Saturday

We got up and got ready to go to the train station to take the train from Toulon to Paris where we would have about an hour to get from one train station to the other. We thought we would take a taxi but they are super expensive and since my mother and I are overpackers we would have to pay extra for luggage and maybe even take two. Plus we would have to find one, which proved to be harder than we thought before. While we waited for our train Richard and I walked to McDonald's to use the internet. Apparently McD's has been providing free wi-fi for a while. We went in and got connected right away. We did some "business" as my grandmother calls it and walked back to the station. On the way to Paris we decided we would brave the metro with all our bags since it would save us more than $100. So I was the official navigator and leader through the metro. I know what you are thinking…if she was the leader they must have been in a big mess! But we did it! We got through all the changes (just 2) and made it to the station with plenty of time. I even had time to pick up dinner. Just imagine the 4 of us with our big suitcases in the metro in the middle of Paris! Oye
Once on the train to Niort we thought our craziness would be over for the night…wrong. When we got to Niort we quickly realized there isn't a lot of nightlife. The train station was deserted besides us and a family waiting for their daughter to pick them up. We assumed we would get a taxi, you know what happens when you assume. We stood around for a bit and I remembered back when I was coming home from Africa and I thought I was going to have to sleep in the airport in Atlanta because I thought we were going to be sleeping in the train station. Then my grandmother noticed a bar open across the road so we walked to it to see if we could find a number for a taxi. The people in Niort are 100 times nicer than in Paris. There was a police officer at the bar and he called a taxi driver who was home and he came to get us. The bartender said that if we couldn't find a ride she would take us. So nice. When we finally arrived at Josiane's it had been raining all night and was pretty cold and she had been waiting for us outside. She is also a tiny little French lady. She had food for us to eat and then we went to bed.