Scandinavia By Train: January 2013 (Part Three)

Continued from: Part One / Part Two...

Saturday 26th January (afternoon/evening): Copenhagen - Malmö - Falsterbo - Lund - Jönköping

Last time I mentioned a TV series called "The Bridge", which is all about the Swedish and Danish police forces working together to solve a murder, and funnily enough the title isn't just a clever metaphor for the struggles of two countries divided by frustratingly similar (but not quite similar enough) languages - no, in fact there's an actual bridge between Denmark and Sweden. The Öresund or Øresund Bridge (depending on which funny letters you feel like using today) is 8km long, and basically joins Copenhagen and Malmö, via some small islands and a tunnel or two to fill in the gaps.

I've stolen this from Wikipedia because, well, it doesn't look quite as cool
when you're actually on it.

Our decision to fly to Copenhagen and take the train over into Sweden this time around has a teeny tiny bit to do with my wish to experience this iconic bridge first hand, although I did see it from the Swedish shoreline once before. As it turns out, it's rather less striking from underneath, but it's still quite a ride - as you leave Copenhagen Airport on the train and the view turns from city to ocean, the main road tags alongside like an annoying travelling companion, also heading for Malmö.

We find our train racing several cars and a giant lorry, which is all good fun until the gap between road and rail narrows so much that we're convinced a catastrophic collision is inevitable. Luckily, just in the nick of time the truck is plucked away by some invisible force, as the road heads up on top of the railway in a kind of giant concrete piggy-back.

Looking out of the window from the train tracks over the bridge, there's not a honestly a huge amount to see except kilometres of cracked ice, floating around in the Øresund Strait like frozen crazy paving. It's a stark reminder of how cold it is since the train, like everything indoors in Scandinavia, is toasty-warm. They're rather better at insulation than us Brits, as Karin likes to remind me at every possible opportunity.

It's not long before we pull into Malmö, and step out into another beautiful piece of railway architecture. Apparently Malmö centralstation (roughly pronounced "Malm-uhh Centraal-sta-hone") has had quite a facelift since Karin was last here, and it's so welcoming with its cafés and shops that I start to wonder whether we shouldn't just spend the whole week touring the railways of Sweden. (As opposed to what we actually end up doing, which is... oh, yeah.) No time for photos, though, as Karin's brother Gustav is here to welcome us and whisk us off for the next phase of our trip, a 40km car trip.

"Wow, your car needs a wash!" I say, amusingly, as we step outside and I spot Karin's mum Annika in what used to be a black car but is now pebbledashed with what looks like weeks' worth of salt and grit from the road.

"Yeah, we washed it last night," says Gustav, strangely unamused.

Getting into the car, there are quick hugs and greetings, and then we set off through Malmö City Centre towards our next destination, with Annika at the wheel - always an occasion to be wary. If she's not threatening to run down old people crossing the street or speeding past show-offs in BMWs, there's a good chance she'll just be speeding. Or getting lost.

I know precisely one Malmö landmark and it's a residential high-rise building called "Turning Torso" (a 2005-built skyscraper which is currently Sweden's tallest building), so I'm excited to spot it in the distance, even if it is just briefly from the car window.

Go home tower block, you are drunk...

"Ah - look, it's the Turning Torso!", I exclaim confidently, pleased to then get confirmation from Karin and Gustav that I haven't just completely made this up.

"No...", says Annika, "that's on completely the other side of town. I lived here for years, trust me, I know where I'm going..."

After a bit of family back-and-forth, the others eventually nod and murmur agreement whilst signalling to me not to pay attention. And somehow, even though it absolutely is the Turning Torso that we can see, and despite the fact that we're heading away from it and Annika therefore thinks we're going in completely the opposite direction, we do by some happy chance end up on the road we we needed to be on and start our journey towards the very Southwesternmost tip of Sweden.

Our destination is a town called Falsterbo - a strange sort of place out on a little spit in the sea, immortalised in the chorus of this cracking song from one of Sweden's best defunct all-girl Indie-Pop bands. It's one of the most expensive towns in Sweden but also one where nothing much happens, being more of a holiday and retirement destination than anything else, with its sandy beaches and golf course. Not that anyone's out making use of either today; in case you'd forgotten, it's a bit chilly. In fact it's so scrotum-tighteningly cold that the sea has frozen over as far as the eye can see. Where normally there'd be families sunbathing (as much as possible in a town that's on the same latitude as Sunderland), or playing beach volleyball, today they're skating, trying to stand upright, and playing Ice Hockey (or, as the Swedes call it, "Hockey", as if it had never crossed their mind that hockey might be played anywhere else.)

Actually, this might be the point at which I allow myself a little diversion to talk about Karin and her attitude towards Britain's favourite sports. She has extremely firmly-held but not always consistent views on what is and is not a "real sport", mostly I think secretly based on which of them she'd ever come across before moving over from Sweden.

Hockey ("Field Hockey") = not a real sport. Reason given: None, but I think it's to do with the lack of ice and the fact that the men all wear little shorts.
Cricket = not a real sport. Reason given: Anything requiring our nation to colonise other countries in order to have someone to play against is NOT a real sport.
Darts = not a real sport.  Reason given: Anything you can play whilst wearing gigantic gold chains and with gold bullion strapped to your fingers is not a real sport. I think she may have a point there...
Snooker = grudging acceptance that although not a real sport, it's strangely fascinating due to the mathematical knowledge required. That and Steve Davis' Prog T-shirts.


We're nearly at our destination now, and it's just as well; the car is deathly silent thanks to our extreme tiredness, brought about in most cases simply by having been awake since 3am but also by the fact that my lunch was not only extremely filling but also the most salty thing I've ever eaten in my entire life. I briefly contemplate leaping from the moving car and sticking my face down in the snow like a pig hunting for truffles, just to get a bit of moisture on my tongue, which has shriveled up like a sponge left out in the sun. But I don't.

Our destination is a rather posh retirement village, where Karin's grandfather lives by himself in a flat bigger than ours, making his own meals when he feels like it, diverting his landline to his mobile phone when he goes out for a walk, and serving a most excellent pot of Earl Grey tea (although I suspect this is for my benefit more than anything else.) He's 91 - although he acts about 45 and looks about 70, as well as suspiciously like the guy from the film "Up" (I've certainly never seen them in the same room at the same time.)

He's Karin's Farfar, which literally means "father father", in the brilliant way that the Swedes have of making their family words completely unambiguous. Never in Swedish does anyone get confused about your aunt or uncle or grandmother's exact relationship to you, which makes things a whole lot simpler. Hence when Karin's Faster ("father sister") Elisabeth introduces herself, there's no problem whatsoever figuring out who did what to whom - although later, when uncle Finnvid arrives, he just gets introduced by his name, so I don't get a chance to figure out if there's a word for "father sister husband", and, thank goodness, their dog just stays out of it completely.

Fa-ster-mans-hund? Oh, who cares, look at that sad face...

My heart sinks a little when a large plate of cakes is brought out to accompany the Earl Grey, but only because I imagine fitting anything else in my stomach will be somewhat akin to pushing the final piece of rubbish down in the bin - the one which finally makes it spill over the top and dribble slime all over your foot. (That's not just me, right?) Still, I have to give it a go, not least because these aren't just any old cakes, they're semlor - sweet, sugary buns cut open to resemble the Cookie Monster with a load of cream shoved down his throat, and a hidden dollop of almond paste in the middle. They're traditional in Scandinavia around Shrove Tuesday especially, which is...well, not for a few weeks, but still, nobody complains when Cadbury's Creme Eggs start coming out on Boxing Day so I'll let them off. I've just learned on Wikipedia that:

"Each Swede consumes on average five bakery-produced semlor each year, in addition to all those that are homemade."

I'd find this statistic slightly preposterous, if it weren't for the fact that I manage to eat 3 semlor before I head back to the UK on this 5-day trip alone. For today, though, while I drink as much Earl Grey as is humanly possible, and attempt to eat my one solitary cake without having a cardiac arrest, we chat about all sorts of things, including the time when Farfar went on business to the UK and nearly got thrown off a train in Eastbourne for not having a ticket.

Quite apart from everything else which astonishes me about this 91-year-old, his English is extremely impressive. People of his generation in Sweden don't generally speak English at all, unlike their younger compatriots, but he holds his own extremely well whilst managing to make both Helen and I feel part of the family. Swedes are extremely warm and welcoming like this – anyone who’s ever been on a school French exchange will be utterly bemused by the idea of arriving in a virtual stranger’s house and the whole family immediately switching their conversation into English just so that you could understand. You'd be lucky if they even acknowledged you were there, half the time.


It's a lovely afternoon, but we have another destination in the vague vicinity before we're allowed to conclude this insane day, so we bid everyone farewell and get back into the car. The next leg of the journey is a 50km car ride back North again, up past Malmö and beyond to a university town called Lund, in the heart of the Skåne region (Scania in English, like the lorries) - Wallander country for anyone who’s interested in such things. I can’t tell you a single thing about the car ride because I immediately fall asleep as soon as my backside hits the seat - so I’m therefore a bit dazed and confused as we climb out of the car again 45 minutes later and into the snow, but you can’t be tired for long at Carina and Stanley’s. Even the whisky I’m immediately given upon arrival perks me up more than anything.

Moster Carina (you've got the hang of these Swedish family words now, right?)  and, erm, Uncle Stanley are some of the most entertaining people you could hope to meet on your travels – it’s not every day you meet a middle-aged white Swedish lady with a broad Jamaican accent, for one thing. Stanley grew up in London and the West Indies but has been living here in Sweden since the 1970’s, so is a curious mixture of Swedish with a Jamaican temperament, as exemplified by his plans for their upcoming Caribbean holiday:

“Ohhh, we just take it nice and easy…”

The best thing about Stanley, though, is that he’s been everywhere and knows everybody. He gets talking to Helen about Deptford where she lives, and of course, “Ohhh, I’ve been all up around there…”, during his years working for the BBC. Karin and I tell him about our planned trip to Montreal in June and he says we should look up some acquaintances of theirs while we’re over there. In other people’s hands, such stories would sound fantastical and annoying, and yet you don’t doubt him for a second. He’s even friends with Sweden’s foremost rapper, Timbuktu (or his dad, anyway. But he's got the T-Man's mobile number.)

Carina, on the other hand, whilst being just as lovely, and sounding just as laid back thanks to the family Jamaican accent which even spreads as far as Annika on occasions, is rather less chilled in some respects – notably her concern for hers and other people’s health and safety. Hence when Helen complains about knee pain, she practically throws herself across the table to stop her from massaging the aching joint (apparently the worst thing one can do), and when I start coughing, as I’ve been trying not to do in her presence all day long, she immediately warns me, “Don’t you dare come anywhere near me!”, without a hint of a smile. She should also be on commission from various drug companies thanks to her constant endorsement of various wonder pills which seem to cure every ailment from colds to Lupus (although, if you’ve ever watched “House”, you’ll know that it’s never Lupus.) Last time’s miracle cure was Rinomar and today she extols the virtues of a pill called Treo, which apparently taken on a regular basis will cure anything that’s already wrong with you, prevent you from getting sick, and make you irresistible to goats (or something like that, the whisky and sleep deprivation make it hard to pay attention after a bit.)

Apparently we’ve not eaten enough yet today, so a huge spread is laid on for us – roast chicken pieces, salad, crusty bread and a salsa sauce with a distinctly Jamaican chili kick to it (oh, and more salt – they really do love their NaCl round these parts.) It’s all washed down with plenty of beer – or the type of 2.8% beer which is available from the supermarket anyway, the harder stuff being locked away in state run off-licences in Sweden and only available via a military operation which has even resulted in me being asked for ID on a previous trip.

"So, which button changes the channel again?"

As always, at Carina and Stanley’s place, time passes in a flash, as Stanley entertains us all with his stories before taking Helen and I upstairs to his study where he has a TV with Sky News, thanks to which we all have a good old laugh at the “snow chaos” gripping the UK. Meanwhile, Annika and Carina try to make sense of their new smart phones with limited success, and we finish up the evening with a photo session where Annika shows off photos of my family to our hosts, and the rest of us try to stave off imminent coma with whatever alcoholic beverages come to hand.

Apparently Helen is spared the photo session...

At around 22:30 we can take it no more, so we start the lengthy process of getting away, from the hallway to the staircase via numerous hugs and farewells, and thence into the car, where we have another 282 kilometres to go before we can even think about lying down on something soft. Actually, I would happily sleep on that broken carpet of ice under the Öresund bridge at this stage, I’m so tired (in case you’d forgotten, this is still the same day where we ate omelettes at Wagamama).

In the back of the car after an hour on the road, I’m really struggling. Not only am I more tired than the time I failed to sleep all the way from London to Canberra, but however much I beg Gustav in the front to turn down the heat, I feel like I’m slowly baking in a foil pocket. My cough is getting steadily worse, I’m desperate to both consume and expel liquids, and my legs start twitching. Eventually I wake everyone up and plead in my most whiney voice to be allowed to stop and get out for a bit at the nearest petrol station, which the others tolerate since they know me all too well and don’t honestly have too much choice.

Suitably watered and stretched, I shut up for long enough to allow us to get home without anyone having to bind my mouth with tape and/or throw me out of the passenger door, and we eventually arrive in Jönköping sometime after 1.30. I expect we remove our things from the car, make our way up from the underground parking to Annika’s apartment and whatever else one does when one gets home, but I have no idea.

All I consciously experience is the blissful, wonderful feeling of falling face down on an Ikea single folding bed and having it feel like the Presidential suite at the Sheraton. It’s 3:00 a.m in Sweden, and it’s been 23 hours since we got up. Time for a nap.

---
Next time: I fall off a snow racer (again), we check out the world's largest crispbread selection, and someone loses BADLY at Monopoly.

I Love Paris in the Springtime: France, March 2013

Today's trip starts with an argument, as do all the best trips, I find. Mostly it's with your partner, or your sister, or your annoying colleague, but today it's a lady at my local Bureau de Change, who tries to rip me off for 5 Euros. I won't name and shame, since I've just read an article in this morning's Metro about how bloggers might in future be held to account for potentially libelous things they say - which is a shame as it means my scandalous revelations about Piers Morgan might have to go unpublished.

Anyway, I've used this particular Bureau de Change many times before because it always has the best exchange rates for miles around, although it starts to dawn on me this morning that there might be a reason for this.

"Hello, I'd like some Euros please."

"Sure, how many would you like?"

"Um, about 60 Pounds' worth please?", I say, politely.

"Here you go, two pounds change and there's 60 Euros," she says, without appearing to do any kind of calculations.

"Um, can I have a receipt, please?" At this, she looks somewhat nervous.

"Oh, er, yeah sure. OH! I forgot this, haha!" She hands me my receipt along with an extremely crumpled 5 Euro note, laughing anxiously.

I stare back and forth between the money in my hand, the receipt, and her slightly red looking face.

"What's wrong? The exchange rate's rubbish at the moment, it's taking everyone by surprise...", she offers.

"Yeah, it'd be even worse if you'd not remembered that other 5 Euros, wouldn't it?", I say over my shoulder on the way out, making a quick and pointed exit. Or as quick and as pointed as is possible whilst dragging a wheelie suitcase which is too wide for the shop's door and feels like it's full of breezeblocks. Sadly, I can't help but feel that my moral victory is slightly diluted by my Mr. Bean-esque departure.

The resemblance has been pointed out once or twice.

Funnily enough, the same case is a bit of a bugger to lug up the steps at Surbiton station. And again at Vauxhall. And again at Kings' Cross St. Pancras. I've not really thought this through, have I? Suddenly that 13th pair of boxer shorts and selection of board games isn't looking so essential.

On the Victoria line, there's a lady with a dog, which causes much confusion in my mid-morning brain. Are dogs allowed on the tube? I don't ever recall seeing one. Surely guide dogs are allowed, but this doesn't look like a guide dog - it's just a cute fluffy black one (that's what it says on its pedigree certificate, I'm sure.) Added to which, the lady isn't blind, or deaf. Maybe it's a smelling dog, to warn her in case there's bacon frying somewhere nearby or someone's aftershave is a bit overpowering. Actually, judging by the amount of attention she's getting from the guys sitting all around, there's every chance he's some kind of dating dog - smart move, I reckon.

I'm on my way to catch the Eurostar from St. Pancras International, which a couple of years ago was the A-star student of London stations, but is now once again the also-ran, since its big brother Kings Cross had the refit to end all refits and is winning all the awards at Speech Day yet again. Actually, this entire square half-mile of London is completely unrecognisable from when I lived here in 1996, with the gleaming new stations staring each other out across the street: classic Victorian architecture snuggling up against temples of glass and steel, with overpriced cufflink shops aplenty. Even the local street hookers have put a bit of slap on.

I am in no way suggesting that anyone in this photo is a street hooker.

Arriving in the Eurostar zone at St. Pancras, I print my tickets and head through security. Or, rather "security". Funnily enough, my laptop, my Kindle and 2 bottles of water remain inside my luggage without any alarms going off, without anyone wiping my bags down with one of those odd wands with the white cloth wrapped round the end, and without the need for any disapproving looks or lectures. Apparently it doesn't matter if bombs go off on a train - either that, or airports worldwide are deliberately trying to piss us off.

Actually in many ways, the Eurostar is so much better than the plane- you get much more space, it's easier to get up and go for a wee, they don't tell you you can't read your Kindle while the train is leaving the station (my efforts to convince British Airways Cabin Crew that it's the same as a book are still ongoing...)

I've previously mentioned my predilection for faffing about getting my things together when getting into an aeroplane seat, but today's faff is the faff to end all faffs. First of all, my place is the very first seat inside the carriage, meaning I block the way of everyone while I'm retrieving things from my bag- putting the pressure on right from the word go. I move into the next seat along so that people can come through, but of course the next woman in the queue behind me wants to sit there. I therefore have no choice but to back up and get into my seat with the bag- managing, in my haste, to wedge it uncomfortably between the table and my gonads. Eventually I manage to arrange all my bits and bobs on the table (no, not those bits and bobs), but I'm not done yet - trying to close the bag up quickly, the zips both get stuck in that annoying cloth-under-zip kind of way. Clearly I'm not putting my bag up on the shelf wide open, so I wrestle with the zips for several minutes, becoming more and more red-faced and muttering profanities under my breath.

The woman opposite me gets out a book to try to avoid making eye contact, and what do you know, it's "A Spot of Bother" by Mark Haddon, which I've just finished reading the previous day. And apparently this can't go uncommented on.

 "I just finished reading that book yesterday!" I exclaim, slightly too excitedly for someone with a bright red face and a rucksack crushing their happy place.

She looks at me as if I'm a bit simple. "Well... don't tell me what happens!" , she says, immediately bringing the book up in front of her face to avoid any further attempts at invading her personal space. Less than a second after the train doors close and we start to pull out of the station, she leaps up and scampers off down the carriage, coming back 30 seconds later to pick up all her things and take them as far away from me as is humanly possible.

Happiness is an empty seat opposite.

If you've made it this far, you might be wondering where and why the heck I'm going. Well, to be honest, I'm pretty darn tired and stressed out. I worked an extra 150 hours at the end of last year and didn't get much of a Christmas break either. Yes, I think I can just about hear the world's smallest violin -thanks for your personal, heartfelt sympathy. Anyway, where the heck I am going is to visit my parents in the middle of the French countryside. And why the heck I'm going is that, if there's one thing you can be guaranteed of in a hamlet in rural France, it's relaxation. The most stressful thing which is likely to happen is that a sheep might escape from a field and start eating someone's dahlias. That or the septic tank will need emptying.

I'm also rather hoping to use my week in the back of beyond to continue writing up the copious notes I've made on my other recent travels. I've been jotting things down pretty much every time I leave the house for about a year now, but as of yet they remain a series of disjointed, iPhone auto-corrected thoughts rather than anything readable.

A few samples:

Ice Skating is like porn.
All clammed up for dinner.
Treble weiner = three will be enough?

I'm rather hoping that at the end of this week away, I'll have some things that other people might actually be able to read. Maybe even some they'd enjoy reading - and maybe even people who weren't actually with me on the trips (but let's not get ahead of ourselves.)


The other big advantage of the Eurostar over the plane is that you can look out of the window and see something other than clouds. Admittedly, to start with it's only the Dartford Bridge and the marshes of Essex, but still. I put my giant headphones on, stick on some Goldfrapp* and stare out of the window until there's nothing to stare at any more. By which I mean that we go into the Channel Tunnel, not that the world ceases to exist - although looking at Folkestone, you could be forgiven for getting confused.

(*I appreciate that by mentioning Goldfrapp, although I think I'll come across as being hip and down with the kids, it's been 13 years since their debut album and I therefore probably sound like Alan Partridge banging on about Steeleye Span.)

Listen to this, it'll blow your socks off.

Whilst I eat my "free" "lunch" (a bread roll, a slice of chicken and a few bits of salad, with other peripheral inedible crap), I eschew the grey, flat landscape of Pas-De-Calais, with its Transformers-style electricity pylons, in favour of watching a documentary about an East End Geezer sent to be a cabbie in Mumbai for a week. It's hilarious, upsetting and heart-warming in equal measures, and gives me various ideas about my India travel writing whilst making me feel guilty for not having done it yet.

"Robots in disguise... " a really bad disguise, actually. They look quite a lot like robots.

Gradually, the countryside gives way to cubic concrete Hotel Formule 1s, faux-Native American Buffalo Grills,  and double-deckered commuter trains, and we know that we're nearing the graffiti-riddled suburbs of North Paris- never the most welcoming sight on approaching the capital, but then since when has Paris wanted to welcome visitors? Well, actually, since I stopped living here (coincidence, I'm sure.) When I briefly moved here in 1998, you would still get a snooty look for not being a local in most parts of town, and the very idea that someone would recognise that you were English and start speaking to you in your own language was akin to getting them to admit that we aren't actually that bad at cooking. I've been back a few times in the last couple of years though, and in the very centre of town I often have a struggle to speak French at all, so keen are the people I meet to try out their newly acquired language skills.

As we pull into Gare Du Nord, the spires of Le Sacré-Cœur in Montmartre peek through between the HLMs (high-rise, low cost housing) and we get the first glimpse of anything cultural that we've seen all day. It turns out to nearly be the last, too.

Someone should tell Betty White over there that she's about to miss her stop.
Also - hello Eurostar, 1994 called and they want their cutting-edge interior design back. Cheers.

Hopping off the train and heading purposefully for the Métro, as I'd reluctantly done with my stingy colleague 6 years previously, I pass a chauffeur holding a sign for "King's Family" and wonder which particular monarchy are travelling en masse on today's train. As I go, I keep my ears out for my favourite sound of French travel, the "SNCF Tune". If you've never heard it, you won't have a clue what I'm talking about, but you won't have had to spend more than 90 seconds in a French railway station to have fallen in love with it. It basically goes "brrrrrring!" and then a lady sings 'duh, duh, duh-duh' - and it's perhaps the most French thing in the world. In fact, here it is for you - it's only 4 seconds long, I bet you end up listening to it at least twice.

Arriving at the entrance gate to the Orange Ligne 5, I struggle with a folded-in-half Carnet ticket I have left over from months ago, whilst to my left and right, youngsters jump over the barriers with impressive upper body strength. Some things never change, evidently, and Parisians' reluctance to pay for their transport is one of them. The other is that the platform will have at least one tramp sleeping on a bench and the whole station will smell of sewage to a greater or lesser degree. One thing which has changed since my last visit, however is the trains, having had a more recent makeover than the Eurostar - no more is extreme wrist action required to exit the train, as the doors now slide effortlessly open. And there are huge windows, which seem really rather pointless other than better viewing of miserable commuters waiting grimly for their trains - until the track leaves the above-ground Quai de la Rapée, ducks back under the street just to mess with our heads, and then heads up and over La Seine in semi-spectacular fashion.

Parisian Commuter dude looks really impressed.

Arriving at La Gare d'Austerlitz, the first thing I notice is that there are sparrows everywhere. I was under the impression that there was supposed to be a shortage, and humbly suggest to the RSPB that if we ever completely run out, there are plenty to spare, both here and at Bangalore Airport. In fact, one swoops down and lands on the counter at one of the many baguette and coffee stands - and then another, and then another. I've got 90 minutes to kill before my train, so I make the decision not to eat here, and instead head out of the front entrance of the station, away from the river and to the nearest McDonald's, or Le MacDo, as it's often known over here. I wouldn't normally, but it's close by, there don't appear to be any sparrows inside, and I ate here several times when I lived nearby and had to spend a lot of time waiting for trains. In fact, it's where my favourite McDonald's moment of all time occurred, when a crazy woman decided to have a go at me in the queue for no reason.

She'd been walking around trying to tell everyone about eternal suffering, when she suddenly saw me, stood in my way and pointed.

"And you! You, who thinks he can cure all the evils in the world..."

"I'm just trying to cure my hunger, to be honest. Is it ok if I buy my hamburger?"

She looked genuinely confused, grunted in an especially French way, and moved along to berate someone else for consorting with fallen women, or touching a pigeon on the Sabbath or something.

Anyway, no such incidents befall me today, and I manage to order my Royale Cheese (no "with", Quentin, no "with") and Sauce Pommes Frites in perfectly good French, without the server resorting to English like she does with the couple in front of me. Well, as much as you can order a "Menu Royale Cheese avec Coke Zero" in French, anyway. I manage to waste a good 15 minutes of my 90 Chez MacDo , but eventually even the free wifi outlives its excitement and I decide to go for a wander.

McDonald's have really been working on their outdoor spaces.

Luckily, right opposite McDonalds (as it says in all the best guide books), is Le Jardin des Plantes, Paris's main Botanical Gardens, founded in 1626 (as it says on Wikipedia.) It's a lovely garden to stroll through, or relax in on a summer's day, when all the plants aren't dead, and you're not dragging an enormous suitcase containing 13 pairs of pants. It also contains no fewer than 4 galleries of the French Natural History Museum, including, right at the corner by the station, the Paleontology gallery (aka the cool one with all the dinosaurs.) I briefly contemplate a flying visit- but of course, it's Tuesday, one of the various days that things in France are shut for NO BLOODY REASON. It used to be that museums in Paris were all shut on Mondays, however to make things easier for tourists, they've changed it so that every museum is now shut on the day you want to visit it instead.

Still, the 10 square metres between the gate and the gallery are an amusing juxtaposition of 21st Century Paris, plastic extinct animals and plants of varying origins - the Woolly Mammoth statue standing proud in front of McDonald's, the Stegosaurus trampling some tiny ferns, and a sabre-toothed pygmy hippo type thing hiding underneath a Monkey Puzzle tree. At least I can see the top of the Diplodocus through the window.

At this point, it starts to rain, so I give up trying to experience Paris and head back to the station, to spend an hour playing a game I like to call "failing to buy a drink". I stand in Caffe Ritazza for 5 minutes, give up waiting to be served, sit at one of their chairs outside, fail to be served again, give up, walk off and then stand in a succession of queues at various stalls where I wait for a few minutes at a time before getting bored and joining an even longer one. Eventually I end up back at the front of the first queue I'd tried, and just as the lady greets me with "Monsieur?", a sparrow lands on the counter top right next to me. I'm too tired for hygiene (or apparently consuming anything remotely French), so a tea and a brownie are finally procured and I head off to sit down on the Intercités train down to Chateauroux.

La Gare D'Austerlitz is kind of crappy, to be honest. That's why I've taken a crappy photo of it.

Onto the train, and apparently I'm not the only one having a faff day. The 50-something-year-old guy in the window seat next to mine is faffing so much he ends up telling me (nay, ordering me) to sit there instead - which I do, but then have to repeat the whole bag-in-groin rigmarole of earlier. It culminates in me having to lift my bag up into the overhead rack without leaving my seat, since he's single handedly restoring my faith in the rudeness of Parisians with his grunts and hand gestures and there's therefore no question of asking him to move once he's installed in his seat. Besides which, he's immediately fallen asleep, anyway. He may be the most French-looking person I've ever seen, actually; ruddy-cheeked from one too many afternoon apéritifs, wearing a multicoloured neck scarf over a navy cardigan and a red sweater, and balancing from the end of his nose a pair of small, wire-rimmed glasses which are attached to a string round his neck.

By dozing, he misses all the fun, as a very prim and proper looking lady across the aisle argues with a late-comer about her being in his seat, whereupon it turns out she's actually on the wrong train. After we've both given our opinions on the situation, I end up playing a game of footsie with the guy directly across the table from me (who is definitely the Moroccan Bob Hoskins), the result of which being that we agree to each keep our legs on the left, "like in England".

The late-comer, who ends up sitting diagonally opposite me, seems really nice, actually, and I'm not just saying that because he's listening to Genesis on his iPhone. Or maybe I am a little bit. I consider striking up a conversation and then I remember what happened with the whole book thing this morning, so I slump down in my chair, try not to attract the attention of Monsieur Grumpy next to me and get back to my book. We're like a happy little family now.

The train speeds away from Paris, passing yet more HLMs and graffiti and even a little Gypsy shanty town. We follow La Seine  down, way further South than most tourists ever dream of seeing, into the Essonne region and past banlieue towns like Athis Mons and Juvisy where the unremitting concrete starts to give way to smaller, stone-built houses. Soon we're whizzing all too quickly past the unremarkable town of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois: Site of France's first Hypermarché, and also of Lycée Albert Einstein, the site of my first (and, thank god, last) teaching job, stories of which could probably fill a whole book all by themselves.

Shortly after this, the guard comes down the train checking tickets. He's wearing a grey flat cap and scruffy red tie which make him look rather like a Victorian street urchin - a look which surprisingly doesn't go very well with his slightly gothic looking jet black dyed hair and stubble. He argues a bit with Madame "on the wrong train" before giving up and heading down to our table, poking my neighbour to wake him up, and receiving an earful (of grunts, and 'Bah's) for his trouble.

Yes, I actually took a picture of the guard arguing with the wrong-train woman.
Genesis guy can't believe it, either.

Engrossed in my book, nothing much of note happens for the remainder of the journey. I look up every so often to see wind turbines going nineteen to the dozen, flooded fields and eventually a very full river with trees half submerged in it. Apparently, Spring in France has been just as cheerful as in the UK. Every time I look up, Genesis guy has moved onto different superb music - first the Pet Shop Boys and then Radiohead. I am convinced he is my new best friend.

Eventually we start to get close to Chateauroux, my final destination for today, and I have to get up, so I say "Excusez-moi" to my neighbour as politely as I can muster -  he turns and stares at me with scarcely concealed disgust, gets up as slowly as possible, lets me out, and then sits back down with a noise of the type I last heard at Rotherhithe City Farm when their prize pig got to the end of its feeding trough.

There's just time to visit the bathroom for a quick freshen-up, something which is made all the easier by the decor, which fools me into thinking I'm on a Scuba dive in the tropics rather than in a scummy train toilet in the arse end of France. Thanks, SNCF.

Stepping off the train, I gratefully meet and greet my parents in the station foyer, and sink into the back of their Dacia Sandero (Top Gear's favourite car!) for the last hour of the journey, into the depths of the countryside and finally to the hamlet of freshly made Choux pastries, flying marquees and mummified cats.

But those are all stories for another day...


Next time: Part 3 of my Scandinavian adventure -honest. Look, I took a week off work just to finish it. Let's ignore the fact that I just wasted a day of it writing this...