You never quite make friends like the lifelong pals you had back in high school and before. Luckily, I never lost those friends and that made for quite the European adventure…
Garrett, Mike, and Paul decided to cash in their spare change, rake leaves, and even sell “extra” kidneys to fund an Alps expeditions and week in Paris for the ultimate broke-college-student-road-trip. All I had to do was email a professor, move my final exam date, and catch a train to Chamonix in the Alps to meet up with them for some fantastic mountain climbing and hiking. Sounds easy enough, right?
I board the train at Paris’ Gare de Lyon at 3pm Thursday afternoon, switch trains at Bellegarde and, while studying for aforementioned exam, manage to miss a crucial piece of information announced on the intercom: the train cars would be splitting up and half my train would be going to Chamonix. The other half, I would find out, led right to an adventure. I guess I missed the French class where they went over how to interpret mumbly French train conductors…
So at around 8pm local time my train stops in a town just as the sun is setting. Its the terminus. The train station is close. Even the hotel across the street is closed. “Damn,” I recalled “it’s a holiday.” I walk out of the train station to see a beautiful lake. Standing there, stupefied wondering what I’m to do a young woman approaches me and assails me with some blur of French speed talking calisthenics.
I quickly say “I’m sorry, but i’m lost and a little confused. Would you mind repeating that a little slower?” A quick laugh and a few moments later, I find she is asking to borrow my cell phone. She needs to call a friend who failed to get off my same train. After talking to her friend, she discovers that he took the other half of the separated train…all the way to Chamonix.
Margot, as I later learned, was extremely hospitable. She explained the situation to me and, since she lived right down the street, invited me to use her computer to find another train. As we walk I find that she is studying nursing at a local university and where we are now is actually Evian, the town where they get the bottled water namesake.
We arrive at the house and I meet her friend Lucy. They invite me to eat dinner with them as they were expecting one more anyway. We enjoyed a gourmet dinner consisting of mac n’ cheeze and some frozen tart pastry. College students are the same no matter where you go…
We checked out the train schedule and found that there were no other trains scheduled for that night. The next would be at 6:30 am the next morning. I then asked about hotels only to hear “don’t stay at a hotel, this is a touristy place. They charge a lot for a room.”, in French of course. “Stay here if you’d like, we have an extra room”, said Lucy and Margot.
At this point, I was overwhelmed by the generosity of these complete strangers. I thanked them “mille fois” (a thousand times) and we spent the rest of the night listening to the best mix of classic American tunes and French hits, shared a few drinks, many stories, and countless laughs as we looked over lake Leman. Interested, I asked what was on the other side of the lake, with all the pretty lakes. “Oh,” Lucy responded “that’s Switzerland.” Awestruck, all I could say was: incroyable.
Evian - Thanks Margot & Lucy!!
As my train was to depart early the next morning, they showed me how to fix myself breakfast, where my sleeping accommodations were, and gave me a towel to take a shower. I could hardly contain how thankful I was to these girls for taking a potentially devastating mix-up and turning it into the experience of a lifetime. A few bisous, adieux, and 6 hours of sleep later I was ready to catch my train. I scribbled a quick note with my contact information and thanks and headed out the door. Next stop: Chamonix.
The train ride there was beautiful.
I hop off the tiny, red, mountain-climbing train as soon as it arrives in Chamonix and am greeted by gorgeous vistas of snowcapped mountains….completely obscured in clouds. Great. Regardless, I was plenty ambitious to explore and headed down the towns main street, which was crowded with alpinist stores, gear shops, and a few miscellaneous restaurants. All of which were closed at this 9 am.
I explored Chamonix for as long as I could in the cold, constant drizzling rain and headed for warmer grounds for some food (aka the cheapest place to eat – Macdo). I set up camp in there for a few hours, studying for my law final again (though it had spited me on the first train ride), and waited to hear from my friends and the weather to clear up. Four hours later, I decide to go out and explore again after many unsuccessful attempts to call my climbing partners.
Luckily, the rain cleared up and I headed out. No less than a block down the street, who do I run into but my 3 grizzly looking pals wandering the streets searching for a electronics store to buy more phone minutes. Eh, who needs phones anyway? Things usually work out for the best.
Gladly reunited we headed off for the next goal; FOOD.
After the feast we groggily fumbled our way back to their hotel, took a quick nap, and started brainstorming. How could we climb or even hike with all this cold, rainy weather? A quick look to the weather forecast showed that most of southeast France and northern Italy was covered in a dampish bad-mood-cloud-of-doom.
So, as usually happens with this group of friends and a lack of plans, we laid around and told funny stories until divine inspiration hit us! How about driving through the tunnel du Mont Blanc tomorrow morning, catching breakfast in a small Italian mountain village, driving up through Switzerland (for lunch), and then driving back to the boulder fields outside of Fountainbleu the chateau near Paris?
And that’s exactly what we did. Early the next morning, we packed the car, threw some bills at the desk attendant and bolted for Italy.
The guys before we decided to explore an abandoned underground parking garage..
After some quick breakfast, picture taking, and healthy dose of exploration, we started for Switzerland with only a vague idea of direction and a map to guide us. Eventually, we came to the town of Martigny, Switzerland nestled in the valley between the majestic alps.
This town seemed to be untouched by the foul weather, although it could be seen looming ominously above in the sky. A quick route check, some lunch by the beautiful lake, and we were off headed for some world-class bouldering at Fountainbleu.
Martigny, Switzerland
We arrived just as the sun was setting to find that the boulder field was literally littered with hundreds of perfect boulders with thousands upon thousands of routes to be worked out on them. We could hardly contain our excitement, or hunger. A tiny bar/restaurant seemed to suit our fancy at the time and we chowed down on some great food and cold beer and headed back to our “campsite.” Trying to save money, we decided it would be a good idea for all four of us, 3 full-sized duffle bags of mountain gear, and all the wonderful smell to bundle up and make camp for the night in the econo-sized Twingo. Bad idea.
Woken early by overwhelming sunlight, bird chatter, and charlie horses like you couldn’t imagine, it seemed to be a good idea to start climbing again. This boulder field was unbelievable. People and languages from all over the world could be found enjoying the rock in harmony. Everyone had a place to climb. All had high spirits. The sun was shining. Life was good.
A full day of climbing later, we accompanied our bruises, scrapes, and sore muscles back towards Paris. My friends found a great deal on an apartment in Montmarte, the very artsy and bohemian section of Paris. We spent the next 5 days exploring, introducing and making new friends, and generally having a great time. It would take another unusually long-winded post to describe all of that, so i’ll save it for now.
Garrett spotting Paul as he tries to get off the ground
Toll booths from Switzerland to Paris? 60 euros
Gasoline? 70 euros
Not getting arrested while country-hopping around Europe with your best friends? Priceless.
