The internet is back, and so am I

On Monday I left our poor disconnected flat, our pirated church website that directed folk to a pornography site and went off to Paris for a Prêche la Parole conference. Somewhat modelled on the Proc Trust preaching workshops, it was to be held at the Baptist Church in Rue de Sèvres in the middle of Paris, just a short walk from the Gare Montparnasse and so on.

We now have our super-duper high speed train link from Bordeaux to Paris, but not yet to CENTRAL Paris, so I took the Ouigo TGV to Massy. It cost 32 euros and took two hours. 

Massy TGV station is intimidating.

To get to central Paris you have to buy a ticket from the machine and take a RER train. I say the machine because there were several lonely, quiet machines for tickets for the "grandes lignes" but only one for the local lines. Its as very popular. I queued for 30 minutes in order to buy my ticket.

Then about an hour of marvelling at the Paris suburbs brought me into Montparnasse and I walked the rest of the way.

The conference was generally useful, focusing on preaching Christ from the Old Testament, specifically from Daniel, and it was good to see friends old and new from all over francophone Europe and one from Africa. The main speaker was the splendid Vaughan Roberts, the Welsh pastor at St Ebbe's in Oxford.

I was hosted by a super couple in the north-west of Paris in their flat where they live with their four daughters. Navigating the Metro proved to be easier than I feared as they, too, lived about an hour away.

For my return journey I could buy a combined metro and train ticket very quickly so I was soon hustled off back to Massy to drink a rather expensive coffee (2,50€ for a café allongé!) in a splendid new brasserie before stretching out in my 10€ Ouigo back to Bordeaux.


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