Slow Train South

As I made my way on the night train from Berlin to Paris, overnighted in Paris, then set off to Madrid on a very long overnight bus ride, I couldn’t help drawing some comparisons. I was ridiculously loaded down, virtually at the limit of what I could humanly manage alone. I was dealing with one very huge and very bulky suitcase and another smaller but extremely heavy bag, in addition to my camera bag and a backpack for my laptop and various gadgets and accessories. In Berlin, of course, virtually every transit station has an elevator and multiple escalators. In France, I never saw anything more than an up-escalator, and that was only sometimes. But over and over I had men asking me, je t’aide? And that was a big mais oui! from someone who can testify that some 60 or 70 kilos is no fun the first time, much less the fourth time up or down stairs. My conclusion: Berlin has elevators because men would sooner watch a woman be crushed to death under the weight of her own bag than lift a finger to help; Paris, instead, has chivalry.

Interestingly, when I got to Spain (admittedly in the middle of morning rush hour), no men helped me. Indeed, I got a dirty look from one apparently peeved at the possibility I might have marked up the side of one of his shoes while struggling to yank my bags off the train. Instead it was a young woman who helped me up the metro stairs with my monster blue bag. Do real women rule in Madrid? Stay tuned…

Other quick impressions:

1) here is a photo of the condom vending machine I saw in the Paris metro.

2) the afternoon movie on the Paris-Madrid bus was Kinsey, totally dubbed (uggh, uggh, uggh, but I have to admit it was a useful quality check on my Spanish sexual vocabulary).

3) my apartment in Madrid has two bathrooms and two bidets!!

Conclusion no. 2: sex is alive in the south!