20100424

2010.04.24 Sat

I visited my Kazakhstani friend at a near city. We were both joining IAESTE internship in Freising, Germany in 2008. I missed the train I had reserved, and paid an extra fare to take TGV.

I found four different points between Japanese and French trains:

1. Tickets are for certain trains. Departing stations, destinations, trains’ numbers are written on tickets. However, you can change it to other trains even after you missed the trains.

2. Trains are numbered, but the platforms of arrival are to be decided about 30 minutes before the arrival. We search for our train numbers on bulletin boards and find the platform number.

3. The distances between stations are longer; Trains don’t stop for 10 minutes.

4. Passengers leave their seats earlier; they wait standing for about 3 minutes.

The friend was in the first year of her master course. She was funded by a French company, for a condition that she will work for the company’s Kazakhstani factory for at least two years after finishing her master course in France. She works for the company now, already, for a few weeks per month. I am happy to see she was doing very well.

On the way back, I wondered about jobs a little, and thought it will be nice if I could earn money I need whenever and wherever I want.