The Train I Take.

As I am often in Montpellier, meaning every weekend, I am often on the train. I've mentioned said train in past posts, but I feel I need to pay special attention to this part of my weekly life. As many of you probably know, Europe, France especially, is known for its train travel. There are high speed trains (TGV), overnight trains(iDTGV) and the normal trains (TER, Corrail, etc). Since I live in the middle of no where in the mountains, there are no wonderful TGVs, only the TER, this is why it takes me over four hours to and from Montpellier. As if four hours on a train isn't bad enough, it does, in fact, get worse.

Since Lozere is so isolated, many students board at their school, like mine in Marvejols. This means that every weekend, these students go home and since we're all in the Montpellier academie, all these students come from Montpellier up to Lozere. This "trajet," (I can't think of the word in English) is a straight shot from Montpellier to St. Chely d'Apcher, the third biggest "city" in Lozere, population 4,000? Now imagine: me and about 200 middle and high schoolers packed on a little, low speed train for four hours. C'est la guerre.

My afternoon down to Montpellier is spent attempting to drown out screaming, swearing, music and movies. All the kids set up their computers and watch movies, blasting the sounds but then those who want to listen to music have to compete with the sound, so they blast their music (as no one has headphones? This is still unclear to me.) And then, heaven forbid, a boy touches a girls head as he walks by her, she will SCREAM at the top of her lungs and scream some French obsenity. Then she will run after him and tackle him in the aisle and they will both scream. This happens every... 10 minutes. Meanwhile, food is being thrown, things are being broken and we're only 2 hours into the trip.

So the train ride down to Montpellier is bad enough, but when I get to the city, I'm with my friends and it's my weekend, so I'm happy! On the way back to Marvejols? Totally different story. It's like my ride south, times 100. The kids are even rowdier, I'm even more tired and things get much crazier. Apparently, this train that goes from Montpellier to St Chely on Sundays is notorious and no train controller will take that working shift. I was unaware of this. So, half way through the train ride, apparently all the of train staff gets off in the city of Millau and leaves the train unmanned until St Chely, about two hours. The mayhem that insues, dear lord. Kids are smoking cigarettes in every train car, other kids are smoking... other things. Kids are drinking and wrestling. Here I am. The 22 year old American assistant among crazy teenagers. Have I mentioned a lot of my kids take this train? This makes things extra awkward. By the time I reach Marvejols at 10:30 pm on Sunday, I am so drained and frustrated simply from the train, but then I have a 30 minute walk home.

All in all, I hate the train.