Traveling by train is not as easy as I imagined it to be.  Somehow I pictured being able to walk into a train station, look at the list of destinations and jump on a train.  Well, let me tell you, it’s not that simple.  Start with Jayné and I bundled up from the cold with sweaters, scarves, coats and gloves.  Then we each have a suitcase which is stuffed to overflowing with clothes, toiletries and the many books and guidebooks we could not resist purchasing along the way.  In addition to the suitcase we each have a carry bag which sometimes sits on top of our suitcase and sometimes is carried in hand, plus camera bags.

            We enter the station and search for information.  We find someone who doesn’t speak English and he seems to indicate which train is going where we want.  This train is a TGV which requires reservations.  Can I do this here?  He indicates yes.  We are confused.  Jayné waits with the bags while I run to a ticket booth to find out.  The train we want to take is full in second class.  We can pay €33 more each to sit in first class or we can wait an hour to reserve seats in the next train.  We wait.

            Or perhaps the scenario goes like this:  We rush from our hotel to the station, anxious not to miss our train.  As mentioned before, we are completely bundled up and laden with bags.  We find the platform our train is leaving from and jump on, careful not to sit in first class accidentally.  After all, it would be really embarrassing to be told to move seats.  One, two, three…we hoist our bags up onto the overhead rack and get them positioned.  Now in the warmth of the train we are hot and perspiring from all our running and exertion so we take our coats, gloves and scarves off and pile them in our laps as we sit down, exhausted. 

            The train begins to fill up with people around.  We pull out our breakfast and begin to eat yogurt and baguette or pastry.  Just about that time someone comes up and tells us we are in their seat.  Embarrassed apologies as we hurriedly shuffle our food back in our bags, grab our coats, scarves and gloves, and drag our suitcases back down from the overhead rack.  Now we are hauling all of our stuff down the narrow aisles of the train, passing from car to car, banging our bags into seats as we go.  “Pardon.  Pardon.”  We try not to run over anyone’s foot or bump their elbows as the train is now pulling out of the station and rocking from side to side.  No one bothers to move their feet or bags out of the aisle.  We finally find where we are supposed to sit after asking several people who rattled an answer in French we didn’t quite understand.  We plop down in our seats at last and soon find our heads drooping as we are lulled by the gentle rocking of the train.

            Yet after all of this we still have trouble learning the ins and outs of train travel.  There are a lot of rules that must be followed.  After waiting in this line for this type of ticket and that line for another type of ticket you have to “validate” your ticket by punching it in a little machine at the station before boarding the train.  Then the conductor comes around and checks everyone’s ticket and punches a little hole in it.  Sometimes on long journeys they come around several times and check and punch the tickets again.  I guess I am witnessing the French love of bureaucracy that I read about in action!

            In fact this morning when we are getting on this very train we do not have reserved seats, so we figure “No reserved seats.  We can sit anywhere.  Right?”  Wrong.  After boarding a train car we see these little yellow slips of paper in a slot on each window.  What do these mean?  They are on every seat in sight.  After a few questions we realize these seats are reserved.  So down the narrow aisles we go with our bags again.  A few cars down I suddenly see no more yellow slips of paper.  Yes!  This car is not for reservations.  We can sit anywhere we want.  (So I think.)  I spot two seats together at the far end of the car and make my way to them as quickly as possible.  We hoist our bags up above and begin to settle in.  Wait a minute!  As I look up at the window I see yellow slips of paper!  I am not hoisting my bag back down!  Jayné has to go to the bathroom.  “Don’t leave me alone to deal with this!”  I beg.  “The owner of these seats will show up and then what will I do?” 

            We are looking around for empty seats.  We see a few but not two together.  A kind lady understands our plight and asks another woman to change seats so we can sit together.  She moves for us.  How nice.  Yet there seems to be a problem with where she is supposed to sit.  She can’t find a seat (or one to her satisfaction) and is wandering up and down the car looking very upset.  We feel bad for taking her seat.  We look helplessly at the woman who first secured the seats for us and she just waves her hand as if to say “It’s all right.  Don’t worry about her.”  Still, we feel terrible so Jayné says  “Let’s help her find a seat.”  Jayné turns to the woman sitting behind us who has a big bag on the seat next to her and asks in phrasebook French if the seat is taken.  “Est-ce que cette place est prise?”

            The woman replies to us in English with and ugly, mean expression on her face.  “Why?”  We hesitate.  “Why do you want to know?”  She asks.  Jayné then explains the whole story to her even though she knew exactly what had transpired because she was right there witnessing it all.  “If she wants it she can ask me.  She is an adult.  She can ask for it herself.”  Jayné discreetly motioned to the displaced woman and she did indeed end up asking and the woman moved her bag for her to sit there.  They were instantly jabbering to each other, no doubt complaining about us “rude Americans”.  Everyone on the train was giving us dirty looks.  One woman who was facing me and had a particular scowl on her face had that look the entire train ride, so I decided it was just her natural expression and nothing personal.  Soon the two women behind us were chatting and laughing as if they were old friends.  So I guess it ended up okay.

            I realized later that this is a game the French people play and we were not playing by the rules.  That’s why they got so upset at us.  By the end of our trip I had observed the scenario many more times.  They sit down on the aisle seat and put their bag on the window seat next to them.  Then they occupy themselves with a book or magazine and try to seem oblivious to the fact that the train is filling up with people who are all in need of a seat.  They will not move their bag or offer the seat unless someone specifically asks them for it.  But then they smile and cheerfully and willingly move their stuff to make room for the other person as if they never cared for that seat at all!  But the goal is to look so busy or unapproachable and never make eye contact so that everyone bypasses you and asks someone else.  If the train moves out of the station and there is not a bothersome person next to you then you have won!

            We changed trains in Strasbourg and I noticed the accents of the people changing as well.  They were still speaking French but it had a more guttural quality to it like German does.  The distance from Strasbourg to Colmar was not very far and took only slightly more than half an hour.  When we left the station the streets and buildings looked much like any other town in France.  But when we came upon the heart of the medieval old town I caught my breath quickly.  “Oh, look!”  Crooked cobbled streets wove their way between old half timbered buildings with tile roofs which seemed to lean in different directions.  As we walked through the narrow streets the brightly painted buildings closed in over us – the second and third floors were progressively larger than the building base and protruded out over the street above our heads.  We were in storybook land!  Any minute we could see Snow White and the Seven Dwarves or Puss-n-Boots come walking around the corner!

            After asking a few people we finally located the tourist information office and went inside.  We immediately asked about bed and breakfasts.  We were still hoping for the quaint experience and local interaction that a B&B would provide.  Unfortunately, there were not many chambre d’hôtes in this part of the country and the few that were here were either outside of town or closed for the season.  Nevertheless, they gave us a list and we began looking on our map for the closest ones.  There was one that was only a few blocks away so I decided to run down there in person to see if they were open and had any vacancy.  Armed with the phrase book and a map I ran out to find it.

            It didn’t take me long to locate the building down a quaint alley.  Or was it a street?  They are all so narrow it’s hard to tell the difference.  I rang the bell.  No response.  All was quiet.  I rang it again.  Then I tried knocking on a few different doors.  I could not find a soul so I ran back to the information office to see what we should do.  We could run around until midnight trying to find a chambre d’hôte and still may never find one.  We were not sure just what to do.  The young woman who had been helping us was very kind.  Even though she had been told earlier by her superior that she could not make any phone calls for us she pleaded for them to let her make just one call.  Her superior begrudgingly consented and she proceeded to call not just one but all the B&B’s on the list.  They were either closed or had no vacancy.  She was so incredibly sweet and was trying to help us find what we were looking for at any cost.  She told us of a friend of hers who had a B&B out in the country and offered to take us there in her car after she got off work.  It was a tempting offer and I’m sure would have been a great adventure but we would have been stuck out there with no car.  We had to decline.

            While Jayné and I were off to the side reluctantly looking over hotel lists a young man came into the office.  He was standing next to us waiting his turn at the counter when we must have said something to each other and he overheard our English.  His head suddenly turned our way.  “You’re American!”  We had to plead guilty.  We were.  “You’re the first American’s I’ve seen in weeks!”  He told us he had been in Switzerland near the German border for two weeks and was just beginning to feel comfortable with the dialect spoken there but now he was moving on.  He seemed very excited to see some fellow Americans and to be able to converse freely in English.  I guess Jayné and I took it for granted that we had each other to talk to.  We were especially proud of the fact that he hadn’t immediately recognized us as Americans, only after we spoke.  We had tried very hard to look “European” and not dress like the typical American tourist in blue jeans and tennis shoes.

            We were still debating over hotels when our helpful information girl called us over to the counter and introduced us to a woman who was standing there.  “This woman has an apartment for rent that she is just beginning to list with us.  There is no food provided but it has a kitchen and you can cook for yourself.”  She acted as our translator. 

            “How much is she asking?” 

            “Fifty euros a night.”

            “That’s out of our budget.  We can only afford 40€.”

            “How many nights will you stay?”

            I looked at Jayné.  We were so tired of traveling every other day.  We decided to stay in Colmar three nights.  “Well, for three nights she says she could give it to you for 40€ a night.”  After asking about how many beds and if there was plenty of hot water we agreed.  “Just follow her.  She will take you to it.”

            So we grabbed our bags and began following this woman through the narrow streets of Colmar, not sure where we were going or what we had gotten ourselves into.  She chatted away at us as we went along, explaining things about the neighborhood to us.  We took a shortcut through the local Monoprix store.  Although the outside of the building looked old inside it was like a big, modern Safeway with an in store deli and bakery.  She gave us shopping tips as we went along.  Buy your bread at Monoprix, not the other bakeries.  They are more expensive.  Here is a good restaurant for local choucroute.  Etc.  She asked us which state we were from and when we told her Oregon she got so excited and told us her daughter had lived in Oregon for a while and had gone to U of O in Eugene.  She was so tickled to learn this fact she whipped out her cell phone and immediately called her daughter to tell her she was renting the apartment to two American girls from Oregon!

            We entered a building which was a mini mall with shops and she led us towards the back where another door opened out into the alley and told us to wait here.  She would go to her house to get the key and some towels and soap for us.  She disappeared.  “This is crazy!”  I thought as we stood there waiting for her.  “Who is this woman anyway?  What if she leaves us here and never comes back?”  No chance of that, we eventually decided.  She wants our money.  She did return about 15 minutes later with a large tote bag full of stuff and motioned us to follow her into the alley.  We did.  About 30 feet down the alley we came to a beautifully carved wooden door.  Number 8 rue du Mouton.  I guess it is considered a street!  She demonstrated to us how to open the tricky deadbolt and made Jayné open it once by herself to make sure we could really do it.  We went in and up two flights of very narrow stairs to the 3^rd floor where we entered the apartment. 

            Madame Jehl bustled about prepping the apartment for us.  She turned on the hot water heater, refrigerator and heater, stocked the bathroom with towels, toilet paper and soap, showed us where everything was in the kitchen and gave us a stack of linens for the beds.  Only after making sure everything looked good and we knew how to contact her if necessary we paid her the 120€ cash and she left.

            So here we were in our own little apartment in the quaint medieval town of Colmar, France!  We quickly set about moving in.  We hung our clothes in the closet and put our stuff in the bathroom.  After settling in our first order of business was to find some food.  We left our apartment and began to wander the narrow streets in search of food.  All of the restaurants Madame Jehl had pointed out to us for authentic regional cuisine looked closed.  In fact, we didn’t see any restaurants open at all!  At last we found one – Café Leffe.  I recognized the Leffe logo as a Belgian beer.  We went in and found a table in the back.  The menus were on the table so we eagerly browsed it and discovered they had good hearty fare with a German influence.  Great!  We were starving!  Our waiter came and asked us what we would like and when we tried to order he informed us they were not serving food.  Oh, dear.  We needed food badly.  Should we leave, go back out into the cold and search the dark streets for a different restaurant in hopes of finding one?  Or should we stay in the warm, brightly lit restaurant and have a beer?  Beer of course! 

            The Leffe brun was served in its traditional logoed glass.  It warmed our bellies and took the edge off our hunger.  We lingered over our beers, talking, until every last drop was gone and then wandered back out onto the streets with light heads.  We went straight to the Monoprix (where we knew we could find food!) to get some snacks and breakfast food for tomorrow.  Along with our other items we decided to try one of the local cheeses.  We were in Munster country so we chose a local munster for tomorrow.  While we were in the middle of shopping and announcement was made that the store was closing.  I looked at my watch.  Eight p.m.  Wow!  They close early.  And just then a worker came up the aisle to prod us toward the cashier.  Was I going to have another Louvre experience?  We went straight to the check out line with our purchases where I suddenly realized we needed bread.  I left Jayné in line and fled in search of bread.  I think they would have dragged me back to the line (kicking and screaming) if I had not found the bread rather quickly and returned immediately with a rustic looking loaf.

            We brought our purchases back “home” where I loaded the ham, yogurt, eggs, cheese and milk into the mini refrigerator.  It didn’t feel very cold to me but we had just turned it on not too long ago and I figured it hadn’t cooled off yet.   We settled down into our cozy little apartment where we had control of the heat (yes!) and, exhausted from a full day of travel, went to sleep to the sound of the nearby cathedral clock chiming the hour.