Today was a bad day. A very bad day. Poopy-diaper-esque in fact. A couple of mistakes ended up causing a total failure. Mistake #1: Waiting till two days or the day before to book hostels. Mistake #2: Not checking the train schedule before planning a spontaneous stop, say for example, in Bordeaux. Mistake #3: Sending one traveler to validate Eurail passes and make reservations for two. Mistake #4: Making all these mistakes on the day that your host is leaving the country. Mistake #5: Being retarted. Clearly, the first four mistakes have a lot to do with the fifth.

Basically, we waited until this morning to book hostels for both Bordeax and Madrid both of which were our next potential destinations. As a result we were completely locked out of affordable hostels in both cities for Shabbat. After finally agreeing to flip the bill for Bordeaux ($75.00 a night for 2 nights) we realized that the train from Paris to Bordeaux required a reservation because the Eurail Pass is not a guarantee of a seat on popular trains. Normally, we would both just go to the train station together to attempt the reservation. But because Ilya was leaving and had generously offered to let us stay in the room in his absence, we figured that one of us should go and verify if there was an available train and then call the other at Ilya's apartment to share the news after which the one at the apartment would book the room in Bordeaux and meet the other at the station. Foolproof, right? Unfortunately, not Panzer-and-Josh-doing-everything-at-the-last-minute-stupidity-proof.

I drew the short stick so I went to the station. I arrived in about 50 minutes, then waited on line for 10 minutes only to find out that I could not validate Josh's pass without him nor could I make a reservation for him for the last remaining train to Bordeaux. Obviously, I had to call him. After finding a telephone that took credit cards I got on the phone with an operator. The conversation went something like this:

Operator: *Reads back card information*

Me: Before you connect, what is the rate on the call?

Operator: Well sir, the first minute is going to be $11.50 and ev-

Yeah, that's when I hung up on her. Having no cash on me I waited on line at the ATM, got cash, bought a sandwich to break the bills and then found a phone that accepted coins. When I finally got on the phone with Josh, Ilya was itching to leave to catch his train. Josh arranged with Ilya for the key to be left with a neighbor while Josh came to meet me at the train station, something that should definitely have been thought of before I left. Of course by the time Josh made it to the station, the train was all booked up and we were boned. Despite our best, albeit lame, efforts we were locked into Shabbat in Paris.

Trying to make the best of it, we validated our Eurail passes and made reservations for the first train to Bordeaux on Sunday morning. After getting back to Ilya's building, some coordinated diplomatic discourse (a.k.a. lying) was required in order to get past the front desk. This type of negotiation being one of our shared fortes, Josh and I made it upstairs after a couple of minutes where the keys were waiting with Ilya's very chill neighbor.

Low on supplies, the prospect of making Shabbat at Ilya's was not appealing. Josh went to find a place to daven and to try and secure a place to eat. He returned a couple of hours saying that he had found an open Chabad (God save us all) and that they had arranged a place for him to eat but because they daven so late they were also trying to find him a place to stay. He has just informed me that he may or may not be back tonight and that if he is it will be very late. Sounds like a plan. Maybe.