Barthelona, Bane of My Existence

To be fair, it´s not really Barcelona´s fault. I guess this is a case of don´t shoot the messenger. But lets just say I am in Barcelona alone my giant back , 10 euro and a credit card that nobody seems to want to take and have been killing time for 7 hours and have another 2 to go. My parents I belive have arrive in Paris via plane, my sister is journeying through southern Spain, and I am paying to take an overnight train to Paris tonight. This is how it goes:

Today I went to the train station at 8 am to catch my train back to Paris via a few cities in France, Montpellier being the first one. First, I realized I was at the wrong train station. After yelling ¨Fuck!¨ really loudly in the middle of the station and having lots of people stare, I managed to ask how to get to the other station. I was given directions and told to run to the train. There I met a friendly man, who spoke no English. And a friendly translator, who spoke lots of English. The conversation went as follows:

Me, in Spanish, ¨Excuse me, do you know if this train goes to the other station? And how many minutes it takes for to arrive there?¨

Man, in Spanish, ¨Yes, it does. 10 minutes. Where are you going?¨

Me: ¨Montpellier¨

Man, in Spanish: ¨Ah...si, this train will something because huelga¨ (which I interpret as llega, arrive, which I interpret as him telling me not to worry, I will get there in time.)

Me: ¨Oh good, thank you.¨ (Man looks confused by my response but smiles)

Kind Stranger (KS) who has been watching this struggle to communicate, in English: ¨Do you understand him?¨

Me: "I will make the train?"

Kind stranger gets sad look on his face and says "This train does not go today, because of the strike"

Me "The train does not go? As in, does not go to Montpellier? How does this guy know?" I motion to Nice Man (NM), who, turns out to be a train conductor.

KS and NM man talk in fast Spanish for a really long time and I understand "I dont think she can go, She can go to the border, There are no other trains, The French are crazy." I nod in agreement on the last one.

KS sends me up to the information booth, where the person told me to run to make the train to the other station. That information person sends me back down to the train and tells me to run. I report back to KS and NM. NM is also going to the other station and says he will take me to the other stations information place. KS has to go on another train.

NM and I have an awkward 10 minutes to the other station where I try to make conversation by asking why the French are striking. He shakes his head and launches into a speech I did not understand. I nod my head in agreement and we go back to silence.

By the time we get to the other station, Nice Man has realized he has to speak much slower for me to understand him and leads me to the information booth.

He shows me on the screen that the train is not going, then tells me to ask for a direct train to Paris before sending me on my pathetic way.

Then, oh then, the games really begin. I go to an information booth where the woman claims to speak English but clearly does not. So I struggle to speak to her in Spanish with a creepy old man who keeps talking to me in French and English and Spanish and is also trying to get to Montpellier. The conversation goes as follows:

Me, in Spanish "I have a ticket for to take the train to Montpellier but I think the train does not go. But I need to go to Paris."

Information Lady, in English "The train no go to Montpellier"

Me, in Spanish: "Yes I understand that, so how can I get to Paris?"

Her, in Spanish "You bought your tickets in France so you cannot change them here"

Me, in Spanish "Okay, so if I dont have these tickets, and I want to go to Paris, how do I get there?"

Her, in Spanish "You cannot make a train reservation to go to France from Spain"

Me, to Creepy Man also waiting "Did she just say I cant make a reservation to go to France?"

Creepy Man, "I think so"

Me, in Spanish "So if I want to go any place in France, from Barcelona, I have to make the reservation in France?"

Her in Spanish"No trains go to France today. You can go to a town on the border and maybe from there you can take the train to Toulouse (a town in France)."

Creepy Man, in French, to me "You need to go to Montpellier?"

Me, "Oui, je veux...can we do this in English? I want to go to Paris, but my train is in Montpellier"

Creepy Man, in English, to me "We can rent a car to Montpellier!" To woman, in Spanish "Can go to Montpellier by car?"

Woman, in Spanish, and looking confused, "Yes, but you cannot rent a car in the train station"

Creepy Man, to me " Do you want to rent a car to Montpellier?"

Me, feeling sufficiently creeped out and fed up, to the man, "No, I want to go to Paris". To the woman, "Gracias"

I try another line where tons of people are standing waiting to try to buy tickets. I ask the woman in front of me who I hear speaking English if she knows if there are trains going to France. Why I think this woman has huge knowledge of the train system based on the fact that she seems to fluently speak Spanish and English is beyond me, but in the end it helped me.

She bought her tickets and then asked the man behind the counter what the problem was. Then she told me if I had a direct ticket to Paris I would be fine but if I had to change trains I wouldnt be able to go. I had to change trains twice to get to Paris.

So, I talked to the man myself and learned that the only train I could take was a 9 pm overnight train at a very high price. There were 12 more places on the train and a line of disgruntled Spaniards and Frenchies behind me. It was decision time. I went for the overnight train. And now, 9 hours later, here I am. In an internet cafe above a Subway restaurant. I have sat in the sun, written three term papers, charged iced coffee and a sandwich at Starbucks, the only place I could find that would take my credit card. And have spent a precious 3 euro on the internet. And have two hours before my train, allegedly, leaves for Paris. Im praying, and hope you will too, that I get on the train and that it does, in fact, go to Paris.

Stay tuned for exciting updates of my Spring Break journey to Italy and Spain and, hopefully, back. And pictures. My life will fascinate you, I promise. In the meantime, I'm off to investigate the chances of this Subway taking credit card.