The ghost train

Train problems

The time in the bus while we were driving from Normandy to Paris was horribly long. After an hour there was no hope left that we would be able to catch the last train to Amiens that we had found in the internet, so we just lay down and slept. Because it was Sunday evening, and everyone seemed to head to Paris there was so much traffic and the journey became longer and longer than predicted. The humour in the bus was tired and annoyed, because everyone had to look for other possibilities to get back home. We had a retard of about 4 hours!

At quarter to ten we finally arrived at Arc de Triomphe and took the Metro to the train station Gare du Nord because one of our group lived in another city next to Paris and he had a train to come home. Furthermore, the hostel we booked was just next to the train station. So, we went to the rails and said goodbye to our friend when we suddenly saw the large information about train departures and there was a train to Amiens! We were so surprised and couldn't believe it, but we went to the ticket counter in order to get tickets - it would take off in 15 minutes. One of us went to the hostel in order to cancel the rooms we had booked, and we looked for the tickets. But the train was not in the computer! We couldn't buy tickets, but we knew that there was a train, so we had to wait for our friend and when he came, we went directly to the rail and looked for a responsible person there.

Finally coming home

We explained that the train was not in the computer - and didn't hide our irritation about that - and that we couldn't buy tickets. He told us that it was kind of normal that sometimes trains don't appear there and that they were trying to fix the problem. I still couldn't understand how things like that could happen, but actually in that moment I didn't care because we were in the train and could get home tonight. So, we bought tickets at that person and sat down. Everyone was so tired, because sleeping in the bus isn't very comfortable and relaxing and the two days have been really exhausting. But sleeping in a train is even less possible, so we talked a bit and looked outside the window into the dark world which was passing by. Finally, after one and a half hours we arrived in Amiens. It was terribly cold because it was almost midnight, and we still had to get a bus back to the student's residency.

So, my German friend and I waited 20 minutes for the bus and finally we arrived at the residency. I was so happy; I just wanted to take a shower and fall into my bed. I did so and was content to be in my bed and not in any hostel in Paris for €15 per night. Fortunately, I didn't have a lecture on Monday so I could sleep in.

Studying for the last exams

But as the last exams before the Withsun holidays would be soon I had to study a lot. All the exams were in the following two weeks, except the one of the political courses. So, I decided to go to the library in the city centre in order to look for some useful books and maybe have a coffee with my friend. It was ridiculous but I really missed him the two days we didn't see each other. So, after I had pretended to study for a while, we met in the city centre to have a coffee and talk a bit. But he had a lot to do so he returned to his work and I walked a bit through the city centre, enjoyed the nice weather and had a crêpe before I finally returned to the student's residency to continue studying.

It was still hard for me to study in French even if my language skills had improved a lot during the two and a half months. I had to write summaries of all the notes I had taken (or the others had sent to me) which was a lot of work and afterwards I had to learn everything on the summaries by heart because it was still not easy for me to express myself in that language. So, it took me hours and a lot of concentration (which doesn't work with a laptop in front of you) to learn for exams. In order to relax and change my mind a bit I met my friend to go running in the park which really helped, because afterwards I was always so extremely tired that I slept immediately and woke up relaxed.

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