November15, 2005
FRANCE - Falling in love in Paris.
Related pic galleries:
• Four days in Spain
• I love Paris!
• I love Paris again.
• Last days in Paris... Disneyland
After Milan, I was scheduled to fly to Barcelona, Spain for four days. I booked through Ryanair, an inexpensive carrier that sold tickets as low as one euro and ninety-nine cents. I waited patiently at the terminal, happy about my cheap ticket, while delay after delay plagued my future flight. Eventually, from behind the desk, a man spoke Spanish into a microphone stating that our flight was canceled because of the fog. Funny, I thought to myself, as I listened to the engines of other planes taking off and watched even more planes surging forward on the runways through the fog. Oh well, I'll just get on the next plane - surely they will have another flight in a few hours ready to take us excited travelers into the beautiful city of Barcelona.
It's hard to be disappointed or complain to airport personnel when our tickets cost the same as a large bag of chips, so I calmly walked down to the Ryanair ticket desk to see when I was going to fly again. There was about a hundred people in line in front of me, and after about thirty minutes, there was still a hundred people in front of me. Then an hour went by and there was a hundred people in front of me. I started getting a little annoyed at the length of time it was taking to re-schedule flights. No worries though, they'd have me on the next plane which would obviously be only a couple of hours from then.
Three hours painfully crept by, with everyone in line silently fuming and shifting their sore feet. I was the second last person in line but finally approached the desk, tired and frustrated, but looking forward to the incredible service and attention I was about to receive. "The next plane is in two days?!", I heard myself repeating, after the uncaring, miserable lady behind the counter explained that I could get on the two-day waiting list or get a refund. No smile, no niceties, no fucking coupon for a free sandwich - I stood in line for three hours to get a one euro and ninty-nine cent refund. I decided to boycott everything and take the train back to Switzerland.
I went happily back to Neuheim, staying once again with Sandra and her very tolerant and accommodating family. Sandra and I had made plans to go to France together months earlier, and we now had our expensive overnight train tickets to Paris in our hands. I was excited to be traveling with her again, but this time together to the famous city of love. We nervously packed our things as it got dark outside her bedroom window - the time for us to drag our bags to the bus stop down the road from her house was rapidly ticking away. It had started to become darker much earlier now that the cold weather was creeping up, and a light snowfall had blanketed the roads and meadows around Sandra's home. The walk to the stop was a dangerous trek on the unlit road which had no sidewalks. The approaching traffic comes up from behind around a quick curve in the road that's hidden by trees. The drivers had to quickly swerve around as we became visible at the last moment in their headlights. I guess my rolling bags were extended a little too far out onto the roadway - Sandra shouted at me to squeeze closer to the curb just as the wind from a passing truck blew my hair forward into my eyes and rumbled the pavement beneath us.
The bus became visible in the distance, and we prepared ourselves and the bags at the edge of the roadway. Then all of a sudden, a jerkoff in a sports car ripped past us and sprayed slush and snow all over our freshly pressed Paris ensembles. "I fucking hate that guy" I said aloud as we both looked down at our sullied outfits. In the bus we settled our suitcases for the short ride to our awaiting train and sleeper car for the six hour overnight ride to Paris. We'd traveled together five or six times in the year we'd known each other, but this time I was nervous. Not nervous of the destination or the actual train travel, but anxious about my expectations of what this particular city would do to our short relationship. I wasn't expecting to build up such strong feelings for someone while trying to find myself in my selfish year of 'round-the-world travel. As I neared the end of my journey, sudden thoughts of panic and fear hit me, as I realized I was going back to Toronto soon, leaving this beautiful Swiss girl sixty-five hundred kilometres behind. I was freaking out silently inside my reeling head - what happens now?, I thought to myself. Paris was going to be a dangerous place for my fragile feelings.
The sleeper cars were tiny, and while the train was in motion, Sandra and I bumped into each other at everything we tried to do. I didn't know how to get into my bed - it was five feet high, and impossible to climb up into. We eventually found a ladder attached to the back of the tiny door that closed us off from the other travelers. Her bed was to the right and mine to the left, and there was just enough room for my average height to fit onto the bed - my head scraping the top of the bed and my feet touching the opposite wall. We said goodnight from across the car and I drifted into a difficult dreamless sleep.
Hours later, I'm awakened by the train personnel knocking on the door asking in French if I wanted my coffee now. "Is it morning already?", I softly muttered into the darkness, wondering if Sandra was awakened by the knocking too. Hopefully she was, because I needed her to use her French language skills to answer the waiting Parisian.
We bounced around the little room getting ready to de-train - me balancing my thick-as-mud coffee while attempting to clothe myself and Sandra wobbling around with a toothbrush stuck in her mouth. The train stopped and we stepped down to the pavement of the empty and echoing Paris main station. It was six in the morning and we could smell the freshly baked pastries which were being brought from the ovens and stacked in the glass displays of the station's eateries. Sandra suddenly demanded that we have a 'pain au chocolat' before we did anything else. The daylight was starting to peak through windows and brighten up the dreary train station as we dragged our suitcases towards people wearing white baker's hats.
The woman behind the counter was placing the chocolate pastry delights onto a warm pile and Sandra broke into her French and asked for two. We were weary, disheveled and still half-asleep, but we had warm French pastries stuffed into our salivating gobs. It was then ten minutes past six in the morning and we had nowhere to go. We decided to drop our bags at our hotel, hoping they would allow us to leave them there until the check-in time of two, or fourteen o'clock. Sandra, who is the responsible one in this relationship, had previously researched which subway train we had to board to reach our hotel, so she pulled me by the hand and showed me the way. I love being a follower and not a leader, it makes everything so much easier - and if things go wrong I can always blame somebody else. The subway was filthy, but filthy in a cool Parisian 'let's-make-love-in-the-pissy-gutter' way.
We discarded our bag burden at the three-star hotel and Sandra pulled me to the subway once again. We were just in time to witness an inebriated woman pull up her dress and squeeze off some hot urine in the middle of the subway platform, creating a steaming puddle for all to see. I wasn't bothered though - I was in Paris, and public pissing is OK. We traveled for about ten minutes, Sandra always telling me which direction to turn once we climbed out of the underground and hit the streets. I wondered where she was taking me - all she would say was "you'll see" when I asked. We finally walked around a long tall building and she said "look". I knew it had to be the Eiffel Tower she was leading me to, and the view from where I stood was incredible. The sun was breaking out from behind thick clouds and just slightly above the horizon - the tower was backlit and looked ominous looming on the Paris landscape. It was a loving embrace moment, so I became the leader and pulled Sandra close to me. I was suddenly in love with everything and intensly in love with the warm girl I was squeezing close to me. The air was crisp and cold and we scurried off to a café to sit outside and waste away the hours watching people walk by and the Eiffel Tower standing in the distance. The sun hadn't risen far enough in the sky to warm us yet, so we cuddled for body warmth while we sipped our hot drinks. I love my life, I kept thinking, I'm in beautiful Paris on a brisk autumn day, snuggling up to a gorgeous Swiss girl, drinking a wonderful Irish coffee, with a view of the morning sun peircing through the intricate metalwork of the Eiffel Tower. Can it get any better?, I questioned. Yes, yes it can - my second Irish coffee had just been placed down before me. Wow, breathtaking!
In the following four days, Sandra and I did all the attractions, the Louvre, Notre Dame, Arc de Triomphe, Sacré-Coeur, and Moulin Rouge, while I made sure I didn't express too much interest as we passed by the countless sex exhibits. We even bought expensive oil paintings from roadside Parisian artisans who surprisingly took credit cards. We shopped on Champs-Elysées and massaged the gussetts of ladies' lingerie, marveled at the architecture of the Grand Arche, watched the cheesy light show of the Eiffel tower and got queasy on rollercoasters in Disneyland.
My feelings for Sandra grew huge - there was no turning back now - this is the girl I want to cook and clean for - the girl I want to go to Lamaze classes with - the girl I want to jab me in the ribs during the night for snoring too loud, and eventually to drive beside each other in our matching electric wheelchairs, holding hands while on our way to pick up our weekly Depends undergarment requirements from the local apothecary.
I'm obsessed, I'm infatuated, I'm smitten, I'm officially in love. My whole journey has become a love story that I wasn't expecting. I'm crazy about a girl who lives on the other side of the world, and I can't speak a word of Swiss-German. We struggled through the heat and flies of Australia, survived the humidity of Singapore, lost each other at the smallest airport in London, choked down Guinness in Ireland, met her family in Switzerland, were frustrated in Milan, and fell in love in Paris. I was expecting things in my life to change during and at the end of my journey, but moving to Switzerland to live with a beautiful young woman wasn't on my 'round-the-world things-to-do-list. But that's what's in my future - l just hope the Swiss immigration authority understands love and let's me stay.
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