So maybe I'm not going to Madrid....

So last night at 6:18 I hopped on my train, which was completely packed with U of Nantes students going home for the weekend. We went one stop, and stayed at the station for what ended up being about two hours. After about 40 minutes, a conductor came through and said that there was a train going to Angers that people could hop on, and almost all of the students got off. I didn't catch his explanation, so after he'd walked through I asked the girl I was sitting with. Someone had either jumped onto the tracks or in front of our train, she wasn't sure which, so we had to wait for the police to come and take care of everything. Unfortunately I was trying to go to Blois to catch my train to Madrid, and the other train would stop at Angers. So, we waited. And waited, and waited, and waited. I got all of my homework done for Monday, read some from Deathly Hallows, and even got into my French Antilles book. After a little while another conductor came through and started asking if any of us had connecting trains. By this point, I had missed my second train, and we had only gone three stops. I gave the conductor my ticket, and she told me when I got to Blois they would put me in a hotel and I could take the first train in the morning. She moved on and I sat there thinking about it. That train left at 9:00 in the morning, and it is eleven hours to Madrid...which would put me there at 8:00 Saturday night, by which time everything I'd wanted to see would be closed, and I would have to find my hostel in the dark. I tried calling every phone my family owns, and, of course in true Peterson fashion nobody picked up, so I was on my own for the decision. When the conductor came back through I asked her what time the first train back to Nantes was. I decided to take that train (8:20) back to Nantes and to just try again another weekend for the Madrid thing. She told me to get off at the next stop, got off with me, took me to the station chief, and asked him to help me. She hopped back on the train and off they went, and away wandered my station chief. So I stood outside in the freezing cold for about half an hour, waiting for him because I'm sure he was busy, when one of his coworkers came by and asked me if he'd forgotten me. I told her that he might have, so she took me inside the station house (very cool, by the way) and helped me get everything organized. She told me when I got back to Nantes to take my ticket up to the window and they would reimburse me for my Blois-Madrid ticket, and then passed me off to the official head honcho. He called the neighboring hotel while two older train workers made jokes that I didn't understand, but they seemed friendly enough. Then said two workers walked me over to the hotel, explained the situation to the check-in guy, and left. He looked at me, and before I had even opened my mouth started speaking English. This really makes me angry, so of course I continued speaking in French. He first asked me if I was a tourist, I said no that I am here studying French and history and politics thank you very much. He gave me a room key, explained something about the key and the swipe card combination, and told me breakfast was at 7, on the house. I went upstairs and found that you use a regular key to unlock the door, but have to put the swipe-key thingy into a little pocket to get the lights to work. Those silly French and their lights. It was actually quite a nice hotel room, all things considered. Heated towel rack, bathtub, and tea by the coffeepot. I was happy. I relaxed for awhile, read some more Harry Potter, then crashed, hard.
Woke up this morning, showered and went downstairs for breakfast. It was traditionally French, so I had yogurt, a pain au chocolat, a boiled egg, some deli style meat and cheese, a pear, and tea. Ran back upstairs, grabbed my stuff, and went to the train station. The train ride back was quite uneventful, but I didn't mind. When I got back to Nantes I went to the ticket counter. They completely reimbursed both my outgoing and incoming tickets between Blois and Madrid, plus nobody every stamped my train pass. I did still have to pay for the hostel because it got cancelled less than 24 hours ahead of time, but that just means I basically paid $20 for a 7 hour tour of France by train. Haha. Came back home, explained everything to my host mom. She was FURIOUS!! Kept saying "ma pauvre", which basically translates to "you poor thing". I guess I don't really feel like it was a negative experience, though I can understand how people could see it that way. Right now I feel like it was just another adventure to put in the memory banks! Plus, there's some list I saw somewhere of things to do before you die, and one of the things on the list was to not know which city you wake up in...and I didn't!