Incident at the Border

I loved the ride on the TGV Bullet train from Paris Gare De Lyon (Lyon Station) to Montpellier. We were in 1st class. The train attendant came around and took our order for food & drinks. This ride lasted almost 4 hrs.

This lady helped us figure out how to navigate the Paris departure (kind of complicated). You have to stand around staring at the departure board until 20 minutes before you depart. At that time your departure platform is revealed and you scurry to your train.

Awaiting our departure platform

Very nice train and comfortable seats

The train travels at such high speed that most of my photos were a blur, but we arrived on time in Montpillier.

This is where the problems began. We are both traveling with 2 pieces of luggage each (weighing about 50 lbs ea) along with 2  carry on size bags and misc bags of stuff I picked up in Paris. At Montpillier I could get almost no help in English regarding how to find our train.( I wanted to get a head start moving our bags as we had to drag them up the stairs when we departed from out Paris leg) I was only told repeatedly, in very broken English, to wait until 20 mins before departure to find out the platform. This would have been fine but they had no way to get to the platform other than using the stairs. When our gate was announced as Gate E we had to drag all the bags downstairs. when we got there we were told that we now had to go upstairs to the platform. We arrived upstairs and you guessed it, we now had to go down stairs to the platform. Poor Lavanson. He had to carry ea bag up and down 2 flights ea time.  We made it with only 3 minutes to spare!! It was awful. He was sweating up a storm and I was a wreck!!!

Lavanson stands happily with part of our luggage in Paris

So, I should have known this was not going to be smooth.

Crappy seats on Train to Barcelona and "NO" computer hook up

Ok so we're at least on the train. About 2 stops from the Spanish border a young black woman boards the train. She looked a bit odd to me but hey, I'm in Europe, what do I know. Anyway, she gets on and walks to the back of the car and I don't see her anymore. At the next stop the border police come on board and start looking at each passenger, but they don't say anything, they just walk through. OK, so I continue listening to my music. At the next station, a new set of police come on board and they check our passports. Everyone is cool. We all go back to what we were doing. Next thing I know, I see this guy come running into our car and he starts yelling in Spanish to the black lady (she has now mysteriously reappeared) and she is screaming back at him. He gets louder and she gets even louder. I thought it was her husband or boyfriend and that at any minute he was going to shoot her. He then orders her off the train. But she's not going peacefully. Finally she gets off and they lock her in the police office. Somehow she gets out and more police appear. 

It was like a scene right out of the movies. I just happened to have my camera available for the tail end of the situation.

 Everyone was minding their own business. Police are in the background

Then, WTF??

This is the guy who was screaming at the lady

She sort of said "F" you

This calls for some serious backup!

Officer in plain clothing to the scene

OK, she is in custody and off we go. Not a word is said. We arrived in Barcelona on time!

But, I forgot to mention that when we arrived in Barcelona, Lavanson's main suitcase was missing. He went running thru the station trying to spot the thief. He left me on the train alone to get all of the pieces off. I went back on the train and looked in another compartment and Voila, there was his bag. Someone had moved it when they were trying to get their bag out. Thank goodness, as I had my new Repetto shoes in there :)

Geez!

I'm Just Sayin