TGV

On the train from Biarritz to Paris after the three-day-wedding-marathon.
Exhausted, empty, hungry.
It is a new TGV (train grande vitesse), a high speed train.
The interior design changed recently, the colors and the shape of the seats.
To me they look like orange and violet shark tails now.

The effort of trying to be modern is too obvious and this color combination is so 1990s. Cleaner than before. Not French anymore. The old trains in grey and dark blue with these short and fat seats were the perfect representation of France. Now you think you are in Germany. Orange always makes me think of Germany, even more though combined with brown. This wild mixture of orange and magenta is so very German too.

At least the bistro didn’t change. There are still my favorite very French things (croque monsieur, parmentier) on the menu. The French love their bistro, lunchtime is holy, the line queued at 12.15 noon. Rather strange in a train for everybody else, not the French. Since yesterday I already knew what I wanted: Le Parmentier de canard. That’s what I always had when living in France. After 30 minutes and nearly starving it was my turn: But all that was left was a vanilla flavored yoghurt.