“So you (Maddie and Ben) were fresh off the plane and I was fresh off a forty-hour nap so we were in very different moods because you guys were tired and I was ready to go. I remember we were a little stressed getting onto the train itself because we thought it would say the Poitiers destination which is where we were going, but it didn’t so we kept asking people when the train was going to show up. They kept saying, ‘oh it’ll show up a couple minutes before and you need to be on the platform’. I think as Americans that was very last minute in our books because we’re used to having flights posted three hours in advance, trains are posted like a day in advance. Eventually, we found out it says Bordeaux destination and we needed to get on that train and then have a layover. We got on the right train with like three minutes to spare so that was good. We asked like fourteen people a lot of times and then we finally hopped on with our luggage, got our seats and that part went really smoothly. Our stopover was the first experience of me needing to roll with the books because we got off in the middle of nowhere and our train was supposed to be there in a half hour and we waited for thirty minutes and no train came. Then one came at like forty minutes, so it was late and I thought it had said it stops in Poitiers so we got on, but come to find out it actually said does not stop in Poitiers. We quickly realized this as we watched the city go by the window and we were on the train for another hour and a half and we ended up in Angouleme which was much further south than we needed to be and we were standing the whole time. That was definitely not a fun experience. We had experiences with rude people, it was hot and uncomfortable, and it was the middle of the summer. I think a lot of people would have taken that as a bad omen, but we got back to our town, took showers, took naps, and the next day we were ready to explore, and the moment was already behind us.”
