A whistle blows, the doors shut and the train pulls out. People are sitting everywhere they can, including the halls and the baggage racks. From this description one might picture a rickety mountain train in some far flung Nepalese town or a train in a highly populous part of the world such as India; but it isn’t.
For one thing, there’s air conditioning (too much of it) and for another, there isn’t enough poultry (i.e. none at all). In fact, I’m in a shiny new “next-generation” “Top-of-the-line” French TER (Local express train) during the crush hour in Amiens leaving l’Oise and heading for Paris. These new trains are sleekly blue and silver on the outside, and boast a sickly pale green and Plexiglas interior. The entire train is nonsmoking and second class. Why couldn’t they make the entire train first class, if only just in name? Besides, since there is only one class on the train why did they decide to call it second: wacky French marketing?
All in all, it is relatively comfortable if you get a seat… I’ve never seen it so crowded. At least the trains in France are usually on time, provided there isn’t a strike, in which case there’s a fifty-fifty chance of the train not coming in at all.
The landscape starts to roll by as I think about trains in France: mainly sprawling hilly farmland interspersed with villages and clumps of trees with a canal every now and again. The wheat is starting to golden in places. Too bad I don’t have time to hike along the canals. It would be nicer to walk through the country side rather than ride, even though it does sprawl on unvaryingly for very long distances. I suppose I’m missing out on the occasional plop of a carp jumping out on the canal, on hares, gyrfalcons, crows and endless wheat and sugar-beet fields.
For now, I’m taking the expedient route to get where I want be and I’m content in letting just my mind wander and my pen make tracks on the paper.
And what wonderful tracks your pen makes on paper. I'm pleased to meet you, Alesa. You seem to be bilingual, a most impressive ability as far as I'm concerned. I wish I could boast the same. Whatever, I love your writing here and look forward to reading more.
ReplyDeleteA pleasure making your acquaintance.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the kind words.
I can claim no credit for being bilingual: I owe it to the roll of the dice and conditions of my birth... and it serves me well; no longer with blogging, but that is another story.
Right, I'm off to visit your blog.
I just scrolled through your blog and feel like a teenager with a crush. I listened to Kray Van Kirk's music and went way nostalgic. I love your little snippets of thought. So glad to have found your blog.
ReplyDeleteHello Kass, nice to meet you. Elisabeth mentioned your blog in one of her recent posts and so I've been ghosting on your blog for a day or so; traveling into the past.
ReplyDeleteI was waiting for an opportune moment to introduce myself but it seems I've been pleasurably preempted.
Thanks for the praise, I've been enjoying my forays into your world as well and am looking forward to more.
I'm sorry there wasn't enough poultry on your train. I hate when that happens. Isn't there someone in charge of that? Someone to complain to?
ReplyDeleteWhen I take a bus to and from NYC, the air conditioning makes me have to bring a jacket even when it's 90 degrees outside.
"For now, I’m taking the expedient route to get where I want be and I’m content in letting just my mind wander and my pen make tracks on the paper." Lovely.
Yes, you can make a sacrificial offering at the shrine of the grand master partridge. Who may grace you poultry.
ReplyDeleteAir conditioning in the US is insane! I know some folks who catch colds in summer every year because of the switching from hot and cold all day long.
Thanks for encouragement. : j