Tuesday, July 15, 1980
Had a "wonderful"
time trying to sleep sitting up. Lots of comings and goings, loudspeaker announcements, and rumbling trains. A lot of people sacked out in their sleeping bags on the
floor, including one tall guy who pumped up his air mattress with a pump that
sounded like it had a lot of "gas." One smelly fat guy sat between
Kathy and Terry, and took up half of each of their seats. One guy sitting next
to me wanted to know the time we leave, if it was possible to stand to let him sleep
(?), and where do we start from (?). He also tried to let his head lie on my
shoulder. At just before 04:47 we got on our train headed for La Tour du Carol, and
interrupted a single sleeping fellow. Three other guys joined us and we all zonked
out. At about 08:00 we awoke to enjoy some of the Pyrenees
mountain scenery. We noted our station of l’Hospitalet at about 08:45 and
quickly jumped off the train. We joined the crowd waiting to board a bus. Soon
we were winding our way up to Andorra.
The conductor asked where we were going and issued us tickets for Andorra as
requested.
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| Bus ticket for Andorra |
We later discovered that the country of Andorra
was not the final stop, but that its capital city of Andorre was! So we sat back and enjoyed the 1-1/2
hour bus ride, seeing cows, horses, and sheep wandering on the mountainsides and
sometimes onto the roads. There was a border with customs signs, but no sign of any officials as we drove right through. In the major city of Andorre we bought and mailed postcards, exchanged money (into Spanish pesetas), bought groceries, and window shopped in the very international shops. It was like a whole town of duty-free shops.
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| View in Andorre |
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| Andorre |
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| Postcard of Andorra |
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| Andorra countryside (TAT) |
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| Andorra countryside (TAT) |
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| Andorra countryside |
We
had a tourist menu lunch for about $5-6 each. We shared our first courses
of hors d’oeuvres, croquettes, and a soup. For the second course I had a pork chop
with French fries, Kathy had sausage with beans, and Terry had a beef stew. Desserts
included watermelon, ice cream, and I ordered crème catalana: custard baked with
brown sugar (caramel?). We bought some more groceries including a kilo bar of
chocolate, looked at tattings with swans, and snacked on cherries while waiting
for the 15:45 bus back to l’Hospitalet. Kathy didn't have any problems with the sidewalks
tripping her, instead she daydreamed while wandering up a side street and suddenly awoke to see a
Citroen zooming straight at her. She was off the street in a split second.
The
bus left about 15 minutes late and got caught in a terrific traffic jam. It
took twice as much time to go back to the train station. We also ran into a
terrific fog, so I wasn't able to take any pictures of the cows and horses
roaming the mountainsides. We did see a herd of horses galloping down our road.
We took the seat that folded over the rear door stairwell. Terry lost a
dangling sandal down the stairwell, and it couldn't be reached by hand. Kathy
volunteered to climb bodily in to retrieve it, and when she came out with the
sandal, she was covered with dust. At the train station we learned only one
more train was passing through that evening, so we were forced to head back
towards Paris rather than to go to Spain. While
waiting for the 19:32 train, four
(Scandinavian) boys were "acting" American, and an English lady told
us of buying a home in Andorra and having a son-in-law
work for Century-Fox who produced "The Human Factor." It started
pouring rain with lightning as we boarded the train. We had dinner of pork pate
(liverwurst) sandwiches.
Next: Vallée de la Loire/Loire Valley.
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