cassis
marseille 
cassis
cassis
wine tasting 
candied fruit
cassis
cassis
cassis
cassis
cookies
cassis
cassis
cassis
cassis
train
avignon 
avignon
mirror
Let me begin by saying that taking the wrong bus and getting lost does not at all equate on trains. This discovery began with my friends Christina and Ian in the Marseille train station in southern France. We got on a high-speed train to Avignon and read and slept. There were a bunch of little stops, and occasionally we checked for Avignon. I don't know if my book was good or confusing, but I was absorbed in it and after a while I realized we had been on the train for an awfully long time… I asked a British woman who passed us how long until we reached Avignon. She said she got on at the Avignon stop forty minutes ago and the next stop would be Paris, a stop that was 80 pounds and three hours more than we paid for. My immediate response was kind of a nervous laugh. I factored in the price of a train to and back from Paris, plus the Avignon hostel we already paid for, and our free ride through the countryside was quickly becoming a 230 euro mistake. I didn't need to convert that to dollars to go from laughing to almost crying in a few seconds.
When the three of us realized exactly what was happening and how much it may cost us we went into problem solving mode. I think we factored in every option to get us out of this situation for free until Ian caved and suggested we just fess up. With about an hour left to Paris Ian and I stumbled through the train cars looking for the ticket checker before he found us. I think I pushed fifteen green buttons to open the door between carts and almost took out a few innocent bystanders, but we could not find this train guy. Finally as we headed back to our cart we saw him in the section above ours. Holding my breath I went up to him, gave him the most pathetic look I could (which wasn't hard at this point), and handed him my ticket. It took him a second to realize what was going on, but surprisingly he rolled his eyes and began stamping the back of our ticket and wrote a note to saying we didn't have to pay for that ride and we could return for free too.
I almost melted into the floor from relief and Ian took off downstairs to grab Christina's ticket. I later found out he reached her just in time and while a different ticket man was looking angrily at Christina's ticket Ian pulled her ticket out of the mans hand. Then, without explanation, Ian ran back upstairs to us and shoved her ticket into our conductor's hand with the other guy angrily following behind him. So there we were, in-between two conductors, one who clearly didn't want to let us off for free and the other one who already signed our tickets and said we could. They argued in French for a second before our guy signed and stamped Christina's ticket and handed all three back to us. We bounded back to our seats, and even though I couldn't stop smiling I was not about to count any smashed eggs yet.
When we got to Paris Christina and I nervously stayed in the station and Ian ran around the city. We had a little over an hour came the real test, getting back on the train. I kept checking to make sure I had my ticket because those little scribbles on the back were worth 300 dollars each. When we were about to get on the train back to Paris a lady conductor stopped us at the door. She looked at our tickets and was really confused until we showed her the back and tried to explain what happened. She was still confused and muttered to a conductor next to us before she waved us onto the train. I don't know if that lady knew how much that small wave meant, but we did and we almost ran on the train. On the train the only place we could sit was by the snack stand, but Ian bought a bottle of wine on his run and we all toasted thanks to God for our good fortune.
P.S. I have no idea why the TRV train doesn't stop ANYWHERE in between the 430 miles between Avignon and Paris, but just so you know, it doesn't.
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