John S.
Yelp
In 1998 I did something brave. OK, maybe "brave" isn't exactly the right word, but it does accurately describe how I felt about it immediately afterward.
It was in 1998 that I traveled by myself by train from Stuttgart, Germany, to Lancaster, England. For those of you unfamiliar with European geography, that's a pretty long distance. To tell that truth, it wasn't really that big a deal. I was 21 at the time, and I speak German, so I was only completely helpless, at least linguistically, in France. But France is also the only place I had to change trains. Oh, and this is long before cell phones, so my non-francophoneness could have been a major liability.
Here's how it went down: I took a train from Stuttgart to Paris. On the way, I had to endure a rather annoying conversation between two fellow Americans from St. Louis that revolved around just how great Mark McGuire was. I sat next to these guys because I thought there might be safety in stupid-American numbers, but I eventually grew so tired of the conversation that I found my own car.
Once I reached Paris, I got off the train at Gare de l'Est--"east station," at least as far as I understand French--I then walked a few blocks to Gare du Nord--"north station." Luckily for me, whoever designed Paris didn't think much of locating the stations named after two cardinal directions within a mile of each other. Now, I had a map of Paris with me, and I had actually visited Gare du Nord earlier during my trip, but being able to actually walk from one place to the other while carrying a pretty large bag and not speaking any French made me feel pretty good.
From Gare du Nord, I jumped a train that went through the Chunnel and on to England. In London, I switched trains and eventually ended up in Lancaster.
OK, so maybe not so amazing, but considering I had never traveled by myself before, its was pretty cool.
I don't remember much about the station itself. I remember being surprised and how much smaller it was than its northern cousin.
