprin and food waiting for me at home! Fanny had made German Christmas cookies during the day, so sampling those almost made up for my crappy evening.
I was hoping my knee would feel better this morning, but so far the only difference is that the rake marks from the escalator have become more defined; at least there's no bruising or swelling, I guess, though walking is certainly no fun. So much for running this weekend...though knowing me I'll probably try anyway.
On a much brighter note, here are some snowy sunset Feurs pictures, taken from the train tracks by the lycée:
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