Once back in France and Chambéry, I found myself in the midst of the first heatwave of the summer. French heatwaves are pretty brutal…because no one has air conditioning.
I spent the last of my rides going out to the park with the first lake I found on the way to Albertville and would go swimming to cool off.
This turned out to be a double edged sword for me. While the water was extremely refreshing, the hour long ride back to Chambéry was brutal in the 95-100 degree heat.
I noticed something else. The sunflower fields were drying up.
With the sunflowers wilting, I took it as a sign that my time in France was drawing to a close. Plus, I was approaching my 3 month tourist visa limit!
I went down to the train station and purchased my train ticket to Paris. The lady at the ticket desk told me that if I bought a senior citizen discount pass for 25 Euro, I could save 45 euro on my train fare. Deal! She told me that I would have to show my passport along with my ticket to the train conductor.
I got the bike all packed up and my backpack loaded with all my clothes and got a taxi ride to the train station. It was a Sunday and my flight left the next day from Paris Charles DeGaul (CDG) airport. First I took the commuter train from Chambéry to Lyon. From there I would take the Bullet Train to the Gare de Lyon Train station in Paris, then take the metro (subway) out to CDG and get a hotel near the airport. Simple enough, right?
On the train to Lyon, the conductor came by to collect tickets and I had my passport ready for inspection. He never looked at it so I laid it down on the table in front of me to show my ticket. It is a relatively short ride to Lyon and we got there without incident. I had about an hour to kill before the next train got to Lyon so I figured I’d get something to eat at the train station. That’s when I figured out that I LEFT MY PASSPORT ON THE TRAIN! And the train had already left the station. $#&* ! And you cannot board an international flight without a passport! $#&* !
I Sulked for a few minutes and then started to put together a plan on how to resolve this HUGE problem. The American Embassy in Paris. They would help!
The next morning, I got up at my airport hotel and headed for the Embassy. I followed the signs to the entrance for Visas and Passports and found it to be closed. What? How could this be? This was not part of the plan. Turns out, it was Labor day. Even though I was in France, American Embassy employees still observe American holidays.
The next morning, I again went down to the Embassy. Today, there was a huge line to get into the Visa and Passport entrance. Finally, I got to the gate and the guard asked for my passport. I explained that was the reason that I was here, because I had lost it and needed to get a replacement. He asked if iI had an appointment and said that I did not. He gave some information and said that I needed an appointment. Great. Another day lost. This was Tuesday and the first appoint available was on Thursday. I went back to my airport hotel and filled out the appointment paperwork and submitted to electronically to the embassy and got an appointment for 8:30 Thursday morning. Now I had nothing to do until Thursday so I took advantage of the free day to do some things I had never done in Paris before. I guess it you are struck somewhere, Paris isn’t too bad a place. I found a Monet museum that I hadn’t been to before so that was a nice start to the day.
Next was the Pierre and Marie Curie Museum. It was the actual lab where Marie Curie conducted her experiments on radiation (that eventually led to her demise).
The last thing I did was to explore the Latin Quarter. I had heard about it, but never had been there. It was a vibrate area with shops and restaurants and lots of people just hanging around. It looked like a place to explore further in the future.
Thursday morning, I was early to the Visa and Passport line. I got in right away. The first thing was to get photos taken in the little photo, self serve, kiosk. I eventually got it all figured out how to use it, then helped another woman who was also having some problems with it. Mostly, she did n to the exact change to operate the machine so I gave her some coins and got her going with the process.
Next, I had my appointment. That part went very smooth. They informed me that I would be issued a temporary passport, good for one year and I could pick it up after one o’clock that afternoon. Really? That was pretty fast after all. So, I had to pass a few hours, so I walked through the famous Jardin desTuileries. Next, I found a place for lunch. By then it was one o’clock so I went to pick up my brand new, temporary passport. It was ready as promised! And the lady who I helped was waiting for me so she could thank me again for helping her out with the photos and the rest of the process. She was going to Le Mans to see family. We wished each other Bon Voyage (Good travels).
I immediately got on the metro and headed for the airport where I knew I could have internet access to start looking for a flight home. I found an actually reasonably priced flight on Tahitian Airlines for the next day! 10 hours to Los Angeles, then a connecting flight to Seattle, and finally a shuttle ride back to Wenatchee. I had overstayed my visa by 5 days, but no one mentioned it as I went through all the checkpoints, etc. My seat on the Tahitian Airlines flight was in the next to last aisle on the plane, but they served free drinks for the entire flight. That could get interesting, but I controlled myself.
And finally, I was back, safe and sound in Wenatchee. An end to another nice trip.
POST SCRIPT: The staff at SNCF (French Rail) found my passport and mailed it too me in the USA. Of course it was null and void, but I had about 60 US dollars in it. That was nice of them to do that for me.