The alarm sounds with plenty of time to shower and finish packing. It’s 9:45, our train leaves at 10:19 and we are right next to the station. In the lobby we experience a delay during check-out because a couple in front of us is having an in depth conversation with the woman at the desk. We don't speak French so who knows what they are talking about. After five or six minutes Monique gives me the look and tells me to go to the main board in the station to find out what track our train leaves from - good idea. I find it quickly and wait. Tick tock, tick tock - she finally emerges and tells me that a woman tried to cut in front of her at the desk - shoving her card at the clerk - oh no you didn’t! I don't want to stereotype but the French can be very pushy, especially in lines. I am sure she also had a train to catch. Monique stands her ground and gets our transaction through first.
The timing is close but there is no running involved which is good. We now know how to read the ticket and go to the exact coach and directly to our seats. In about an hour we arrive at Gare Montparnasse in Paris. Our next train leaves one hour later from a different station. Spending four days in Paris and learning the system really pays off now. We buy two single metro tickets and catch the 6 green train to Bercy then switch to the 14 purple and one stop later we arrive at Gare de Lyon. We have enough time to grab a salad and bow tie pasta to eat on the three hour ride to Switzerland.
When we get on the train, two young kids are sitting in our seats - the people next to us let us know we need to alert the woman at the back of the train because the kids are with her. This takes much longer than normal because of the language barrier, but we figure it out, sit down and three hours later we arrive in Geneva.
Next stop - Lausanne, our new home away from home. The SIM card in our wifi hotspot only works for France so we are forced to rely on the information desk in Lausanne. They speak English which helps, give us a map and circle our hotel. The weather is perfect so we decide to walk fifteen minutes ”UP HILL" (we are in the Swiss alps after all) and we complete the day long journey. I want to power up our devices but the outlet looks different - really - how many different outlets can there be? I send Dave down to see if the hotel has a convertor - they do, but it’s 15 Swiss Francs in the vending machine - well okay. For dinner we walk right across the street to an Italian place called Nonna's. Fifty Swiss francs later we realize that things are going to be pricy here - good thing we got some cash at the train station. We retire and open a couple of bottles of the wine we brought with us. It turns out we made the right picks. They taste really good. Tomorrow we are taking the day off from sight seeing to catch up on our blog. It will feel good to get back on track.
It was a 3 hour train ride so I decided to get some work done. My nose was planted in my computer then I looked up and said - oh crap - this view is amazing!
We have arrived in a new country and our new home base - the weather is perfect.
On the walk to our hotel. This is the view from a bridge we walk over - it is clearly the French part of Switzerland - beautiful.