Fragment #7 - Travelling Man

The train ride was remarkably smooth; nothing like the rocking-horse tracks of the American freight railroads. Amtrack’s Acela Express comes closest to this ride, but it still seems rough by comparison. Then again, being as much of a train buff as I am, any train ride is fun.

Still, I was worried how Antoinette would handle the ride out of Paris and she managed to completely surprise me. She started out the ride telling our benefactor about herself; where she was born and why she was going back. But even before we cleared Paris’ outskirts, she had him telling her all about himself. I essentially fell asleep with boredom, but Antoinette kept him talking for almost the entire trip.

Monte Carlo is something else! I’ve never seen a city on a mountainside as this is. I can hardly believe that cars can even drive through the city, much less a Formula 1 and other auto races held here every year. I took the time to tour the city by foot, taking pictures of almost everything I saw. The harbor is beautiful, with its blue waters and huge yachts. What I didn’t know, though, is that one street is named after the United States itself while another is named after President Kennedy. Wow! He must have really made an impression during his lifetime.

Antoinette loves that we’re back on the Mediterranean. She says it smells so much like home. She really wants to go back and see if the house she grew up in has been built yet and find out who’s living in it now. Strange, really. She’s hoping that one of her great-grandparents is living there. In her own world the house had been in the family for generations, always going to the eldest son or daughter when it was time to pass the keys. Since she’s a fictional character, I really doubt that a Duval family lives there, but she still wants to know.

Now all we have to do is figure out how to get to Frejus from here.