Jessica Rowan

November 2, 2005

So, one of my most recent entries was a little white lie. I did tell the truth about traveling around France up until I got to Paris. From Paris, I took an Air France 777 plane to a wonderful airport, JFK in Brooklyn, NY. But, I’m skipping ahead a little.

So, Tuesday of last week, I think it was the 25th, I started my journey that would end up being about 9000 miles long and take me a week and a half. Not many people knew where my journey would take me. I really wanted to keep it a secret, and it was a really hard secret to keep.

I started my trip from Valence to Lyon on Tuesday morning. At Lyon, I walked around for about an hour with my suitcase and my heavy backpack while I had lunch and looked for the doctor’s office that I was supposed to visit. After walking completely around the train station (instead of walking out the back door), I found myself in a ghetto part of town with strange people everywhere and starting to realize how lucky I was that it was broad daylight with a lot of construction and road workers around. I got to the doctor’s office with ten minutes to spare. The reception was friendly and I waited about 15 minutes before I saw the doctor. I was surprised at how easy it was to see the doctor. No waiting forever, no receptionist on the phone, it was really relieving. I ran into a few English assistants in the waiting room. We all had our lives (suitcases and backpacks) with us so we started talking about travel plans. When my name was called, I went with the nurse and she asked a series of questions like, “Is there a history of diabetes in your family? Are you pregnant? Do you feel ill at the moment?” After that she checked my eyes, height, weight and blood pressure and told me to sit in the waiting room until I was called for my chest x-ray. A few minutes later I was called in for my chest x-ray, went back to the waiting room and finally the doctor called me in her office. She said that I have good health and she wished me the best in France. I went back out to the secretary who stamped my paperwork and I was on my way for the rest of my trip.

France has a wonderful train system that can take you anywhere. I did my entire trip on train. I never had one problem. From Lyon, I took a train to Beaune, a very quaint town with a lot of wine. By the time I got to Beaune, the sun was about to set and the street lamps where just turning on. It was pretty. Beaune is a very old town and the streets are very confusing. I ended up getting lost in this town a few times. I started to panic when I could only find a main road and no signs what so ever to find a train station. I was truly lucky in the end; my train was running 15 minutes late.