Sometimes a simple mistake can change your life. That happened to one of my friends when we embarked on a four country adventure to Europe. We all had different motives for making this trip. For me it was to discover the different cultures of England, France, Switzerland and Italy. For one of my friends, it was the first time she had ever been out the U.S.A, and it was the trip of a lifetime.
But for my other friend, it was a trip to meet up with a romantic interest in Switzerland, the other countries were -- for her -- just a distraction till she would meet with her dream man. This was a young man she had met here in New York when he came for a family visit, and they dated until he went back, with a promise that they would get together in the future.
The way we had mapped it out, our first stop was London (of course), then it would be Paris, then Zurich, then Venice and finally---Rome. As you can imagine, with such an ambitious schedule---not everything would go according to plan.
We had a blast in London, but the place that had us in high anticipation mode was---naturally---Paris. I mean, we had read and heard so much about the City of Lights, all the sights, sounds, food and culture that Paris had to offer---that we couldn't wait to get there.
You can imagine then, how we went a bit overboard once we arrived in Paris. What with staying out late, every night, of the three nights we were spending there. So that when the fourth day came, and we had to take our next train from Paris to Zurich, we were like three zombies, and not thinking clearly, which led us to make a mistake that impacted my friend with the romantic interest.
Back when we took this trip, if you wanted to go to Zurich, you had to go to the Gare de l'Est, it wasn't the Gare Lyon, like it is now. If you are familiar with the train stations in Paris, the Gare de l'Est and the Gare du Nord are not that far from each other, so that if you aren't careful, you could go to one, when you meant to go to the other.
Now it just so happened that our hotel was situated between these two stations, and because of our lack of familiarity with Paris, we got very mixed up. In our itinerary we had written that we needed to go to the Gare de l'Est, to take the train to Zurich--but we had gotten into our hotel late, slept only four hours, and now -- semi-awake -- we were trying to find the Gare de l'Est.
So we just started walking and we saw this station and thought, wow! that was easy, now we just have to find our train. But as we wandered around, we couldn't find any signs that pointed to any train to Zurich. Finally we found someone who spoke English, and we asked where could we find the train to Zurich.
This man looks at us as if we were the three biggest idiots he's ever met, and says very coldly---certainly not here! you are in the Gare du Nord, that train leaves from the Gare de l'Est! This shocked us awake, what?! We are in the wrong station?! Oh man....that meant that we would have to run, if we hoped to catch the morning train to Zurich. Needless to say, by the time we got to the Gare de l'Est, we missed our morning train to Zurich and had to take the later train. Which meant that we would arrive by late afternoon.
This was important to my friend with the romantic interest. You see, she had agreed to meet up with him in the early afternoon at the hotel we were staying at. And from what the concierge told us, when we finally made it to our hotel in Zurich, rather late in the evening, a young man had shown up inquiring about my friend, and he waited there for about two hours, until he thought that perhaps she had changed her mind -- and left. My friend, when she heard this was inconsolable, and she could not get in touch with him because her mobile (from the U.S.) did not work in Europe.
This ruined the trip for her. From that point on, she was so upset -- that the remainder of the trip, in Zurich, Venice and Rome, she was not interested in anything, crying every night about her missed opportunity. As we were only spending three days in each place we went, she never had the chance to meet up with him again. And to this day, she still is sure, that had they met up she would be the happiest woman ever, not the resigned housewife with two kids, and a husband she doesn't love.
