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I love to make decisions using all the available data. For example a spinning wheel with Yes or No. Or one with all the places you can go when you have time to spare in Europe.
But this week in France I’ve accidently confused the spinning wheel with the shit sandwich on the Lazy Susan. You know, where on the other side is a turd covered in sesame seeds.
Let’s backtrack. I write this on the TGV (the very fast trains that the French have had for 30 years. Come on Australia.) I’m travelling from Marseille to Paris. But only just.
I rocked up to Gare Saint Charles Marseille half an hour ago – well within the check-in window for my 8am train to Paris. I had my ticket open on my phone like all the millions of other people in the throng headed for Paris. The guard scanned my ticket. “Bapbow”. That’s the sound of the wrong answer on a game show. On his screen was a big red X.
In my head I was straight back to the Golden Vagina incident at Sydney Airport. Apparently, my ticket was for tomorrow.
The back story here is that I’ve been in Marseille with Mes Enfants (that’s French for my children) for the last four days. They left for Paris yesterday and had plans to catch up with our great French friend Eric on Saturday. I intended to meet him in another week, but it turned out he was going on holidays. So I just invited myself to the day out with him and my kids. But first I had a day to fill and then I had to get to Paris.
I phaffed around with ideas. I could stay in Marseille another day. I could go to Avignon. Or I could visit Aix-en-Provence. It sounds nice and has wine.
So I booked myself a train from Marseille to Aix (pronounced Ex) for Friday then a TGV from Aix to Paris on Saturday.
It is possible that I made these plans after a few bottles of wine or in the middle of the night. In any case, I realised that I’d booked all these trips to the Aix-en-Provence TGV station which is nowhere near the town and there are no hotels.
So I just gave up, booked a new hotel in Marseille and changed my train ticket to Marseille to Paris on Saturday. Or so I thought. Until just now when the “Bapbow” went off.
Merci beaucoup to the lovely SNCF lady at Marseille Station who found me a seat on the train to Paris that I thought I already had a seat on. I had to fill up a wheelbarrow full of money and set it on fire but at least I won’t miss out on the heatwave in Paris today.
And in the spirit of spinning the Lazy Susan again, I just changed the other ticket I had for the third time. I think I’m going to Lyon tomorrow. But you never know for sure with me.
