Train quirks

The trains here are pretty funny. Despite the vaunted efficiency of the metro in most tour guides, they're actually late half the time. Well, I figure that's kind of a given, considering we're dealing with the infamous concept of "French Time" every day. I can live with that, I guess, and late trains are not a French phenomena anyway.

A true French quirk, though, would be the audio systems in the train. We KNOW they're working, but most of the time, there's not a squeak out of them. Then, when you're used to silent trains that don't announce their arrivals at train stations, an announcement would blare out, startling you out of a half-doze.

The worst thing of all, though, is the train that skips stations! I'm not joking. 'Express' trains occur during the peak hours, bringing commuters to Paris quickly, but if you happen to want to get off at some of the less frequented stations, bon chance.

I experienced it first-hand when going for my medical appointment last week. Needed to get my X-ray at Val D'Argentuil, and had to change trains to get there. No problem. I looked up the trains required, and noted the stations accordingly.

Went there with a few classmates, so we had some company while waiting for the train. We met incredibly early at 7.30 am *yawn*, and the first leg of the journey went off perfectly. We had to wait half an hour for the next train, though (despite what the signboard claimed) - and worse, it roared past our train station! Good thing it stopped at the next one, so we went to the bus terminus to hop onto a bus to take us to the medical centre. That entailed an additional half-hour's weight, together with an hour-long journey.

Which meant, of course, that we were late by an hour by the time we finally arrived at 10 am. The upside, though, was that the waiting time was considerably shortened. We anticipated a long wait, since there were "10-20 people ahead of us in the queue", according to the lady who took our letters of appointment - but surprise surprise. We managed to get our X-rays done within a surprisingly short time, and we were done in slightly under an hour! Wow.

There was another long wait when we got to the train station, but this time, we got to base camp without a hitch. Thank goodness.