Customer service, à la française

This is actually kind of funny. My friend Beth (the one who lives in Barcelona) is coming to visit me this weekend. It's another bridge weekend, in more ways than one. But mostly because the 8th is a holiday, lots of people are taking off the 9th and then monday the 12th is also a holiday (la Pentecôte).

Anyway. Beth is flying into Charles de Gaulle airport, taking a shuttle to downtown Paris and then taking the TGV to Laval. The SNCF, the French train company, has a website where you can purchase your tickets. Yeah, right.

Of course the SNCF knows that tourism is huge in France. It's a major market. So their website's all international looking, you can choose the language and everything. Again, yeah, right.

Because what Beth and I discovered today is that when you go through their whole deal and chose your dates (which they make you do twice for no obvious reason) and times all is well. But then they ask you where you'll be picking up the tickets. Beth is flying in on friday so she'll be picking up the tickets at the train station in Paris.

And of course, when you say you're picking the tickets up in France, you suddenly become a French speaker and are therefore sent to the French section of the site. Where you are required to go through the whole date and time giving deal again (yes, again, twice).

Forme sans fond?