Day 35 Traveling Round the Whole Wide World (Strasbourg)

Today was mostly a travel day, with pockets of joy and sadness. This morning I had to get up a touch early (sad), so I could get ready and still spend some time with Flora (joy). It was a peaceful morning, eating and chatting, only interrupted by a large black man knocking on the door and demanding to come in and check for fire safety. Flora made him wait, because he was being rude. After she finally allowed the inspection, the man politely introduced himself and was somewhat apologetic. You know why? Because Flora's got much bigger balls than him. That's right. He got schooled. (joy).

Then I said my goodbyes (sad) and made my way to the train station, which was now working (joy). I stocked up on some tasty snacks, of course (joy), and took the chunnel back to Paris. This time, thankfully (joyfully), I did not have my seat taken, and did not have to deal with some jerk stretching his legs out all into my space (JOY). Once in Paris, I had a few hours to kill before my next train, so I decided to go to my favorite bakery (JOY)!! But it was closed (DESPAIR)! So I went instead to the grocery store, and thank goodness Paris has good foods to choose from. The winners were...

CHEESE! France, you did well here. I ate this on a crispy baguette (not pictured).

(<--JOY)

Cookies! No, I don't shop like a 5 year old....








                                                                                         (joy)

Look! I bought fruit, like an adult. I even bought TWO peaches. TWO. That makes me double adult.








There was only a mild hiccup at the train station, where basically all the departure/arrival boards went down (sad). Also, I think the power went out in all the little food stalls. I'm not sure quite how this happens at such a major station, or why there was no backup generator or something. Instead, they had a thousand little train station people in uniforms come out to tell you where to go. I liked this. (Joy.) I found my train easily enough, and was hit with a surprise. If I remember right, I think I paid an extra like 2 euros for my ticket than the regular ticket. What this meant was I got a super pimped out 1st class seat! (JOYYYY!!!) I boarded my 1st class coach, and found my seat.

Booyah. You know why I was able to take this picture so easily? Because there is no one next to me. My enormous seat is too grand to have any others next to it. I also got my own tray, fancy cupholder, and outlet, because 1st classers always have important electronics to plug in. I plugged in my laptop to play important solitaire. ALSO check out this button:

 You know what it does? It moves my chair. Not like a crappy airplane seat. By magic, and it moves the bottom part of my seat forward or back, along with tilting the back of the chair. I was king for a day.

(JOY)

After exiting my train-palace, I was greeted by my very first (at least from the site) couchsurfing host! Gaetan, aka "The Sheriff". Bask in his glory:

That's right. How many of you can say you have surfed the Sheriff's couch? That's what I thought.

Gaetan gave me a nighttime tour of Strasbourg, which was amazing and beautiful. I didn't really take pictures, because it was dark, and that usually doesn't work out so perfectly. But so far, I love Strasbourg. One day I will conquer it, and it will be mine forever.