Memphis to St. Jean

Greetings to all of our eager subscribers and interested viewers, we are sorry to keep you on the edge of your seat for so long.  We did it.  We made it to Europe.  We arrived to Paris at 8:00 AM Paris time (1 AM CST).  Arriving to Paris was exciting, but it was nowhere near the end of our journey.  We had a total of around 26 hours of travel time, so once we arrived in Paris, we were about halfway. However, the Paris airport was especially welcoming to me as I was walking through the airport and saw a backpack with the Georgia G, and so naturally, I did what any decent human should do and hit them with a “Go dawgs.”  They, being decent dawg fans, hit me with a go dawgs back.  It was truly an internationally touching moment.  Anyhoo, below I have laid out in a detailed map of our 26 hour journey because I think that if I put it in a paragraph, everyone would be too confused to follow.  We used just about every type of transportation minus a boat and a spacecraft to get to St. Jean, France – the starting point of the Camino Frances. We wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Plane from Memphis, TN, to Newark, NJ

Thirty minute delay.  Had us worried, only slightly.  Then our hopes were quickly raised when we ran into a local movie star, Lillie Burrow.  United must have known she was a movie star because they upgraded her to first class.  As for Alex and Murray, we sat in coach.  We like to consider ourselves men of the people.

Plane from Newark, NJ, to Paris, France

Murray and I tirelessly tried to get a wink of sleep or to catch some Z’s flying around the plane.  Unfortunately, no winks were had, and the Z’s just flew too fast for us to catch them, as we gave up and conceded to watch He’s Just Not That Into You. (Highly recommended)

Train from Paris, France, to Bordeaux, France

 It was good.  Fell fast asleep.  Woke up to the train stopped in a tunnel with all the lights out.  Didn’t think that was a normal occurrence for trains.  It wasn’t.  Nonetheless, the captain had us going and we made it to Bordeaux. And aside from a minor shampoo explosion in Murray’s pack, which was expected, the rest of the train ride was smooth sailing. 

Pictured below is the shamplosion.

Train from Bordeaux, France to Bayonne, France

The Bordeaux train station is ridiculous.  I got a McDouble, fries, and a coke for 9 Euros.  That’s essentially 11 bucks.  For Mcdonald’s.  They were the only food source in the train station.  Looks to me like they’re taking advantage of the monopolistic microeconomic principles.

Bus from Bayonne, France to St. Jean, France

Bus ride went very smoothly. We had great views going through the mountains, and we got to chat with our new Camino friend Ben.

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