Stuck on the Train: A Reality TV Show

The first friends I made in France this trip were pretty much forced to befriend me.  That’s because my train from the Gare de Lyon to Besançon, which was supposed to take about two hours, broke down and we ended up stranded in the train for 6 hours!  Yikes.

When I first got on the train, I tried really hard not to seem foreign.  I smiled and nodded when people spoke to me, trying to avoidsaying anything but, “Merci” or “Pardon” so that no one would notice my accent.

The first 45 minutes on the train went according to plan.  I listened to my Ipod and hid my face by pretending to read a French newspaper; the other people in my compartment were doing pretty much the same.  But all that calm, normal (but depressingly anti-social) behavior was about to seem silly and useless.   The train stopped short and all the lights went out.  There were cries of “Merd” and “Putain” left and right (neither of which I will translate here.)  Eventually the lights came back on but the train remained where it was.  The conductor came around to each car and explained in rapid-fire French what the problem was. I, of course, was lost. So.  I had to suck it up and speak to someone.  I looked at the man sitting across from me: “Excuse me, would you mind telling me again what he just said?  I’m a foreigner and I didn’t catch some of it.”  (That was a lie, I didn’t catch any of it.)   He smiled and said slowly in French, “the engine is broken, so we are going to have to wait here for a new part.” 

Oh, ok.  I can deal with that. 

My friend Laura, who I met on a previous trip to France, is from Besançon (the town where I was headed and where I will be living this year).  Laura lives in Paris where she works for a company that buys the rights to foreign films, but she was planning to go home to Besançon that weekend to see her family.  We took different trains from Paris because my plane got in before she was going to get off work, and I didn’t want to sit around the train station with all my luggage.  But Laura’s mom (a lovely, generous woman) had offered to pick me up at the train station.

I sent Laura’s mom a text to let her know that my train would not be on time.  

Timidly, the people in my compartment started chatting. 

“Where are you headed?”

“Oh no, this delay will cause me to miss the play I was going to see with my husband.”  “My son just texted me a picture of the delicious dinner I am missing right now!” 

Everyone was also curious about who I was and what the heck I was doing here on this train with enough luggage for six months.  I told them I was American and heading to Besançon to teach at Lycée Louis Pasteur this school year.  They all knew Besançon and assured me that the students would be nice to me.  Mathilde, a beautiful young woman in her early thirties who was originally from Besançon (and went to “Pasteur” during her high school years), told me an amusing story about how she had a crush on her English Assistant when she was in high school.  “He was a tall, blond, British guy, and I used to always see him drink beer in a nearby bar after school,” she explained. 

In the compartment there was also, Matthieu, a fourteen-year-old boy who lived in Paris but was visiting his grandparents in Besançon for the weekend; and Nicolas, a suited-up business man who had been in Paris for work, but was returning home to his family in Dijon. 

The conversation mostly consisted of Mathilde and Nicolas telling Mathieu (who was also unsure about Besançon) and me all about the city.  

“There are lots of cool music and arts festivals at the ‘Citadel.’” 

“There is a special kind of cheese that comes from the Besançon region.  You can’t find it anywhere in the United States or anywhere else, I hear. But you have to taste it. I think it’s the best in France!” 

“Did you know that Besançon used to be an old Roman city?  There are Roman ruins that still stand near the center of town.” 

“Victor Hugo was born in Besançon.”

“Also, the Lumière brothers, who invented cinematography, were born there.” 

“Isn’t it funny that their name was ‘Lumière’ (which means light), Ha Ha Ha!”

“There is a really cool art museum in the center of town called the Musée des Beaux Arts.  You should definitely pay a visit since you are interested in art!” 

“There is lots of good skiing nearby – I’m sure it’s much better than whatever you have done in Virginia (it doesn’t snow much there, right?) …”

After we sat for nearly three hours, the conductor announced that we would be turning around and heading back towards Paris to get some part repaired.  Then we would head towards Dijon, stop for a few minutes, and continue on to Besançon.   Ugh. This was going to take a while, to say the least.

Nicolas went to the dining car and returned with a bottle of wine, a corkscrew, and four plastic cups.  “I think this might help,” he said.  “Chin!” (which means “Cheers”)

Two hours and another bottle of wine later, we had decided that this situation would be a great premise for a reality TV show: Stuck on the train: two French professionals, a fourteen-year-old-boy, and a random American chic are forced to entertain one another for six hours in a small enclosed space. 

Fortunately, our reality TV show was more like fiction than “Keeping Up With the Kardashians.”  When we stopped at Dijon, the loss of Nicolas left a hole in our little group, but we gained Benoit, a chubby, jolly man, who was also on his way to Besançon. 

We finally arrived in Besançon around midnight.  Laura, whose train left two hours after mine, arrived two hours before me.  Her train had also experienced a delay because some other train (mine) had been blocking the tracks.  Since it was so late, Mathilde offered to give me a ride to my new apartment, rather than have Laura’s mom meet me at the station.  Matthieu and Mathilde’s husband helped me carry my bags to the car.  We all got to meet Matthieu’s grandfather, who thanked us profusely for “watching out for Matthieu.”

What did I learn from my experience on a reality TV show?  Well, I learned that people in Besançon are wonderful and welcoming – nothing like the actual characters on reality TV.  And I learned that there is nothing like wine to give me a little confidence in my French-speaking-abilities.