Ok, the trip. Peppered with some French in that annoying way where the word is simply italicized to let you know it’s not English (in case you couldn’t tell…), without any explanation of what exactly it means.
The boyfriend and I (hereafter referred to as “we”) landed in Paris around 10am local time Friday (after hijacking a plane intended for San Diego when ours was put out of commission… problem with the emergency slide… maybe Steven Slater paid American a visit?), navigated our way out of the airport, onto the RER, onto one metro line, onto another metro line, and finally into daylight and our hotel. Thankfully the room was open, and following the excellent advice to not take a nap in order to conquer jet lag, we headed for coffee and a snack instead. We walked into a small brasserie, sat down, and to my horror the nice owner man spoke all kinds of French to us. Up to this point, I had assumed that my unparalleled French skills would just come back to me, and until a week before we left I hadn’t even thought to brush up. So here we are, in Paris, and I need to order us some coffee. And fries. And I sort of do, although it’s not very eloquent and I sound like a scared little pigeon. I have a little over two weeks to get back into the swing of things, right?
After our snack (wherein I remember how extraordinarily superior French coffee is), we waited at the hotel bar for our amis. Five of us finally arrived for the first leg of our Francesploration: 1 night in Paris, 4 nights in Nice, 3 nights in the Loire Valley, then back to Paris to meet the remainder of our group.
The main reason I pushed for a night in Paris was the memory of my first arrival in France: I was exhausted, my emotions were raw, and I barely had enough willpower to get myself together in English, much less try to navigate a foreign language and foreign operations. Something as simple as going to the store to get necessities like toilet paper, soap and pains au chocolat had been more than my weary mind could figure out. So I figured one night in Paris would give us time to get over jet lag, get oriented (since in my memory, all of Paris spoke English), and be able to enjoy the next leg of the trip. It worked out well for the most part: we were able to get some supplies at the City Carrefour, get a French phone for emergencies, stake out our townhouse where we’d be staying for the second week of the trip, and generally become human again after the 9-hour flight and the 30 hours of no sleep.
Our first order of business in Paris was to get our train tickets to Nice for the next day. This adventure became reminder numbers 2 and 3: how the French love their bureaucratic queues, and how they love announcing the vast futility of your simplest requests. After being directed to the third line in about half an hour, we went up to the ticket counter and asked the nice lady in purple for five tickets to Nice for the next day. In the morning preferably. (In French.) “Buh non,” she said, clacking decisively on her keyboard, “for tomorrow? It’s impossible. Non…” (presumably looking at one impossible option after another) “non… non.”
So here’s the thing about putting a French person in any kind of power: they love it. Especially if you’re a foreigner, I’d imagine. This is purely speculation, but I believe that the first lesson in any French training session for a service position is: Are your customers American? Tell them no. And I don’t really know why. All I know is that the word “impossible” (in French or English) is used way too often. Also I do not think it means what the French think it means. Because it never seems to be actually impossible. After our purple ticketmaster told us it was impossible to get on a train to Nice the following day, or anytime this weekend, we just kind of stood at the counter a bit longer. Resist the urge to walk away in a despondent anger. Just give it a minute. You can ask, “Vraiment?” And more often than not, what was impossible at first will become slightly more possible, as your friendly Frenchlady will say, “Hmmm, I guess I could put the five on you on the 5pm train to Nice tomorrow. Oui.” At this point I suspect you should shower her with the salty tears of your gratitude, exclaiming that never could you have imagined such a kind and generous person, right here in Paris, who would do her job and do what you asked of her. It’s not dissimilar to the way I had to handle certain Art Directors at the agency. I’d come up to him (let’s be honest, it was a boy) with a new job and ask, “Can you do this today?” His immediate reaction was, “Hell no!” often accompanied by a throwing down of the stylus, which heretofore being used to play a record-breaking game of Bejeweled. I’d just stand there a minute with the job jacket in my hand until he sighed, said, “Lemme look at it.” and took the thing from me afterall.
My attempt at an explanation is that the French service people only enjoy helping you after they’ve knocked the self-important wind out of you and brought you to your knees. How bold of you to assume you could come to the train ticket office and expect to get a ticket for a train. Do you think these trains operate just for you? To enable you to get from point A to point B? Do you think someone just laid these tracks from the place you are to the very place you want to go? Do you imagine in your egoism that there multiple trains a day, scheduled so you can pick out just when you want to leave and when you want to arrive? Typical Americans. Thinking that I work here in the service industry to serve you.
Aaaaaat any rate, we did get our tickets for just a reservation fee, thanks to our EURAIL PASSES (which seem to have a magic echo-y quality to them), and after a leisurely lunch in the Tuileries outside the Louvre, we settled on our 8-hour train ride to the south of France. We arrived in Nice on Saturday, the kind of town where rolling in at midnight hungry and thirsty is far from impossible. It’s pas de problème.
Travel tips summary:
- When planning the first day of your trip, take into account how long you will have been traveling. (Also please take into account that future-past-future tense I just used). If it’s going to be a doozy, and you have the luxury, build some time in to rejoin humanity. Your traveling partners will thank you.
- Remember that thing about knowing how you’ll get from place to place? Yeah, do that. In advance.
- Eurail passes are all-powerful. If you’re taking enough train trips. And train trips are the way to go. Just be good and follow directions.
- In the face of insurmountable obstacles named “Marie-Laure,” just give it a minute. A way through may present itself to the patient.
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