Day Twenty one onwards to Megeve

1/14/07
Day twenty-one
So " I have ameican" if anyone wants to know! I'm on the tgv, the high speed and quite comfortable so far train, which I believe uses electromagnetism to hover a few centimeters above the tracks.

And yet again I made it with plenty of time to spare... :-) about twenty seconds prior to the doors closing.

But this time it was due to my credit card not having a chip in it... Something you can work around usually, except when using some machines. See I had bought and arranged my ticket online so I could pick it up at a computer kiosk and save some time... Which obviously didn't work out, so we had to run to the service desk and found a teller who was just coming on to get a printed ticket... We actually had to wait for the machine to boot... Which it did just in time for us to run to the train (which the agent told us how to get to and which side) Theo to get it stamped (every ticket in europe requires self stamping with the aide of a validation machine) and me to step into the first coach.
Crazy start I'd say!
905am
216pm
In lyon, I had to transfer trains. And I thus ended up with a 30ish minute layover. Having realised earlier in the morning that I needed new gloves (i had one glove) I decided to scan a posted map for any commercial centers. Lucky for me, european cities seem to centralise their stores into the city center... And even more fortunate was my train station being a block away. So I headed to find an h&m(bigger better gap) or a decathlon (academy). Luckily I found both! Unfortunately both were closed... Who closes a store during lunch time! Insane Europeans! That's ideal shopping time!

So no I did not find new gloves, but I did find a nice chicken sandwich and an orangina... And best of all I boarded my train with like five minutes to spare... I got bored waiting for the sucker to move.

But now I'm in the Alpes near Geneve about an hour away from my train stop and another 30mins to the end of my subsequent bus travel.

I'm very excited to visit my friend!
226pm
336pm
I've never seen a gang moving before, but right now there's one messing around in the area around the train station... It's very odd and only parts can be seen from my various vantage points but they seem to completely ignore the tourists. Which is good... But their freedom of movement unchecked by the police seems very foreign to me... I haven't seen a cop in quite awhile... Which in the US is unheard of. They're everywhere and can respond to anything in a matter of minutes.
Oh yeah I'm in sallanche on the bus to megeve. 341pm