Planes, Trains & Automobiles

Well I seem to have gotten away with that one!

After two very long weeks traveling across the US, with sore legs and calloused feet, I have finally arrived in France.  It's taken me 2 trains, 2 planes and a bus, but I'm here in Grenoble.  I'm either very lucky, very well managed, or have a deity looking out for me because everything seems to work out alright when I expect the worst.  My journey started with getting on the New York subway to get to JFK airport, a not altogether difficult task since I've done it once before, but I remember it being awkward with a wheely bag and a small backpack, so I expected carnage trying to get a bike bag, a 70 litre backpack and my laptop/junk bag through gates and turnstiles during evening peak hour, then transferring to another train, but it all went well, and for the princely sum of $7.50, I'd managed to navigate my way to JFK not only cheaply, but about half an hour earlier than I'd anticipated.  It wasn't all good news though as I got stung by Lufthansa for carrying a bike, which wasn't unexpected, but I'd hoped I'd get away with it as one of my two allowed pieces of checked luggage, which I would have if I was able to conceal the fact there was a bike in my bike bag (which in case you haven't seen it, would be nigh on impossible since it's the oddest shaped piece of luggage you have ever seen, and in large enough lettering has the words "caution : bicycle inside" printed on both sides of the thing).

About 3 and a half painful hours later (with the exception of hearing Karla's voice for the first time since I've been away), I was waving goodbye to the USA and on my way to Frankfurt.  After a 14+ hour flight from Melbourne to LA, and my little excursion through middle America on the way to New York, a 7 hour flight through the night was nothing, and while I expected to only be transiting through Germany on the way to France, I actually had to clear EU immigration at Frankfurt, so I'm counting that as a new country I've visited!  The queue for immigration and the walk to the other end of the terminal in Frankfurt consumed most of my hour and a half layover, so before I knew it I was on another plane to Lyon.

I was pretty nervous getting on the plane to Lyon since its the first time I've been on a flight alone between 2 countries where neither one uses English as it's primary language, and I had no idea how I was to get to Grenoble once I landed.  I made a very rudimentary attempt to learn some French phrases using an app on my phone before I boarded the plane, but that was useless since the cabin crew were German, and they spoke English anyway (French too, but why bother embarrassing myself).  I don't quite know what was in the baggy that they served up as a snack on that flight, but it looked very cabbagey, and I reckon I could smell it through the wrapper, so I arrived in Lyon a little hungry.

For a smallish airport (maybe Adelaide sized if you're playing along at home), it took a decent amount of time to collect my bags.  Of course my bike came out last, and I was fortunate enough to have found that my bike arrived in one piece, but the good old Transport Safety Administration had broken a clip inside the bag when the inspected it leaving the US which made the bag a little saggy and harder to handle through traffic (it isn't terminal, but this bag is approaching the end of its life). I may have said it before, but I'll say it again, anything to do with flying in the US bites.  On the navigation front, I was fortunate enough to come across a Canadian chap who was collecting a bike from the same flight I was on and we got chatting while waiting, and it turned out he was heading into Lyon by train as I had anticipated I was to do before hopping on another train to Grenoble, so we figured we'd tackle it together, however it turned out that once we got out of the elevator on the departures level, I spotted a bus parked on the concourse with Grenoble printed on the side in big letters, so I figured I'd just try to get on that rather than tackling French trains.  Again I got lucky and the ticket agent spoke English, and 5 minutes later I was on a bus pulling away from the station.  I never even had a chance to convert my leftover US dollars to euro!

As we pulled up to the first toll toll gate on the motorway, I saw some Aussies in a camper van driving away from the airport with an Australian flag draped across their dash, and I don't know why, but that made this thing feel all the more real than the strange airports, the foreign languages and the remarkable countryside.  I'm in France, and I'm going to the freakin' tour!