Day 55 – Travel Day, Montpellier to Paris
Key to room 403 at the Hôtel Média in Paris
In today’s case, I collected the newspapers, tied them up, soaked them in a vat of cold water, threw them into the air and waited for them to land on me. A clear case of self inflicted screw up.
Over the past few weeks I’ve been carefully deploying the logistics of my final days before I fly home.
I made reservations at a hostel in Paris, purchased train tickets from Montpellier to Paris, and arranged for two specific days in my apartment in Montpellier, all with an eye on my return flight on June 30th.
Being somewhat of a self sufficient travel agent, I managed this using various apps and websites on my iPhone.
The first clue that something was amiss came while I was settling into my seat on the train to Paris at 12:30 this afternoon. Another man came up and also claimed the same seat. We compared tickets and agreed that somehow they had double booked the seat. There was another vacant seat nearby so he accepted that and we were on our way.
In the back of my mind I knew this was not a likely explanation, so I rechecked my ticket and suddenly realized that my ticket was for tomorrow’s train, not today.
First thing I did was go apologize to him and offer him my seat if he wanted it. Mea Culpa is a steadying tactic when you know you’ve got egg all over your face.
About then the train porter came by to collect tickets. I explained to him my error. The only solution was for me to buy a full day-of fare ticket right then and there on my Visa card. Ouch! And then request a refund for the erroneous ticket when I reached Paris.
That done, I then had to deal with the fact that I was arriving in Paris one day earlier than my reservations at the hostel. I tried to tack on an extra day via email but that would be too easy. They quickly got back to me saying no way today.
Then it was over to the Bookings.com app to find a vacancy for tonight. Hôtel Mèdia had a room 5 minutes from the Hostel for a reasonable rate. Proximity was important so that I wouldn’t have to lug my luggage too far twice and so I wouldn’t have to learn two different neighborhoods to get around in.
By the time I arrived in Paris, I had confirmation on tonight’s room and a map to get there on foot from the train station.
There was a 15% penalty for late cancellation of the wrong ticket but I’ll book that under training costs on my expense report back home.
Interestingly, there were two moments when this error could have been caught before I boarded the train. One was when I showed my ticket to the information assistant at the train station to find out where I go to board. She noted the time, car number, and seat number and directed me to the right platform. She did not notice the date was for tomorrow.
Another opportunity was when I had to put my ticket into a kiosk at the train station. It made no obvious note of the date discrepancy.
The system puts far too much confidence in the human species in my opinion.
While eating dinner in an outdoor cafe this evening I observed the above gentleman who appears to be wearing a winter parka with hood over his head in 82F weather. He is occupying himself by kicking litter off of the streetcar platform.
Tomorrow, after relocating to the hostel, I go in search of the elusive Eiffel Tower.
Buen Camino,
– jgp
You handled the train snafu with graciousness. Oh man, that would be embarrassing.
Given the efficiency of the train porters solution and the expression of the customer service representative in Paris, it’s not all that uncommon of an error I think.
As an aside, the TGV train I was riding on periodically reported its speed on a display in the car. We reached 297km/hour or 185mph. That’s faster than I’ve ever travelled on land before.