Well luckily, when I woke up, Mom and Dad were already awake and ready – good because Dad can take a while in the morning. 2 down 3 to go. Anthony got up at same time as me, so 3 down, 2 to go. Breakfast was I think just leftover Brioche, or whatnot from the day before. I don’t have any photos of new pastries so no one went to the patisserie that morning (note – even though we were surrounded by patisseries, only 1 opened before 9am, so that was our go-to for breakfast. And really, it was my favorite in Paris for croissants, so worked out well).
Finally, Lauren and Joey got up. The rest of us were waiting in the living room, and I wanted to make sure they knew the time, so I shouted out 10 minutes. Of course, Lauren immediately snapped at me and got all pissy… whatever.
Anyways, we left less than 10 minutes late, so were at metro station at 8:17. In order to get to Versailles via public transport, you take the RER (train). So first we had to take a metro from our area to a station which connected with the RER. We considered taking an Uber, but no vans were available. Also, it would have been about 70 euro, while metro+train was around 7 euro each (and I already had the metro pass). In retrospect, it probably would have been a good idea just to call 2 separate Ubers, and I would probably recommend that route for other visitors.
So, everything went well getting to the RER station. And then we get there, check the next train, and “delayed”. One after that is “cancelled”. Then I realize … oh no, today is a strike day. (For people who weren’t following the news this summer, there was a train strike in France from April to June. Trains were running, just reduced by up to 85% some days (the Paris metro wasn’t impacted, just the SCNF trains, including some RER lines)! But, the way strikes go is they announce the strike days in advance, so it goes 2 days of strike, 3 days normal, 2 days strike, 3 days normal, etc. We were originally supposed to take the train from Paris to the Loire Valley but it was a strike day, so we ended up getting the rental car from Paris instead. But I guess I didn’t think to check more days when we could possibly be taking the train.)
I think I vaguely knew there was a strike that day, but forgot. The next train finally got there around 8:56, so I was already anxious since it was at least a 30 minute train ride, so we were going to miss opening. And, well, saying it was packed is an understatement. Literally everyone was packed like sardines. Mom and Dad tried to say, I don’t think we’ll make it on. I said, we have to, next train isn’t for 90 minutes and will be the same. So, we pushed on. Like literally, had to squeeze into every available space! It was not fun.