|
andream
|
 |
« on: December 31, 2001, 05:30:56 pm » |
|
A few of the Board mods suggested I post this out here where you can all read it, it's the story at least installment one of my recent trip to Paris, which has my decidely warped slant applied to it... feel free to skip it and read something less bizzare....
Okay, it might have been funny if I hadn't waited so long for this trip, but imagine me, in the Ladies room at Gare Du Nord where the Eurostar comes in, locked in a stall in tears. That's what my first ten minutes in Paris was like and it pretty much went down hill from there...
So okay one of the things I did not do was check out how French money worked, shame on me. So okay, I shoulda gone before I got off the train, and Okay, maybe I should have studied just a little harder on my french brush ups (not that it would have helped much). I get off the train and find the ladies room, shocked to see that you have to pay to use the bathroom in France, (and I don't mean at just the stations, I mean pretty much everywhere). But 6 francs seemd a bit high to me, still though, nature was calling and I still had to navigate the station, find a cab, find the hotel and all that stuff. So I hand the attendant a 50 franc note. She gives me back coins. I don't check them, I think immediately she's ripping me off and say in as polite a manner as possible. Non Madame,"je' donne vouz Cinquant Franc" (I gave you 50 francs) and then I smile just a little not sure I've said the right thing, and I try very hard to look confused.
That's when the screaming began. First she screamed in French REALLY loud. Then she pulled my 50 franc note back out of the drawer, threw it at me and screamed some more.
Now, any of you who have met me, know that it really takes something to intimidate me....somehow being called bad names I could not understand did the trick. I was totally freaked and if not for the intervention of a little French college student who had gone in ahead of me, well l might have embarassed myself right then and there (lest we forget I DID have to use the bathroom). The woman continues to scream. So loudly that people are stopping to stare. The little college student smiles apologetically at me, manages to get the woman to accept six francs from her and literally pulls me into the bathroom past the turnstile, dragging forty pounds of suitcase, a coat, a hat, and a scarf.
The young lady points to an empty stall and says apolgetically, "she does not care you are a tourist, besides she's like that all the time, do not worry". Into the stall I go, dragging ..yep forty pounds of suitcase a hat a coat, and my damaged dignity. I cry, quietly, wondering what possessed me to come to a country where I do not have a full command of the language. Suddenly there's a tiny knock at the stall door.
Has the little college girl heard my muffled sobs and decided to lend a bit of support? :sniffle: "yes?" say I.
"Madame, it is me, the girl who help you" says she in halting english.
"oui?" Say I again, in my best French accent.
"Uh madame, you owe me six francs". :sigh: I hand out the six francs and cry a bit more thanking her thru the now closed again stall door.
A few minutes passes, I muster my courage and depart the stall, past the still grumbling bathroom lady and out into the huge and very busy Gare Du Nord, dragging the suitcase, the coat the hat and the scarf and digging out my Eurostar stuff so I can have the address of the hotel in hand for a cab diver.
Forty minutes later, I have a cab finally, He takes the coat, the hat, the scarf and tosses them into the backseat, then walked off to the drivers side, leaving me to heave the forty pound suitcase into the trunk of the car. I do not protest. He is my savior, and he is going to get me to where people speak english, where there is a bed and perhaps some food.
After arriving at the hotel, I am sent to a room. I am confused at the dark hallway, (no one told me that the light switches are just outside the elevators and you have to turn them on, since power in France is very expensive they keep the lights off).
anyhow, I manage to find the room, open the door to find it unmade. No sheets on the beds, trash everywhere. I sigh, and look for the phone. It's there alright, but no instructions on what I am to dial for the desk, I try "O". Nothing. I give up. I manage to lock the room, get back to the elevator in the dark hallway, still dragging the forty pound suitcase, the hat the coat, and the scarf.
Back into the tiny and I do mean TINY elevator. Back to the desk. The girl who speaks english is not there. Instead I am confronted with a man who does NOT speak english and is apparently the night crew. I try to explain. Somehow conversational french does not cover "My room is uncleaned". He doesn't get it. Finally, I manage to convey that I want him to come to the room with me. I motion that I want to leave the suitcase at the desk. He emphatically shakes his head no. So off we go back to the tiny elevator, now filled with large me, the forty pound suitcase, the hat the coat the scarf and a not too happy French guy. We get to the room, I open the door and he is horrified. Apologizing profusely in rapid fire french. Off we go back to the elevator, me the hat the coat, the scarf the forty pound suitcase and the now talking and smiling French guy. Okay maybe this won't be so bad. And wonder of wonders the english speaking girl has reappeared when we get to the desk. She too apologises. They assign me another room. Back I go to the tiny elevator, the suitcase, hat coat and other stuff still in tow. My shoulder hurts from dragging it. I finally get to the room, which is quite cute.
I toss the forty pound suitcase into a closet, the hat the coat and the scarf across a chair and set about securing my room. There is no chain lock, there is no deadbolt, there is no lock at all save the one on the doorknob, which the key does not fit. Okay it works from the outside, I try it. But try as I might I can not get it to work from the inside and acutally lock the door. I have no way of knowing if the door is locked from the inside of the room.
Finally, frustration wins out and I call the desk, at least this phone is marked, with funny little icons that don't seem to have an actual bearing on their intentions. Dialing 7 gets me the desk finally.
"Mademoiselle, I can not get the key to lock my door" say I.
"Oui, they do not fit from the inside"
"uh" say I "how do I lock the door si vous plait?"
"madame" says she. "when you close ze door, it IS locked"
"Uh " say I, now frighted of dark hallways and screaming people "Uh, how do I know that?"
"because it is Madame., Au revoir" click goes the phone.Oh dear lord, I am in France. Allright it's ten at night, I have not eaten, Im not sure Im locked in my room, but Im gonna leave the forty pound suitcase behind and brave the streets outside the hotel. Next door is a restaurant, an italian restaurant.
I enter, I ask them whether they speak english, the man says " Eh a little". I manage to order to go, which is no mean feat, since once again conversational French does not cover "I wanna take it with me" but I manage. While it's being cooked the man at the counter says to me repeatedly, apres onze heuers (after 11 O'clock) and something I dont get. I look puzzled to the clock, it's 10 pm or just about, what's he talking about After 11 OClock for? I manage to tell him over and over I do not understand. Finally he comes from behind the counter. He puts his hand on my thigh. Oh now I get it. He wants me to meet him after work. I think I choked on my tongue, and Im sure I looked like some offended school marm as I sputtered "oH non non non Monsuier!" grabbed my calzone and ran like hell. For the rest of the trip I avoided that restaurant. I could have been starving to death and I managed to NOT eat there again. :sigh: and that was my first two hours in Paris....and it got worse, oh much much worse.....More later.
|
