The Matt Faus Blog

Well, the Paris adventure begins with a train ride, actually two train rides that equal 15 hours worth of transportation. You see, Valencia is not terribly well connected with other countries throughout Europe. If you’re planning to travel anywhere outside of Spain, then you’re going to have to go to either Barcelona or Madrid. So, I headed to Barcelona on Thursday afternoon in order to make in there in time to catch the overnight train to Paris.

The train was really pretty comfortable, compared to a plane or a bus, but it wasn’t exactly easy to sleep. About one hour into the train ride there was quite a commotion in our car. There were five French-speaking Arabs that had stowed away in the bathrooms from Barcelona in an attempt to attain a free ride back to Paris. Upon the discovery of their plans the train conductor stopped the train and was forcing the illegitimate passengers off. However, these men would not go without a fight. I didn’t understand a word of what they were saying, but I was able to ask another passenger later and he explained things to me. Anyway, the police finally came and forcibly removed the men and we were on our way. At least we weren’t on some other car where we couldn’t see the reason that we were stopped for half an hour.

Otherwise, the train ride was rather uneventful. I met some other American travelers in the cafeteria car and we talked for a little bit, but that’s about all.