In the Air, Part 3 & On the Rails

The Montreal airport leaves something to be desired in terms of dining choices. Matt walked up and down the terminal we were in, and reported that the only two choices were cafeteria-type places, so we had sandwiches and soda at the nearest one for dinner.




I managed to get about two hours of sleep on the plane, as did Beth. Matt slept a little more soundly. Even with earplugs, it's hard to sleep through the frequent announcements (really, do you need to announce duty-free shopping at 4:00 am or whatever time it was?). We arrived in Paris around 8:30, met up with John, then hung around the airport until our train left at 1:00. Lunch was more sandwiches and sodas: I had a ham & cheese sandwich, and the rest of the family had salami sandwich, chicken sandwich, and chicken wrap (I think.) The ladies room in the airport was cutely painted (sorry, forgot to get a photo) and free, while the train station restroom (downstairs from the airport) was $.50.

We arrived in Lyon at 3:00 pm, and it was really hard to stay awake on the train. Matt gave up and had a nap, but Beth and I stayed awake the whole trip. We took a cab to John's hotel, dropped off our luggage, and had our first showers in 1.5 days.

With the jet lag issue, we are not yet ready to eat dinner on a European schedule. We took the bus into downtown Lyon (none of the restaurants by the Cité Internationale were open for dinner until 7:30 or so), and found a little cafe with "non stop service." Three of us had crepes (ham & cheese; ham, mushrooms, potatoes & cheese; chicken, bell peppers, & cheese), and John had an omelet with ham. Very tasty. I also had my first Coke Light of the trip: they always taste different the first time, then my palate gets used to it and the first Diet Coke I have after getting home tastes strange.



It was really hard to stay awake on the bus. The kids and I all kept nodding off on the way to and from the downtown. Fortunately for us, John has had a normal night's sleep, and he figured out the buses yesterday, so we just need to follow along.