This morning I took a shuttle to take a train to take a train to take the train (Madrid to Barcelona).
And then a taxi.
The first two trains were pretty straightforward because I started at the airport (end of the line) and could only go one way from there. I was on my way to catching the famed fast train to Barcelona. I just had to find it first.
I exited the commuter train at Chamartin, which should have a Eurail stop. The train station employees I asked told me no and to go to the Atocha stop. Back on the commuter train, then. At Atocha–a mega station attached to a mall– I asked a seguridad where the ticking booth for Eurail is and where the banos are. After the look I’ve come to expect from people I talk to, he said “No Eurail. Banos there.” He clearly spoke English and said banos in a Californian accent. I repressed my rising Eurail panic and paid almost a Euro for the privilege of using a mall privvy. I had my suitcase, my day bag, and my purse with me in the stall and we had a conference.
“It’s going to be okay,” I told my purse. “We will ask every employee here if we have to. Maybe even menfolk.” The purse remained nonplussed and with all of us in the stall I had to shimmy sideways to get to the real business at hand. With that issue aside, the reality of having to haul everything around again and ask anyone in a vest for the Eurail started to crush my spirit. If there was a sign or guide to the station or a helpful hint on the Eurail website, I wold have seen it by now. All I’d seen so far was a directory of the stores, and there wasn’t even a Sephora. And the wifi sucked. I stayed seated sideways and waited.
Then a message from God came in the form of a terrible cover of R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts.” I put my head down and let it happen.
I left the banos and asked every seguridad, ticket counter, and free-sample peddler how to get a Eurail ticket. The sixth person pointed me to the Information center, which was hidden behind what seemed to be a carousal made of candy. The information desk clerk pointed me further into his office to the separate ticketing office. Not a counter, not a kiosk, a full on DMV style take a number and wait behind the yellow line office. I took two numbers (one for a train today, one for a future train) and waited behind the yellow line. About forty other people were also waiting, but many came and went and the numbers on the Now Serving display ascended from 199 to 647 surprisingly quickly (90 minutes).
Here’s the deal with the Eurail pass: you have to also book a reservation. I have the Eurail pass, but not the actual ticket for a specific route. Now, you can indeed book these online, but only if you do so at least 8 business days before your trip so they can MAIL you a hard copy of the ticket. This totally destroys the ethos of this trip–to be a leaf on the wind–and I am not a little irritated at how archaic this advanced train system is. Paper tickets? Mail? I know I’m from silicon valley and expect everything to have an interactive app and same-day delivery, but come on.
So that is why I had to find the ticketing office before finding the actual train even though I spent almost 2k on the Eurail pass. Oh and don’t forget the booking fee (10 Euros) . The good news is I was able to get on the very next fast train to Barcelona (yay!) but that meant I had to rush to the railway onboarding area right now and not book my subsequent ride from Barcelona to Bordeaux. So, after getting explicit directions to where the Eurail train was from three people along the way, I was able to find my seat and watch the Spanish countryside go by.
Above is a still taken from a 10-second movie I made about the Spanish countryside rolling by.
After I was settled in my seat and listening to my audio book (finishing rereading Ready Player One and then reading more of what the expert Rick Steves says about traveling) I decided not to be angry with the people who told me I was crazy/wrong/misinformed/American when the Eurail ticketing office was actually within shouting distance of their places of work. Though I am still American.*
A short taxi ride after that brought me within blocks of my Barcelona Airbnb, which is an apartment that opens to a small plaza on a pedestrian-only road.
I visited the market and am eating an apple. The sticker says it’s a seduce life variety.
So here’s today’s lessons: keep asking until you get the answer you know is right, and if that fails, seduce something.
*Very, very
paralyzedbynotcaring 