On the move - No.2
Step 2: Berlin (Germany) - Boulouris (France)
December 23-24, 2015
Christmas looming closer, I needed to leave my cousin and his family in Berlin to reach my mother’s side of the clan in order to celebrate newborns across the ages. I knew this trip was about to come and I knew it would be a good test, but I didn’t realize the extent to which it would be.
As previously mentioned, I have decided to travel the world by enjoying long rides of all kinds, as long as it isn’t on board of planes. In this spirit, I bought a bus ticket leaving the Zentraler Omnibusbahnhof in Berlin at 9:30 p.m., arriving at Porte Maillot in Paris at 10:30 a.m. the following day. There, I would lunch with my sister, cousins, future husband in-law and two toddlers, to then take the train at 2:20 p.m. to meet with the rest of the family in Boulouris, on the French Rivera. It was tight, but doable.
What I didn’t really think about was the true meaning of a fourteen-hours bus ride. Indeed, Germany and France are geographically speaking very close to each other. Berlin and Paris, on the other hand, are insanely far, especially when travelled by road.
My last night bus travel had been an air-conditioned reclining dream from Sukhothai to Chiang Mai (Thailand). In comparison, this one was a cramped overheated nightmare. I was lucky enough to have two seats all to myself for half the trip, and spent the night dozing on and off, shuffling around, trying to find a not-too-uncomfortable position: Feet first, head first, knees under my chin, legs extended, cheek stuck on the window, feet up against the blinds, over the corridor… Nothing would do, it was meant to be a poor night.
It is full of a new gained knowledge (long bus rides ain’t necessarily fun), that I arrived in Paris where I realized that the amount of luggage I was hauling might be a problem. Indeed, I was traveling with my handbag, a regular backpack, a hiking backpack, and especially a suitcase weighing about 70 pounds of presents to make up for the past Christmases I didn’t spend with my family.
After extracting my bags from the bus’ trunk amidst my hurried and tired fellow travelers, I endeavoured to walk to the Metro’s entrance. French signage being what it is, the underground mouth wasn’t that easy to find. The first one I encountered was blocked by some kind of roadworks, the second one wasn’t equipped of escalators or elevators, and no third entrance was in sight.
Time being of the essence, I braced myself and lifted my heavy suitcase to go down the dozen steps, dragged it on a few feet, to then go up a couple steps, that I had to climb down again to ascend yet an other flight of stairs just a few steps later, etc, etc. So there I was, lifting, puffing, grunting, dragging, cursing through Paris’ undergrounds, hoping that my broken back (due to a motorbike accident only seven months old) wouldn’t give up on me.
I finally arrived at Gare de Lyon about an hour later, sweating, swearing, happy to see my cousins, venting, delighted to see my few-month-old niece and nephew, exhausted, excited, at a loss for words and breath, and full of hatred for another French staple: the now dreaded Metro.
Once lunch over with, it was time to catch the train. I shook my tired body, found motivation, got up to grab all my bags and help the others with packages, strollers, and luggage. And this is when I realized what a long bus ride paired with carrying more than 140 pounds of luggage did to me. The wonderful frustration of Paris’ metro had turned into terrible back pains and had succeeded in incapacitating me. I wasn’t in any condition to walk, let alone carry anything. My face covered in tears, I followed my family as fast as I could, letting them carry everything they came with and more.
The train whistled, I hobbled along, the station master looked in indifference, and I passed the train threshold under the rude acclamations of the ticket officer while the doors were closing.
Test results: I won’t be traveling long bus rides that much, and I will never, I repeat NEVER, carry heavy luggage through Paris’ Metro anymore.
