Landed at Charles de Gaul airport in Paris. But no time for taking in the sights. We followed a few soldiers with machine guns toward the train station and caught the train into the city. High security but you feel safe and people are friendly. Not sure why the french are labelled rude. Because everyone we met, were friendly and wanted to help.

I tried to return the favour when we found the train as several people walked up to the door and asked if this train went to gare de Norde. Having just learnt as much french as I possibly could from the plane to the train, I guided them onto the train saying Oui Oui …… and to which I received Merci or thanks from the yanks.

So as the train pulled out and gathered speed, I sat there nervously wondering if we were in fact heading in the right direction. I had based my pick on one word in french that I read on trip advisor, so surely I could not be wrong. But now I had extra responsibilities, a few senior French and American tourists and the assurances I gave Kylie as we jumped quickly onto the train. But all was good.

Now the next train station experience was not so much fun as some of the stations are not equipped for tourists with too many suitcases. I guess that is why trip advisor comments suggest not to do it and pay extra for a taxi. But hey …… we are here to experience it all and get up close with the locals. Although now my recently learnt french started to fail me …. Again people were helpful …… but I think they were trying to help us get on a subway train instead of finding the exit to walk to the regional train station.

But after a few trips up and down stairs, an attempt to exit using a security guard intercom (he was not interested in my – Désolé, je ne par le pas français – pleasantries) then some carefully planned back tracking (yes more stairs), we finally escaped and made our way to the Reims train departure station.

As my meerkat friend always says ….. Simples !! Kylie was not saying Oui Oui though and wasn’t really interested in my explanation of it being the fault of the helpful young dude trying to direct me to a metro train.

Luckily the suitcase carrying had worn her out though and she was just happy to be heading to Reims. And so was I. With my grasp of french …. there was a remote chance I could have boarded us on a train heading to Russia.