the only place to go was up

well, we're pretty sure we hit rock bottom yesterday (Tuesday). As Joe quoted, "These are the times that try men's souls."

Perhaps a little overdramatic, but it was a long day. We woke up at 7 to catch an early train from St. Jean-de-Luz to Bordeaux. It was pouring and still dark out as we struggled to find our way to the train station. St. Jean-de-Luz is hard enough to navgiate in broad daylight. The plan was to catch the TGV (tres grand vite = very a lot of speed/really really fast) train to Lyon via Montpellier, as described in our Eurail timetable.

So the train to Bordeaux was fine, 0815-1025 or so. When we got to Bordeaux, we saw signs for a train leaving at 1037 for Lyon. We figured this was the way to go. We wouldn't have to change trains and we could leave ASAP. This train, however, was part of the Tres Grand Lignes (very big lines) group that also should be called Tres Grand Lent = very a lot of slowness. And stopping. For 15 minutes at a time. We arrived in Lyon, roughly on time, at 7:15 pm. 1909. So we had been on a train for almost 11 hours. With only an overpriced sandwich each. Probably a mistake on my part. Whoops. On the bright side, I wrote a ton on the train.

To improve things even more, it was pouring in Lyon too. And we could not get the overnight train reservation we wanted to Milan for Friday night because of some holiday that apparently involves all of Lyon mass migrating to Milano. Who knew? So now we're leaving Lyon at 6 am Saturday. SIX! ugh. So we took a taxi to a hotel listed in Rick Steves' guide, which we've come to trust on the places it actually covers. We got dropped off in the rain only to discover that the place didn't have a room. No problem, right? There's plenty of deux-etoiles (two-star) hotels in Lyon. We probably tried 5-10 of them without success. Wtf is going on in Lyon? We finally sought refuge at an overpriced three-star place with one room available. The room? The uber-suite (my words, not theirs) fit for six people. 150 euro.

So we capped off the crappy day by eating at Le McDo and watching bad TV. The channel carrying the Manchester United-Lille match, which is carried in the US!, cut out at 9 pm, so I watched it through fuzz. Things could only get better.

And they did, today. Joe called around and found a hotel on the second try that was like a 2-minute walk from our other hotel. It has three stars for the price of two AND free internet. Please insert a Jenny Rees "hot" now.

However, I went online to get tickets for the game tonight and couldn't get any. Not a good start. But we set out to check out the local Musee de la Resistance, quoting the South Park movie gleefully all the way. And the museum was actually a disappointment. Maybe we've seen too many museums or too much WWII stuff or something, but the whole thing seemed to make the point that the Vichy government was bad. Well, no shit.

So we decided to head down to the stadium and try to get tickets in person. Now this is a UEFA Champions' League match, which is a tournament that involves the best teams (up to four from the best countries) from all of Europe. Olympique Lyon, four-time defending French champions, play Olympiacos Piraeus (umpteen-time Greek champions) tonight. I've watched the Champions' League on ESPN2 for years. The 1999 championship is what got me really into soccer. And I've only seen qualifying matches in person. So I have been stoked for this for a long time. So we took the Lyon Metro (cleaner than Paris, btw) to Stade de Gerland and headed toward the ticket office. We met a scalper on the way, but our French (they really don't teach you how to ask about the availability of legitimate and scalped tickets in French class, do they?) and his English did not get very far. However, he made it clear they were still selling tickets, just for a higher price than he was offering. We took the real tickets without problem and thus will be in attendance tonight. I'm psyched.

And that catches you up pretty much completely. Florence and Milan next week, then we may fly to Portugal, go to Madrid, then back to Paris to fly to Dublin for almost a week, then home.