24 June 2008

I'm not jetlagged anymore

I've been home for twenty days, and I find myself sleeping in. Uh-oh. Ok, so maybe 9 am isn't sleeping in for most people, but for me it is. It makes me feel like such a slacker! Last week I housesat for some of my favorite people in the world. At first it was really strange, sleeping in my friend's room without her there. I even dreamed that the parents had asked more people than just me to watch the house, so all during the first night I had woke up thinking that I had heard someone open the door. After that, though, it was a fantastic way to roll back into my old life.

I had a lot of time to myself, most of which I spent trying to upload photos to Facebook. I mostly succeeded, and now all of my good (well, I mean, you know) photos of France are there. I still haven't finished Berlin, Prague, Dublin, or London. Silly Facebook sometimes just decides that I'm not allowed to create any more photo albums.

I haven't even been home a month and already France is beginning to fade in my head. I remember everything, don't get me wrong, but I also nearly feel like I was never even there. I've even asked myself a couple of times why I was so shy (pride) to speak when I first arrived there. This morning I went to buy some new running shoes, and just as I was walking to a bench to be helped my mom made a passing comment about how my old shoes made it far, but only as far as the other side of the world. Of course this ended in me explaining to the guy helping me that I had been in France. He asked the second of the only two questions people ask me when they find that out, "So are you fluent now?" (The other is, "So how was France?")

I shrugged. "I can get by. Maybe in conversations about philosophy and politics I'll lag behind a little, but I can handle myself pretty well."
"Cool." He sounded really amazed, and it made me think of how very few people in the States actually learn languages except to fulfill college requirements. I personally believe that every college student in America should spend at least a semester abroad, if not an entire year.

You know all the cliched reasons: it looks good on a transcript, you learn a lot about yourself, you made lasting friendships...blah, blah, blah. Transcripts don't matter very much when you've been in the working world fifteen years and you still don't understand why that dumb secretary can't ever remember to put certain files in a single drawer. And you change. You could learn a lot about yourself, even more, by climbing a tree in a field and journaling every day. Oh, and those lasting friendships? I can count on a single hand how many of my friends from the program will be talking with me longer than this summer.

Going abroad made me realise how small I am, and how no one, not the French, not the Americans, ever really listens to one another. So much talking and no listening. We lie too, about understanding things said to us. Something about not wanting to make the moment awkward by making the person repeat what they had just said. But why not make it awkward? Why not make some people uncomfortable? Isn't that what we're here for? To learn and teach? Grow into the people God created us to be?

I think that of all the things I wish I had done differently, I wish I had tried harder. I wish I had been able to better connect with Elisabeth, even though our personalities were so incredibly different. I wish that I had reached out more to the French monitors working with our group. I wish I had requested to be in the advanced level classes.

You can see that I have a lot of wishes, but I've also realised that I don't really see them as regrets. Regrets have sadness and a lack of satisfaction, I believe. I'm not sad. I did what I went to do. I learned that speaking out may take courage, but whether you get the response you wanted or not, you have to do it, otherwise you'll never get any response at all. Asking questions will always be hard for me, in English and in French, but now at least I know that in English, I can backpeddle just as fast as the best reporter in the world.

No worries, no fears, no more waiting for someone else to be amazing before me.

17 June 2008

Beginning to look back

I don't even know if anyone is still reading this, since I'm home, and what could possibly be interesting about being back in the States? I've typed out so many stories, so many experiences. I look at the number of blog posts I created and wonder what in the world I actually wrote about.

I've been home 12 days. That's almost two weeks which feel like more than a month. All my friends are busy or somewhere else, so I've been spending my time in and out of boredom. I told myself that I was going to do some writing (finish an illustrated children's book, for one) and some art (chandeliers as usual, and maybe a collage). As of yet, I've read through the first three *chronological* Narnia books, and have watched a small mountain of movies.

So that's the summation of my life, though I'm sure I've made it sound much more pathetic than it really is. I'm fine with being home...but that's just it. I'm only fine with it. Like any person remembering something, I can remember all the amazing times I had in Rennes. Such as all the times when my host parents actually had complete conversations with me, without those miniature silences where everyone just sits staring at the TV. Nearly awkward, but not quite.

Things I am glad of:
1. If I'm not really hungry, I don't have to eat. I don't have to explain why I'm not hungry, and that I'm not sick, and that no, I don't just want some soup.
2. My CAR.
3. My CDs in my CAR
4. Chai tea whenever I want it.
5. Being able to be utterly sarcastic with a deadpan glare and not having to explain myself or recover after getting an answer to a question I wasn't really asking (did that even make sense?)
6. Having wireless internet that works
7. Making cookies with my sister

Things I miss
1. Speaking in French on a regular basis
2. Having friends nearby and pretty much at my beck and call
3. Cote d'Or Dark Chocolate and Hazelnut
4. the cafe on every corner
5. my international keyboard with all the accents on the letters.
6. All the gardens and pretend forests.

I could go on and on, but then I'd feel even more like I were complaining, and I really hate that. I keep rolling France around in my mind, like dough for a cookie. I think I'm satisfied with everything that I did and everything that happened. I know now what I would have done differently and what I wouldn't've changed for all the scholarship money in the world. I guess that's the most I can ask for at this point, right?

Now if only the rest of my friends will free themselves up and come home.
Except for you bums who are already home but actually have jobs this summer. Psh. Money? Who needs money?

11 June 2008

"How to check in at the airport", 101

On Tuesday night after I finished repacking, I went downstairs and talked to the front desk guy about what time I needed a taxi to get to a flight that left at 10:20 am. The conversation started in English and moved into French once we both figured out that we both spoke French. He told me that he would call the guy and would have him at the hostel by 7:45 at the latest. It would take 25 minutes or so to get to the airport, and that would totally be enough time.


The next morning I walked out of my room at 7:36 with all my stuff. I rolled it all over to the elevator...which was out of order. I looked at my suitcases and laughed. There was no way in the world I was going to lug all that down three flights of stairs by myself. I carried the two small bags down, then went back up to get the suitcases. Just as I opened the door to upstairs a couple walked past me, grabbed something from their room, and headed for the stairs again. I had learned my lesson, I apologised for interrupting them and asked if they could help me get my bags down the stairs. They agreed and the guy reached for one of the suitcases, I got the other.


Downstairs, I waited for the taxi driver to get there. After five minutes, I grabbed a glass of orange juice. After ten, I grabbed a piece of baguette. After twelve minutes, another girl needing a ride to the airport showed up, and we agreed to share the taxi whenever he got there. He didn't come until 8:20. I forget what his name was, I'm not even sure he told us, but he bowed once he stepped into the hostel lobby. He cited two accidents on the road up to the hostel as reasons for being late. I guess I believe him.

On the way to the airport he asked me which terminals our flights were in. Neither of us had any idea, we just knew that I was Delta and she was American Airlines. He drove first to Terminal 1, and ran inside to ask. Nope. Both were in Terminal 2. He drove us up to where he knew AA to be. It was then 8:55. He helped us out of the car, apologising that he didn't know where Delta was. He asked if I wanted help with my bags, but I, envisioning a surprise charge or even just being more late, politely refused.


I walked in to the terminal and walked left, checking with an official looking woman wearing a nametag as to where the Delta Airlines check-in desks were. She told me to walk the other way. I turned around and walked the other way before stopping a man with a nametag and asking where Delta was (this is all in French by the way). He pointed me back the way I'd just come. "I'm pretty sure it's in 2E, but you should talk to the info desk lady hidden behind that wall to make sure." I found the hidden desk and sure enough, I needed to be in 2E, whereas at present I was in 2A. They're on the same side of the terminal, but on opposite ends. The woman pointed me in the right direction and told me to walk 12 minutes that way.


12 minutes later, sure enough, I found the Delta desks. I went through the mini security checkpoint, let the lady sticker my bag, and because I was flying stand-by was led out of the normal line and told to fill out a piece of paper and then to talk to the guy at desk 12. He smiled when I asked if I could borrow a pen and I thought, "Sweet! A nice French person!"

And then he looked up at me and said that he couldn't get my bags on the flight. It was too late. I asked if he was joking. He said no, but that he would call. He made two phone calls and came back with a negative. No-go for the bags. I asked him, with my snazzy use of French subjunctive, what I had to do next. He laughed at me a little (Americans don't really grasp the subjunctive, and I'm pretty sure I pronounced my conjugated verbs with a silly sort of self-satisfaction) and told me to head over to the Delta desk to see if they could get my flight changed.

I pushed my cart of suitcases and carry-ons behind all the other people happily checking in, let myself out of the barrier, and went to talk to the desk lady. Again, in French. So proud of myself. I handed over my papers and explained the situation, and in under two minutes I was set for a flight going to Cincinnati. I went back to the mini check point, and back in line for the stand-by desk. The man was gone and a woman had taken his place. When it was my turn, she just barely glanced up at me. I swear she rolled her eyes at my accent, too.

Then she handed back one of my papers and told me that she needed a date. Date? Date of entry into the company, she said. I was flying stand-by on a buddy pass from Gwen, who loves me, and I hadn't put in the date of when she started working for Delta. I looked at the page and sunk a little into the ground. I didn't know the date, much less even Gwen's last name. The woman told me to go talk to the Delta desk to see what they could do.

I knew that there was no way they were going to be able to help me if I didn't even know Gwen's last name, so I stepped again outside of the check-in area and sent my mom a text message (calling wasn't working). Then I stood there, waiting for a reply. After four or so minutes, she replied, and in less than ten I had all my information. For the third time, I made my way through mini security, where I think they were almost starting to recognize me. The woman was still there, and she took my papers this time and I was all set to go through. The only problem I had after that was that one suitcase was 20 kilos, and the other was 24. The limit is 22. A little bit of switching was necessary, but in the end I got everything onto the conveyor belt and I myself headed to real security. I almost lost my ticket on the ground, and I could barely move because of the 70 pounds of carry-on baggage I was carrying on my shoulders (yeah, it was fun dropping things on the ground and trying to pick them up without putting things down).

Once through to my gate, I had no energy left to go and buy chocolate, as I had wanted to do. That's the thing I hate about airports. You can't leave your bags anywhere. People freak out if you do, and that means that it's that much harder to go to the bathroom and to shop. Even buying a bottle of water was difficult, since of course there was a minimal amount of room between the counter and cafe-style chairs. I think I spilled a couple of drinks then. Oops.

From there everything went smoothly. I flew first class from Paris to Cincinnati (thank you, Gwen). Oh, man. If you can fly first class at all, do it, but flying internationally was just fantastic. Free movies, I got to choose my lunch, AND I got to lay down to sleep and listen to music. Best thing ever, not even joking.

Cincinnati was fine, I learned my lesson in Paris and before I even took more than one step away from the security point, I went up to the info guy and asked him which terminal my connecting flight would be in. Saved: twenty minutes of lost walking. On my flight home I sat in normal class next to an older man who talked to himself and his seatbelt. He'd put on the belt, look down at it, and mumble, "Yeah, that looks good. That's where it goes. Right there. Yeah." It was kinda...interesting. I spent my time looking out the window, trying not to fall asleep.

My family was waiting for me in Denver, as was my friend Stephanie, who hid behind a pretend tree and then jumped out at me when we walked by. We drove home and had dinner with the Rudds (enchiladas.....I don't think I've ever been so happy to eat spicey food....yum...).

10 June 2008

Lost...a lot

Sunday afternoon, after I checked in to the hostel and used the elevator to get to my room, I tried to recuperate by sitting in the window sill. It helped me to cool down, but then i was a little restless, so I decided to just get moving again, and I made my way to the Louvre. I should have done this sooner, but I was having a lot of problems with getting up once I’d sat down.

So I went to the Louvre and ate a whole grain chocolate chip hunk of bread I had purchased at the Fournée St. Michel in Rennes Saturday morning. It was delicious and I loved it. When I finished I followed the trail of people to the giant glass pyramid which everyone hates but I think is more a source of hilarity. You know that the guy who designed it told the city planners that there was only going to be one pyramid and that it was going to be invisible? At least, that’s what the tour guide said today, and though he had rather an affinity for lying and then laughing and telling us he lied, he didn’t do that after this statement, even though it does sound a little cooky. “I think they let him do it just because they wanted to know what he actually meant,” he said.

I was only able to be in the museum for less than an hour. Since I had stayed in my room so long trying to convince myself that I wanted to get up, I had wasted all the time I could have spent looking at Italian and French sculpture. It’s fine, though. I got to see the major things that everyone sees, I got to walk briskly around a bunch of the rooms, and then I got shooed out of the Louvre by real Louvre workers.

Oh, and my clever thing of the day was picking up the French version of the map and walking around with that so that everyone thought I was French. Mwa haha…

When I got back to the hostel room it was almost 7. I sat in the window sill and was starting to actually physically write in my journal (I’ve been relying on blogs to relate that sort of info) when two new people came in, Vanessa and Danny. They were actually part of a group of six friends traveling together. The three of us started talking, and two hours later the three of us headed down to the bar to meet up with their friends.

I thought it was amusing that at 21, I was the youngest person in the group. Some of them were already graduated and talking about how their parents hated that they were lazy and didn’t have real jobs. I laughed. When we got downstairs they introduced me to everyone. There was Leah, who attached herself to a curly-haired guy who only spoke Farsi and a couple paragraphs of English. The other girl was Carrie, or Cara, or something. She was the girlfriend attached to the ribcage of one of the guys, whose name I can’t remember at all. I just remember that he was so tall that his girlfriend’s head only came up to his ribs, and that made me laugh. Of course, she was only about 5’2”. It’s not very hard to only reach up to people’s ribs at that height.

Then there was Hannibal. Oh, Hannibal. He greeted me with, “Are you a nice person?” I of course grinned and told him that I’m nice to people who are nice to me. He was very nice, in fact, and I got two glasses of white wine from him (well, everyone at the table got drinks from him. Yay rich friends…slash acquaintances!). The group as a whole was really fun, and I ended up hanging out with Hannibal, Danny, and George, a guy from our room, while the girls laughed over the tranny.

Uh. I was debating about this part of the story. I’ll just say that we met this woman…man….it…thing who creeped out me and all of the guys, but had Leah and Vanessa bent double with laughter. Especially when…nevermind. Some things are just so awkward. Haha, poor Danny. After about an hour or so (two hours? Maybe?) at the bar we jumped on the metro and saw the Eiffel tower.

You know, both times that I’ve seen the tower, it’s been at night? We didn’t go all the way up to it this time, we just got off on Ecole Militaire and then hung out on the grass lawn out front. Leah and her boy were cuddling on the ground, CarrieCara was so drunk she feel asleep on the grass. Her boyfriend took her home after we’d been there about ten minutes.

The rest of us stayed until about 1, when George and Danny and I decided that we were ready to go home and go to sleep. We left Leah, Vanessa, Leah’s attachment, and two random Frenchmen talking and rolling cigarettes on the grass. The guys and I walked towards what could have been a main road, trying to figure out where a taxi would be. After only walking about a minute Danny was already tired of things, so he yells, “Where’s my taxi?!?!!” All of a sudden, a taxi drove around the corner, stopped, and let out a couple. We all laughed and jogged over to claim it as our own. We got back to the hostel but instead of sleeping, we headed down to the basement and talked about music, politics, and religion until 3 am. Typical.

On Monday I slept in as long as I could despite the jackhammers, then ate breakfast, took my time getting ready, and headed out to the free walking tour. It wasn’t too bad, even though I didn’t have an umbrella when it started raining. At least I had actually taken my camera, when I was walking around on Sunday I had left it in my room. It was also a little sad doing the tour alone, but I got over it.

When the tour finished at about 2:30, I decided to find the antiques marché in northern Paris. Ha. This ended up to be a good idea and a bad idea. The bad idea part came first, because I apparently hadn’t thoroughly enough checked where exactly the market was supposed to be. So I ended up taking the metro to the correct stop, but once again walking the wrong way down the road. When I finally figured out the right way to be going, I didn’t take the most direct route, I took the round-about-hey-look-the-ghetto route. That was interesting. Remind me not to be so French when I get dressed to walk around next time. The French version of "How YOU doin'?" is a lot creepier when you're half lost somewhere between the 18th and 19th arrondissements of Paris.

Wearing black apparently only aggravates the matter.

I walked for at least an hour before thinking about giving up. But I pushed myself forward, because the real reason I was looking for the antique market was to find a present for my mum. I had bypassed the handpainted traditional Breton plates because I just KNEW that it would break on the trip home, whether I kept it with me in my carry-on or not. So I had held off, telling myself that I would find something worthy in Paris.

By the time I found the market, most of the shopkeepers were closing up. Long silver hinged doors were falling down into place all over the block. My first task was to find the single ATM in the area; and then I went looking for a good store. I finally found one down a little alleyway. It was right next to three shops all selling things in silver. Silver spoons, silver platters, silver thimbles...I walked up to the other shop and saw handpainted plates and figurines (150 and 210 euros, respectively) and found a display of gold jewelry: pins, earrings, bracelettes. After walking around for a little bit and looking at the fantastic collection of antique clocks, I went back to the earrings.

By the time I got home that night I couldn't move, I was so tired. I got a supermarket dinner of yoghurt and a sandwich and then sat in my room typing and listening to music. The next day I woke up a little early to get ready to go to Versailles. In order to get there, I had to take the RER (regional train). The stop was near the center of the city, so I had to take the metro before getting on the train.

My timing ended up being perfect. I stepped off of the metro, checked the screen listing departing trains, and saw that my train was just pulling up to the platform. I ran down the stairs (so much easier to do when you don't have 150 lbs. of baggage to take with you) and jumped on the train, and settled myself in.

The only thing to do on the RER is to look out the window, and I started keeping track of our stops. But for some reason, I couldn't find all of them on my little map. I figured that it just wasn't listing all of them. After fifteen minutes, though, I looked on the other side of the map. Oh, look, those are the same stops we're stopping at! I groaned and rolled my eyes. Of course. I'd gotten on the wrong train.

I started laughing at myself and my haste to get on the train. I was on the yellow line, the C line, but I had taken the long way. If you look at the map, the C line really does run in a backwards C shape underneath Paris. Both ends go to Versailles, so I didn't have to switch or anything major. It just meant that I would be on the train about 10 or 15 minutes longer than I had thought.

Once I got to Versailles and the palace, the sky was cloudy, there were tourists everywhere, and I had to walk a bit to find the right road. Luckily there were maps and hundreds of people all going to the same place. Walking up to the chateau of Versailles is an amazing thing. It's HUGE. Enormous. Ginormous. Not to mention a rather quiet shade of pastel something. Is pastel salmon a color? It took me an hour to stand in line to buy my ticket, buy my ticket, and then stand in line to actually get into the chateau.

For 13.50, I got an audio guide in French and access to the chateau and the gardens. If I ever go back, I'm getting the ticket to go into Marie Antoinette's domain. It's the one thing I missed because of time and sheer exhaustion.

The chateau itself was really cool. The hall of mirrors wasn't as impressive as I had hoped it would be, but that might have been because of the fat American dude that kept on getting in my pictures, or maybe because no one was dressed in ballgowns covered with diamonds and pearls. The mirrors weren't even that...mirrory. It was, however, a beautiful room with fantastic chandeliers and gold statues of women (goddesses?) holding pillars to put candles and flowers on top of.

I won't describe the rest of the chateau, it's a useless description. The gardens were lovely, of course I saw them in the rain, which was just fine with me. I had brought my umbrella along, but I had had to leave it with some dude keeping everyone else's umbrellas and backpacks and strollers. It was still up there. I talked to a security guard who thought I was lost for a couple minutes. I think he asked me out? Haha...I'm not really sure. One minute he was asking me if I was looking for something, and then he was acting surprised that an American could have such "good French". He told me that I should have brought my umbrella along, and when I explained to him what had happened he grinned and told me that I'd have to get warm sometime. Upon walking away he waved and said, "There's a cafe over there, maybe I'll see you later?" I smiled and replied "Maybe" and turned around and walked away.

I spent the rest of the afternoon at the hostel packing up my stuff and talking to an Australian, a new guy in the room. I had packed everything really well when I was in Rennes, but I needed to pull some books out to put them in my carry-on, so that my suitcase wouldn't be so heavy. This turned out to be more difficult and time-consuming than I thought. It took me about an hour to get everything in order. I had so much stuff. Once I finished I got up on my bunk, stuck in my earbuds, and finished up the metro story for the blog.


How many staircases can a metro have?!?!?

Paris is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, at least, that’s what we’re all told. I personally only believe this statement half of the way. It is beautiful, but it’s also a city, and that means it’s dirty and sometimes creepy and not at all romantic.

I spent Saturday half with Jessica and half with my host parents. In the morning I went to the marché with her. We bought cidre and seriously considered buying flowers for our host moms, but the prices were really high that day, and we ended up not doing it. I think I’m going to send something, though, to Michel and Elisabeth once I’ve gotten home and all. I did write them an adorable (ok, well, sweet, I guess…my own opinion of my own writing, haha) thank you letter. I left it on my desk right next to the pile of three English books that I couldn’t fit in my valises and didn’t really care about. I mean, I care, but they were cheap thrift store books anyway; and I’m going to choose the Petit Robert over the Hunchback of Notre Dame any day.

Yet, of course, I still managed to have like 7 books to pack. My suitcases are so ridiculously heavy, I don’t even walk to think right now about how many fees Delta is going to throw at me. I dunno, is it better to be overweight a little on each, or to have a surprise extra bag? For some reason I think you’d get charged less doing it my way, but you never know. It’s not like I fly a ton. At least, I haven’t flown the huge airlines a lot, and especially not flying back into the States. I actually haven’t done that since Freshman year of high school. Weird. I can still remember that.

I was pretty much finished packing that night, except for my facewash and everything, which technically I had packed, but I had to keep pulling it out to use. My last dinner in Franch was pureed potatoes and tiny Breton sausages. I laughed to myself a little when I saw it all. Oh, it was good. It was more the ambiance of the dinner that got me. None of this, “Oh, you’re leaving and it’s so saaaaaad!!!” It was more along the lines of: “So…you’re leaving in the morning. Are your friends happy to be leaving?” And then we talked about how many natural disasters there have been lately.

In the morning I woke up and got ready the same way that I did every day during the semester. Said hello to everyone, made my tea, ate my bread and butter (apparently I don’t like fig jam. Go figure). Michel was in and out, Elisabeth was cleaning. We didn’t have to leave until about 10:20, so I took my time getting ready. Actually, I took my time because I just wanted to take my time. I discovered while packing that if I took as long as possible to pack things, then they wouldn’t get packed, therefore prolonging my stay! Isn’t that genius? Yeah, I know…pathetic. I laugh at me too.

Elisabeth didn’t ride with us to the train station because Michel was going to Lorient to “work in the fields” directly from dropping me off. So I gave Elisabeth my bisous (cheek kisses) and my thanks, slung my bags all over my body, and we went out to the car. The ride was really quiet. I don’t really know what you’re supposed to say in those situations. Do you talk about how you’re feeling, or about the graffiti on the walls? The amazingness of the new van? I didn’t have any idea, so it ended up with us only talking about a couple of things. Michel pulled the car up to the drop off area, which is technically still quite a ways from the front doors. He gave me the bisous, helped connect my suitcases together, reminded me to keep in touch, and walked away. I did the same, only barely looking back at him and the van, with Baloo in the back seat.

I made my way to a corner next to the escalators where I could see the panel and wait for my quai to be announced. I only had to wait for a couple of minutes before it was up on the screen, and then I restrung all my bags over my shoulders and headed to the elevator. I must have been quite the sight. Just picture two good-sized blue suitcases, strapped together. On top of both of them, and tied by its strap to the long handle, is a khaki and orange mini duffel. I myself was carrying my laptop case, my orange bookbag, and my red purse. Blue, orange, red. Ok. And then in order to have everything balanced I had things slung across my chest in opposite directions, and my purse kept on falling off of my shoulder.

I got down to the platform and still had to wait about 6 or 7 minutes for the train to actually pull in, and at first I was feeling really confident about it. There were only a couple of people standing around, so I figured that since it was a Sunday morning things were going to be pretty empty. Ha. Wishful thinking. Even though I was magically standing exactly in front the car that my seat was in, suddenly a group of about 20 others was doing exactly the same thing. And a good handful of them had suitcases. I saw my chances of getting on the train first and getting my bags out of the way quickly diminishing. By the train had come to a full stop, they were completely gone. Everyone else got on before me, even pushing me over so that they could step on. The only people who got after me were the people who had noticed that the train was leaving in one minute and had just come from running down the steps.

Finally I got my turn at the steps up into the car, and this is when I truly discovered how heavy all my bags were. I set down the duffel and thrust the laptop and the orange bag onto my back, pulling up as hard as I could. After one or two seconds I watched the faces of the people below change as they realized that I wasn’t going to be getting that stuff on the train in the next couple of minutes. The woman who was closest feebly tried to push up on the second suitcase. It didn’t work. Then, suddenly, I was able to pull it all up. I got it into the small interim car and looked around for a spot to put the bags. No room.

I had to just leave them there, off to the side…I can still remember leaning out from my seat to look down the aisle, through the door, to see how people were faring without much room to walk around. It turned out all right, even though I was terrified that the controleur was going to come demanding for Mademoiselle Michelle Graham, and that she pay for all the trouble her monster suitcases were causing.

My seat was on the aisle, next to a man about my age who I swear rolled his eyes when I came up and put my stuff on the seat. Oh, totally forgot, I have my umbrella, too. And is it a cute little half size umbrella? Nope! It’s a full size you-can’t-stick-this-in-your-suitcase-haha-you-loser sort of umbrella. My problem is that I love it to much to give it up…that’s probably what he was rolling his eyes about. That and I was sweating. It was cold and raining in Rennes that day (fitting, I thought), so I wore something warm. But heavy lifting apparently makes your body warmer? Interesting…

I felt like I should be crying on the train. The woman in the aisle seat next to me almost was, when the train was pulling away she was waving to a guy standing on the platform. He looked like her son; and she would wave, then stop and put her fingers to her lips and look like she was concentrating really hard on something. I felt sad for her and wanted to pat her on the shoulder or something, but that just doesn’t happen in France. I sat forlornly for a while before deciding to begin my new French book: Les Trois Mousketaires! Yay!

When the train pulled into Gare Montparnasse I thanked God that it was the terminus and that I wasn’t going to have a time limit to get my things together and pull them off the train. This time I was smarter and brought the big things down one at a time. I did some organizing (this would turn out to be one of my favorite pastimes while getting to my hostel) and then set off.

I don’t know if any of you know anything about Paris, but Montparnasse is in the 15th arrondisement, and my hostel is in the 19th. These two neighborhoods of Paris are on opposite sides of the city. By metro the trip from one to the other should take about thirty or forty-five minutes. It took me…about three hours. The train pulled into the station at 1:30 pm, I checked into the hostel around 4:30 pm. Did I just give in to the realization that my bags were way to heavy and cumbersome to be dragged onto public transport like that and call a taxi? No! Of course not! I had to prove that I could do it. I proved it all right. And now standing and walking hurts and bending my arms hurts but straightening them stretches the muscles and I’m soooo tired.

I did, however, get a fantastic assortment of people to help me. The first was a guy, maybe 26 or 27, and he actually walked with my for a long while helping me get my stuff up and down the stairs until we got to where the cars come in. He asked me where I was going and what I was doing, I told him I’m staying with a friend for a few days. Then he asked me if I wanted him to come with me all the way to wherever I was going. I politely refused, thanking him for his trouble, but not mentioning that having a servant would have been amazing. I’d just rather not have a French man know where I’m staying three nights in a row, thanks very much.

The amusing part was when he warned me to keep a close eye on my things, because there were mean people who liked to steal around. I think that was about how he put it. I smiled and told him that I already knew and that I would be careful. I don’t think he believed me, but he left and I continued my odyssey.

Two of my favorite being helped moments were when I was changing lines. On the 4 a Spanish couple was standing right next to me with their own suitcases. We didn’t talk on the metro, but when we got off and I had problems with my things (of course. If there’s a moment when I didn’t have problems with all that stuff, I want to know so I can write it down and get the paper preserved. I can’t for the life of me remember right now what the name of it is when you get it covered in plastic film…boy do I feel dumb.

The Spanish couple was older, probably in their 60s or so, and they spoke to me in French, and to the person next to them who they bumped into in English. That made me smile a little. We did end up talking a few seconds, in English, and the husband helped me get my suitcases up the first two flights of stairs (there was a third but I found that out later, after they had gone). He of course did it man style, which means that if I tried to help he would ward me off with waving hands or the shaking of his head. I thanked them profusely and continued on my way.

In the middle of my way, however, and around the corner, was another flight of stairs. I came around the wall and literally started laughing. I mean I had remembered that there are stairs in the Parisian subways. Of course there are stairs. But so many? Geez!

I pulled my suitcases up the first three steps. This took about a minute for me to do. Why didn’t I disconnect everything and just do it one suitcase at a time? Are you kidding me? Leave one of my suitcases at the bottom of the stairs so that I could get the other one to the top so that I could leave that one blah blah blah. So pretty much a lot of very mild fear went into how I chose to do things.

Back to the stairs. By this time, all I want to do is sit down and go to sleep. I just had to make it to the top of the stairs, make the change, and it would only be two more flights of stairs to the exit. That’s pretty much the only thing that was on my mind. Then, all of a sudden, this grandma asks me if I would like any help. I smiled at her and said thank you, but I think it’s too heavy. Then her two daughters and grandson came around the corner. Everyone grabbed something and we made it up to the top. On the way up one of the women asked me what I had in the suitcase, which made it so heavy. “My entire life and half of the universe as well,” I told her. She laughed and they left me.

I couldn’t give them anything in return, but I hope God blesses all of them with reciprocated experiences from someone else. Even to the last creepy guy.

It was the last run of stairs, and a black guy was helping me when this really short Arab came up and started helping us (is it bad that I typed that out, considered saying it another way, but can only think right now of how diverse my helpers were? Haha). He didn’t say anything, he didn’t ask if we needed help, he just kind of went for it. The black guy I guess felt like the Arab was doing a better job or something, but he left. Arab Dude helped me all the way up the last of the steps, even up through the moment on the second to last stair when I started to lose my grip on the handle and had to set the stuff down. As I stood up into the cooler air of the heavens, he accepted my thanks, wished me a good night, and walked away.

This is the part where I decided to walk north-west instead of south-east. I walked that way, along the correct road, of course, for about twenty minutes. I was exhausted. I could no longer keep my grip on the handle of my wheeling suitcase. The wheels themselves were starting to squeak, as if even they were complaining about how much I was making them do. Luckily I suddenly began to think that maybe looking at some addresses on the sides of buildings would be a good idea. 222. Ok. I was looking for 159, so that couldn’t be too bad. Ten seconds later I looked at the next number. 223. Oh no. NO! no!!! I started laughing, for the second time that day, out loud. I could barely stand up and my feet hurt so much and I was still wearing that dumb sweater.

I stopped at the corner of a building to regroup and succeeded in readjusting my bags and rewrapping my jacket around the pull-out handle. Then I switched the load to my left hand, adjusted the orange hippie bag and my laptop, and set back on the other side of the road. I didn’t just want to stay on the same side of the road cause I didn’t want the creepy French people who had just seen me walk by in front of their store see me walking back the other way. Not that this idea really matters that much, or that it really made a difference (I’m sure the French have good vision and could see me walking on the other side of the street)…but it seemed to be important for me.

I made it back to the metro I had come out of and then continued walking the other way. One hundred and fifty meters later, I found the Holiday Inn Express. Given my experience with the Brest hostel, and having ended up that time with a hostel that was actually a chain hotel, I started laughing to myself again. But then I walked around the corner, and in the same building I found my hostel, St. Christopher’s Inn. It’s on a canal part of the Seine, and I have a fantastic view of the canal from each of the three huge windows in the room. It’s a ten bed dorm, but it’s all super clean and organized, each of the bunks even has a little curtain to draw across so that you have privacy/darkness.

Of course, it doesn’t block sound, which began at 7am this morning with the sound of jackhammers. And I don’t mean that metaphorically. They really were jack hammering something at 7 am this morning. I don’t understand why, but they did.