19 January - Paris at last (Day 1)

The plane we took was Boeing and much bigger than the Airbus we took from Singapore to Bangkok. But it was more uncomfortable!!! There were 3 seats by the window, with Hui on my left and a French madam on my right; I hardly had space to turn. For most of the time I was asleep (or trying to), but I did get up to go to the toilet because of diarrhea. I wasn’t sure it was nervousness or the food, but my stomach was feeling real bad.

What seemed like a decade of flight finally ended and we arrived at Paris at last! While collecting our luggage, we met Ryan who took another SIA flight. I thought I had brought a lot of stuff but he was even more ridiculous. He had his desktop and monitor with him. At the Paris Aeroport Charles De Gaulle 1 (CDG1), the adventure of my life started to unfold. First we had to navigate in the airport to get to CDG2. That was quite easy with the help of Ryan because he speaks much better French than me and Hui. In fact I don’t think I can say that I speak French, not even “un peu”.

So we took bus shuttle 1 and arrived at CDG 2. That took quite awhile and that’s when we realized how big Paris airport was. At CDG 2, we had to find out how to get to our individual destinations. By the way, the time we arrived was 7 in the morning. At the counter I found out that there weren’t any direct trains departing for Rennes. I have to first take the RER, then the metro and lastly the TGV train. Prior to my trip, I had checked from the website http://www.voyages-sncf.com/ and there were some technical error while displaying the schedules for 19 Jan. For any other dates that I checked, there was always an 839am direct train from CDG2 to Rennes, except for the 19th. This really puzzled me and I guess perhaps trains don’t run on every 19th of the month. My speculation was close when I found out the answer later.

In any case, we bought our RER tickets and boarded the MRT look-alike train. The 3 of us had to alight at different stops eventually. Although the train was small (much smaller than MRT), we still had quite enough space for our luggages; at least for awhile. At a particular stop, all hell broke loose. Passengers kept flooding in and we were squeezed like pancakes between our luggage and people. There was a particular black fat lady who caught my attention. She had her daughter with her and she was very protective over her. Whenever there were any jostlings, she would shout and roar at the culprits. There was also a Chinese lady who also caught my eyes because of her beauty. Despite being in an uncomfortable situation, I did not mind being pushed towards her.

Throughout the horrible ride, there were constant “live” announcements over the speakers and the commuters would laugh at the jokes which I couldn’t understand for they were in French. You definitely cannot find this in Singapore as firstly all announcements are pre-recorded. Secondly, commuters are too preoccupied with their own things (sms, reading, sleeping) to catch anything.

Although the RER ride was rough, everything was still going according to plan, until we reached the stop Gare du Nord. We were told by other commuters to get out of the train because it would turn back to the airport! So we hastily got out and were completely lost at that station. We had not a single idea on how to continue our journey. Luckily, there was a nice French guy who came to our rescue. Even though he could not speak English, he did not hesitate to offer his help and told us to follow him. Eventually we were back on track again which also meant that we were going to part soon.

Hui got off first at Chatelet Les Halles while Ryan alighted at St-michael Notre Dame. As for me, I got off at Denfert Rochereau and new adventures begun there. I had to change from RER to the Metro and it was both mentally and physically straining. Finding my direction there was really difficult with all the signs written in French and hardly anyone I asked spoke English. Worst of all, there were no escalators or elevators in such an advanced city. High-class train system? I doubt so. This meant that I had to carry about 30kg of luggage, with 5kg of bagpack on my back and about 3kg of laptop slung across my shoulder up and down the stairs. Imagine a 1.65m small Chinese guy doing such feat in a foreign country. By the time I completed this magnificent task, I was immensely drained and hungry. It was 11 plus by then. Don’t forget I had diarrhea on the plane and hardly eaten anything or slept on my flight.

Relieved to be at Montparnasse finally, it meant that I had only 1 more obstacle to clear to get to Rennes. After I had checked with the information counter, I finally realized why there were no trains that day. The French were on strike!!! How typical! I had always heard about strikes in France and the French are real good at that. There is even a joke I heard from my French teacher about their strike. He heard from a German friend said that when the Germans really want to be serious about demonstrating, they would say, “We strike like the French!” Anyway, I was told at the counter that there was not a single soul around to sell me the ticket except the controller on the train.

At last, I boarded the 1205pm train and could sit down and rest. I probably had lost 2kg of weight in one morning. Throughout the 2 hours ride, although I was sleepy, I could not take my eyes off the acres and acres of grasslands and fields that I passed. Occasionally there were cows and horses in the field and that was a sight that I can never find in Singapore. At about 1410hrs, I arriveed at Rennes station and waited for people from IRISA to pick me up. I knew once I was picked up, I could finally settle down.

I only had to wait a short while before I tall guy came towards me with an IRISA placard. On the way to IRISA, I noticed that the cars here were only Peugeot, Volvo, Renault, Volkswagen or Mercedes. Finally I arrived at IRISA and my supervisor, Anatole Lecuyer was there to welcome me. He was a dashing 31 year old guy with brilliant eyes and a cool beard. I also met Mathilde Briard whom I had been corresponding with via email prior to my arrival. From the emails that she sent me, I thought she would be much older because her English was not so good. To my surprise she turned out to be a pretty lass! She was my only motivation to go to work then.

After all the administration had been settled at IRISA, Anatole brought me to my hostel and filled up some particulars at the office. That was when I realized I would not be getting internet access in my room. It was really a great blow to me because I would be isolated from home. Another thing that I was unhappy about was that the room looked like a prison! But there was nothing I could do about it. For the first time I began to sense that the days to come would be tougher than I thought. It was about 6pm then which meant that it was 1am in the morning back at home. I made a hasty phone call back to inform my parents that I was fine and had settled down. I didn’t really miss them that much when I heard their voices perhaps because I was too tired. The 2nd time I phoned home, it was a completely different feeling. But that would be for later on. That night I also went to the supermart which was like 2km away by foot.

It was dark in Rennes by 6pm and I was exhausted. From the mart, I bought some cakes and cookies and that was all I had for dinner that day. 2 pieces of cakes and some water for the entire day (I was forced to skipped lunch)!!! But I was really too tired to feel the hunger and was dead on the bed by 10pm.