Monday Morning -- The Worst Time For An "Aller"

It's not just any other Monday morning, it's the morning that we're leaving for a vacation. After a tough year in 2008, we thought we deserved a little R & R.

So far, it has not happened.

We arranged for our usual driver, Joseph and even confirmed with him last night by phone.

When we woke up at 5 AM, hearing the rain pounding on the street, we were all the happier that we'd soon be in the sun.

We locked up, turned everything off including water and gas, took our suitcases down the elevator and waited inside the doorway of our building to stay dry. We said "good morning" to most of our neighbors as they left for school, work, the bakery or a dog walk.

The cab was due at 8 AM. At 8:10, we knew there was a problem. We called Joseph, no answer. Then, Terry started to call cab companies. But, it's a rainy Monday morning and there were none available. Not from any cab company. We scrambled, looked through the phone book, called every company.

Then we realized that we're going to miss our train. I looked at the tickets which stated that they will be reimbursed until the time of departure. So we called their special number, 36 35, couldn't find the right set of options to cancel the tickets before the time the train left.

So, we grabbed the tickets and our umbrellas and walked, through the driving rain to the SNCF office. It does not open until 10 AM we found out and our train was leaving at 9:46 AM. This meant that we would miss canceling our tickets by 14 minutes. Inside the foyer of the SNCF office there is an electronic kiosk where you can go, night or day to buy or change your tickets. But, it was out of service. Just to be safe, I called the number on the kiosk to see if I could get someone to help, but all I got was a recording.

At least we were inside. We decided to wait inside the little foyer. We had about 45 minutes. There is a motion sensor inside the foyer and every time we flinched, the door opened and the rain sprayed in.

We made so much noise that a woman came to the side of the window and asked us what we needed. We told her that we had to cancel our tickets before 9:46 AM. She left. She returned about 10 minutes later and took our tickets, telling us she would cancel the "aller" for us. She returned, telling us that she had cancelled them. Thank you.

Eventually, a young guy came in, very wet. By this time the machine was working and he tried to use it. It didn't seem to work, so he left his suitcase inside the kiosk with us and left.

Now more people were arriving. Several nicely dressed women joined us in the foyer. Then a large (obese) man joined us and decided to smoke. We were all packed in like little sardines.

The rain was getting worse. Now there was a line of people going out the door of the foyer and into the street. Everyone was getting wet, but no one left. There were a few elderly people, very bravely waiting under their umbrellas.

Eventually (10:05) they opened the doors. The man next to me, in true French style, tried to get past me to get in first, but I'm shorter, so I darted under the partially opened metal grate as they opened it and got in the office first (!). I even grabbed a ticket, just in case they needed it.

A nice woman helped us, changed our tickets and car rental reservation. We walked home in the driving rain to re-group. I had to re-dry my hair, put my pants in the dryer to dry them off and change shirts. We haven't even left home yet and we've already had quite an adventure.

After we changed the tickets, we marched home, called another cab and put our clothes in the dryer. We felt positive, at least we'd be on our way! We got our cab, got to the Gare de Lyon and had enough time to stand around to wait for the train.

We were starving by this time. The train arrived, we boarded and Terry said that we couldn't have lunch until the train left the station. So, as soon as the train started to move, around 2 PM, we happily ate our lunches.

The countryside whizzed by. The sky was grey and the rain was rolling horizontally on the windows. We napped.

When I woke up, there was a glimmer of hope -- it was getting sunny, not raining. But, as we passed Avignon, it was raining again and now we were in Provence. I was very unhappy to think that we did all of this just to stay in a new location in the rain.

But, as the day progressed, the sky cleared and it was sunny.

We got off in Nice. The car rental place was supposed to be open until 8 PM, it was 7:20. We dragged our suitcases up several flights of stairs, out of the train station and to the car rental office which had a large sign posted that said that they closed at 7PM. So much for the info from the woman at the SNCF office on rue de Rennes. So, back with the suitcases to the "Accueil" where the woman said that we should go to the Avis line. We got there and there were probably 85 people in line, waiting to buy train tickets.

Back across the "gare" to the "Acceuil" where Terry demanded again about the car rental. The woman told us that we needed to go to Line #4. Again, we trudged across the gare where we found that all the stations were labeled, A, B, C, etc. not 1, 2,3. So back to the "Accueil" we went. We were tired, dirty, sweaty and irritated by this time. The woman told Terry to go to the 4th line, no matter what it was labeled. So back we went and waited for the people at the kiosk to leave. We got to speak with the rep and a scary, biker-type ran up to the kiosk and demanded to know why we didn't have to wait in the line. The guy behind the plexiglass told him that "we had the priority". At last we got the keys, took the elevator to the 6th floor and found the car.

We were on our way.

As we left the train station, I called the woman who had rented us the house. She was not very nice, demanding that we hurry, since her evening's plans were being ruined by our late arrival...

So, you now know how our relationship with "Livia" is going...

At least it's warm and sunny here!