Off to Lille

So Livia’s mom woke me up real early today so she could drop me off at the RER station on her way to work. Said and done (“Dicho y hecho”)…


*Okay I have to make a good parenthesis here, I was taking to Livia yesterday about how funny it is to literally translate expressions from one language to another. For example, in France, when someone tells a real story buts spices it up to make it more entertaining/shocking, what I would understand as a bullshit covered fact, they say he or she just told a “crunchy” story… hahaha!! I’m gonna start using it, it sounds more classy and yesterday I went to Versailles so I’m still feeling like a lady, not.
Okaaaay so, said and done, I was at the RER station super early, then transferred to the TGV line that would take me to Lille. While waiting for my platform to be announced, something quite interesting happened to me. This guy from Canaduh started talking to me and asked me where I was from blablabla…



After asking each other the entire generic traveler repertoire: Where are you from? Where are you going? Oh, that’s so cool… What do you recommend to do if I go here? Yeah man, that place is great isn’t it! You get the point. He told me he had wanted to go someplace green cause he had been in the desert for four months.


A very naïve me said: Oh, that’s so cool, where were you?!... Afghanistan.


Eeek. He was really nice and told about it, he was cool about talking but I didn’t ask anything, just let him say whatever he wanted to share. Basically, he said it SUCKED. He also said he had sailed around the world, almost everywhere except Chile-Argentina because gfdgddtgtgh (he talked really fast and I couldn’t figure out what he said, my English is not as sharp here). He said he had been to Haiti before the earthquake and showed me pictures. He told me in Colon in Panama you can’t get off the boat because you’ll be robbed 10 seconds after you set foot in land (Que reputacion la de nuestros vecinos!) or you’ll get beaten up by a pack of 11 year olds like it happened to his friends… Haha.


He also showed me pictures from Fleet Week, which is done every year in New York and its just a week where they have some Gala activities and they have to wear their formal all-white uniform. We both laughed and I said “Sweeeet!” then he replied “Not sweet! I was so nervous cause people would just stop me and ask me to take a picture with their girlfriends and shit”.


I also saw from pictures from Kabul, and damn, he told me he has to do some sort of area patrol because they (the ‘others’) put bombs in rocks next to the street and blow them up when cars go by. He’s seen cars explode, and bullets go through his car window. I bet, no, I am SURE he thinks this war is ridiculous just like everyone else does. He just looked so fed up with the whole thing, well, who wouldn’t be.


FYI this happened in approximately 20 minutes so the guy was pretty chatty. He told me he’s used to being with 6 other guys, who are like his family and they go through all that hell together… so it was weird for him to be traveling all around by himself now. He’s on a break now but I think he said he would go back to Afghanistan on Sept. 1st, I hope I understood wrong and he can go back to Niagara Falls where he’s from.
When my platform was finally announced I got my stuff and said bye, he told me if I go to Belgium while in Lille I should shoot him an email and handed me a little paper:



The Train Station Guy
ewart.andrew@***.com