Thursday, October 9, 2014

Train Strike in Paris - Day 1 in #ParisFrance


 I made it to Paris, dear Readers, and am recuperating in my hotel room. First there was a 5-plus-hour flight from LAX to Montreal, followed by a 6-hour flight from Montreal to Paris. There was a harrowing moment when the plane in Montreal was delayed docking or parking because of something or other. When the plane finally opened its doors, a whole group of connecting passengers flew out of there. It wasn't just a matter of going to another gate either because you had to go through some kind of border control, which added to the delay. Fortunately, my connecting plane waited for us.



At the Charles de Gaulle airport, I made my way to the train station, which is within the airport complex.  I bought my ticket to get to the city, but the woman at the counter didn't tell me that train workers are striking right now and the train schedules are askew.  Instead of the train going all the way to my metro stop, it stopped at Garre du Nord, which meant I had to transfer to another train. The problem was that because of the schedule changes, even the people who worked there had no idea which trains were running. Fnally I got on the right train and made it to my hotel.

This isn't the first strike I've experienced in France  Years ago, while my husband and I were doing a driving tour of France, there was a gas strike. Quite suddenly we couldn't buy gas for our rental car, and we barely had enough gasoline to get to the car rental place to return the car and transfer to a train instead.

I am not sure if this train strike will impact my stay here. Will I find myself in strange places and not find connecting trains?  Hmmm ... not a pretty thought.

The picture above was taken before I left for the airport, and the photo below was taken at the metro from the airport.

Stay tuned, dear Readers!

Read also

This is all for now,
Cecilia

No comments: