The nightmarish trek

It was now time for the big move. We said our goodbyes to Frau Heinemann and began our journey. Getting to the first train station was not so bad. However, the next few transfers were not as easy. On the train to Frankfurt, we met a couple who lived in Paris. We practiced our French with them, and they helped us with our pronunciations. When we reached Frankfurt, we had a very short amount of time to switch trains, and on top of that, our train was running late.

We tried the best we could to make it to the train on time. Luckily, the couple we met were transferring onto the same train and an employee went out to warn the train of our late arrival and that it had some passengers. We hopped onto the first car we saw and made our way through 4 cars (with all of our luggage!) to find our seats. Our new friends were sitting next to us again, so we were able to continue our conversation.

When we arrived in Paris, we had to make our way through the Metro to the other side of the city in order to transfer to the TGV that went to Montpellier. We had a little over an hour to do it, but it was the longest hour of our day. Since some of you have never been to Paris, I will tell you a little more about the Metro. It is similar to New York's subway system. Sometimes there are escalators, but many times you have to walk up several stairs and back down several stairs to get to the stop you would like to be picked up from. Our luggage started to break, and in fact, we didn't have enough arms to even carry everything.

When we arrived at the train station, we treated ourselves to some decadent desserts. The hard part was over now. We boarded our train and took turns carrying all of our luggage to the back where our seats were located. The next few hours, we tried to relax. When we arrived in Montpellier it was dark. We had spent a whole day of traveling, from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m., and were glad to finally be at our destination. A nice gentleman even helped Andy unload our luggage from the train.