Since when, is it "okay"?

　A couple of weeks ago, Liz, Sharrell, and I traveled to Barcelona for a 4 day weekend on the beach. This was our last overnight trip in France and we were going to make the best of it. Liz was lucky enough to be meeting her boyfriend, who flew over from WVU to spend Thanksgiving with her, and we planned to have a good time. When we purchased the train tickets, I averaged the total transportation cost to be around 100 dollars roundtrip (with our rail passes of course) but somehow the total came to be 24 euros roundtrip. (This is a little less than 50 dollars.) After walking out of the train station, overjoyed that we were going to another beach I thought to myself that this was going to be a great weekend. Boy was it stressful.

Here was our schedule for a 15 hour train ride from Strasbourg to Barcelona:
1. Leave Strasbourg, France at noon on Thursday and arrive in Paris, France by 2 pm.
2. Leave Paris, France at 9 pm and arrive to the boarder of France and Spain by 7 am
3. Switch trains and arrive in Barcelona by 11 am Friday morning.
4. Take the Barcelona metro bus to our hotel on the outskirts of the city center to check in
5. Have a gosh darn good time.
Although it looks simple, I think everything that could go wrong went wrong, at least on the way down there.

     So first of all, we had a make up class on Thursday for a Monday class that was supposed to be over during the first weekend in November and only met 5 times during the semester. But of course, the French education system is a little strange and the teacher scheduled a class for Thursday.
First problem,

       Anyhow, like the good do-bee I am, I went to that 8 am class and left early because I was not missing our Barcelona trip. And if you think, I’m bad let me just say that some people actually most people didn’t even go so don’t go pointing fingers at me. We boarded the TGV train to Paris and arrived their safely. Because we already have been to Paris and we were just there because that is the departure station for Barcelona trains, we decided to go to the movies. We saw Twilight, the movie. I liked the movie and yes it was in English with French subtitles.
The evening came fast and our train to Barcelona was here. We boarded the train and made ourselves comfortable. By 11 pm, our train had stopped. Long story short, we stopped for 6 hours. (This time at least.) I remember being waken up by the train ticket collector because he yelled something in French to everyone in my car. Of course, I had no idea what he said so I went back to bed. Hours passed by and I started to get impatient. Sharrell asked a random lady what happened and of course she apparently did not speak English. (Lies if you ask me) But, another guy sitting behind Sharrell answered for her and said “train over body” with hand motions. I started to scream. I closed my eyes and just said no, this isn’t true. From that moment on for at least a few hours, I cried uncontrollably. You would have thought I had known the person but I didn’t. I couldn’t get the picture out of my mind. I understood why the TGV person yelled and the lady in front of me looked around with eyes full of shock. Liz being Liz, had to hear it from someone else, which she did and it came out to be that a person committed suicide. We learned later on that suicides happen often with trains. It is apparently a European thing.
     Second problem
     The train began moving again and hours later we stopped again. I’m not sure why because I didn’t understand the intercom people. By this time, we had been on this train for over 15 hours. I got frustrated and went on a hunt for a person who worked on the train. My hunt was unsuccessful because of course they were all no where to be found. Strange I know.
     Third problem,
     A lady came to me later on and wanted to know where we were headed. She worked for the train company and was supposedly going to help us. We learned that because we 6 hours late this train was no longer heading to the boarder between France and Spain. Perfect right? Tell me about it. Oh and to make matters worst, I never saw that lady again. Minutes later, we moved and stopped again, for a long time. Sharrell went on a hunt to find someone to find out what the intercom man was saying, where people were going, and what were we supposed to do. Her hunt was successful and she even convinced the train worker to get another person who spoke English to translate everything in English and Spanish because most people didn’t understand what was being said on the speakers. We learned that we were stopping again because a train in front of us derailed. So in the midst of waiting, they fed us. It was legit survival food, the kind of stuff they feed you out in the woods. Everyone on the train got off and walked around what looked like to be an abandoned station. We sat in large circles and bonded like it was family time but in reality we were all complete strangers.
     Finally, after getting help and just sticking with people who were going to cities near Barcelona. We made it to the Barcelona train station. We ended up stopping for a total of 3 times for unforeseen reasons, which caused this 15 hour ride to turn into a 24 hour train ride. However, our nightmare was not over! The metro bus we were supposed to take stopped running because it was so late in the day. What was supposed to be a 40 minute bus ride turned into over 2 hour bus ride. Gratefully, I knew some Spanish was able to communicate and when I would forget words Liz would take over. This worked out. We ended up taking 3 different buses, getting off buses in strange environments, circling our hotel, not being able to get off where we wanted to, walking through the bushes of a major interstate, having grass and leaves throughout our clothing, singing gospel songs hoping that God could hear us and lead the way, pre-paid phones expiring, hotel receptionist not knowing where we were, running down taxis, and paying way too much for a literally 3 minute taxi ride. After wasting a full day on public transportation, we arrived at our hotel. Honestly, I didn’t think we were going to make it there but we did and had a wonderful weekend in Barcelona.
　
    Getting back to Strasbourg wasn’t that much of a challenge and we made it back safely. I still do not like Paris that much. I’ll also never understand why everyone thinks they are the next top musician or the poorest of the poor and expect people to give them money, but that’s another bog’s discussion on a different day. I suppose I’ll never understand the things I question. So as Sharrell told me 1000 times that weekend, I might as well stop talking about it. since when is it okay to have everything in one language. Okay, I take full blame for still not knowing much French. But, for everything to be in French and there being 21 official languages in the EU something doesn’t seem right. The people need to learn how to use multiple languages on these modes of transportation since there are so many official languages and we are going into different countries., since when is it okay for this to be the thing to do in Europe. I don’t understand. This is more than selfish. It is just rude! We have places to go and things to do, which is why we are taking the trains so do not be the one to interrupt this process. If you need help, take yourself to the hospital. People get paid (Hopefully, I’m one of these people.) lots of money, just helping depressed people. Stop thinking about yourself and get help! Okay I’m sorry. That got personal but it hurt me that it was another life gone and interrupted so many others life. Believe it or not, I care so much about people and I’m extra sensitive. So please for everyone who is reading this, if you ever feeling down call on me. I’m always willing to just listen because I really do care.since when is it okay to just schedule a make up class when you please? Of course it was nice to not have class that Monday earlier in the semester but the world doesn’t evolve around this one class and we didn‘t ask for it to be cancelled. We have lives and by lives I mean planned trips, jobs, and other commitments. We can’t just show up on a non scheduled day because you cancelled it for no reason.