We could have eaten at Chi Chis

Our nice quiet day, turned into a hectic tear through the train station and another story to remember.

We had until 2:30 for our first train to Paris,  on our way to Nice (the French Riviera)!    We wanted to grab some lunch before we got there, but after wandering around the town for while it was already 1:15.  We (at least Jared and I), have been missing the Mexican food, and there was a Chi Chis across from our hotel (I know, but it's all they have here).  Like I said before the service in Europe is damn slow.   It took the first 15 minutes just to get menus and we started to get nervous.  At that point we decided to head for the station and get something there.  Funny things I don't think they even noticed!

 Then there was a 1 hour and 42 minute wait until our next train.  The catch was that we had to take the subway to get to another station for the second train.   It's was only an 8 minute ride, so we had plenty of time (right?)....  Well the fun started when they began posting that our train was leaving +OH10 (which means on hold 10 minutes).  Ok, but we plenty of lead time (right?)....after posting +OH15, 20, 25 and then 40..we started to sweat.  
We still had an hour, so no buggy, except we had to figure out what kind of ticket to get and stand in a line with 20 other people before getting it.  Remember the service?  Yeah, invariably one of the two "workers" gets up and gets  a smoke or some kind of break!  

We finally got the tickets and we basically had eaten up our lead time.  We now waited for the train we thought we had to be on(partially guessing), and hoped the 8 minutes was accurate.  We now were on the subway to the gaur de Lyon station and we had 12 minutes!  Needless to say Nancy was freaking out (ok, we all were).  We ran to the terminal where our train was supposed to leave from (with some help from a nice gent).  Of course it was it up two elevators through a turn stile and around the corner.  We made it at the exact time it supposed to leave.  Now we could rest easy (in a pool of sweat), knowing that we had a 5 hour ride.  Funny thing was the train didn't move and didn't move....eventually after an hour, they asked us to change trains!!   Luckily it was right next to it.....

We got to Nice at around 12:45am and it was raining,there were 30 or more looking for cabs and we had to push our way to the front to grab ours(maybe thats why the French hate us?).  Luckily we had gotten instructions from the hotel, so they left us a code and lockbox to get into our room.

We had a good laugh and now the joke is "we could have eaten at Chi Chis"!

Random thoughts:

1) Subways rule!  But they smell!!
2) Service is slow in Europe (I know I already said this,but geez!)
3) The french people are actually nice!
4) They don't translate on the trains in France
5) Subways are way more confusing then trains.