train chaos

Saturday morning in an omnibus train bound to Granville is not a relaxing experience without one’s noise cancelling headphones! It starts with passengers unable to gather their carriage and seat numbers from their train tickets (“Désolée, c’est ma place.”, “Vous êtes sûre? Je croyais que c’était ici…”, “Je ne rappelais pas de mon numéro de siège.”, “Ce n’est pas la voiture 3?!”, &tc.) Then piling an unbelievable number of rolling trolleys in the aisle, efficiently blocking the corridor. Once everyone is apparently settled, phones start to inanely transfer the information to innumerable correspondents (“Allo, tonton? Je suis dans le train!”, “Oui, j’arrive. Vers midi moins le quart, je crois…”, “J’ai pris mon sac gris, tu sais, le sac gris.”, “J’ai la grande valise, t’inquiète!”, “Tu sais je me suis levé à quelle heure ce matin?”, &tc.) And, thanks to poor quality headphones (for which the retailers should be fined!), providing the whole carriage with syrupy French variety music. Not mentioning the woman behind me travelling with a small girl, a dog, and a wandering cat and insanely spending her time discussing about dogs with another traveller across the aisle. Unsurprisingly leading to her daughter complaining and then crying after a while. Even after ten attempts at reading “Petit ours brun“…)