The “Arriving in Paris” Story or “Why Jennifer is never allowed to be in charge of getting directions again”

So it’s Friday afternnoon in Dallas and David is getting ready to leave work a little bit early to go to the airport with Marty (his father) to come to Paris. Plane tickets, hotel’s booked, got cash, all packed – he’s set. Meanwhile I am in Vienna doing any last minute research I can. I had my last German class Friday and then I went to the archive to order copies of the manuscript to be made in my absence (it takes them two months to make the copies…). So, in the interest of getting directions from the airport to the hotel, I go online and try to figure it out. Bingo! I find directions listed on the hotels.com website – that was easy… maybe a little too easy… So, I IM the directions to my dear David. Great, that will save us each an 80 Euro taxi ride. Am I great or what?

So the plan was that David would arrive from a direct flight from Dallas into Paris on Saturday morning and I would arrive from Vienna at about 8:30pm after going through Cologne on Germanwings (= Southwest Airlines-esque). Fine, so at some point (I think when I was in Cologne) I realize that the directions I have for the subway and the actual location of the hotel as I remembered it when I originally mapped it online (in December) were grossly incongruent. Oh dear. At this point, David has already been in Paris for 12 hours, I have no phone and no way to contact him, no idea where he may be, and no way to find the actual directions to the hotel. Oh dear. So, what else could I do – I arrived in Paris and got my 1 (very large) suitecase (I also have my backpack with me). The Charles de Gualle airport, like most big-city airports, is actually in a remote suburb of Paris, so you have to frist get into Paris proper and then go wherever it is that you’re going. Add to that that there seem to be no public phones at the train station and according to the workers at the station, no way to dial information to get the phone number of the hotel. Oh, by the way I DON’T SPEAK FRENCH. I can translate the early music theoretical works of Rameau, but don’t ask me to order in a restaurant.

So the train station worker convinces me to ride into Paris and get off at the Notre-Dame/St. Michel stop and ask someone there where this hotel is (it’s not even in Paris proper, but rather a suburb called Arcueil). OK, kind of scary, but I can handle a little adventure. So, I get on what I only hope is the right train into the city and start the fun. Fine, I get off at St. Michel and I look around. No phones. No information. OK. And from nowhere I hear English being spoken. I look around and there is a very nice middle-age couple talking to two 20-something girls. Sure enough they were the parents of one of the girls and they were from Atlanta. Oh, these people will help me, I thought, so I went up to them and asked for help. Oh, I can’t describe how much they did to help me that night. The other girl with them was actually a Parisian, who used her cell phone to call information, get the number of the hotel, call the hotel, and get directions for public transit to there. They wrote down the directions and explained to me how to get there. I was so grateful to them – what would I have done if I hadn’t run into them. Of course the other issue that is running through my mind is, where is David? Did he figure out that those directions were to the wrong hotel? Did he find the right hotel? Is he worried because I haven’t arrived there yet? Did he think to email me or call Marty? I decide that if I find a phone I will immediately call the hotel and try to speak with him. The problem is that it is getting very late and the public transportation will become more sparse or non-existant as it approaches midnight.

So, I take off from that subway line to find my way. It’s Saturday night at 11:30pm and the escalators aren’t working. So picture me starting to drag my 50-pound suitcase up a very large flight of stairs. A lady comes by and tells me there is yet another tall staircase after this one and perhaps I should reevaluate this course of action. She tells met that the “Sortie 5” (= exit 5) has escalators that work. Well, I don’t really want to exit, but maybe I can go out and then find an entrance where I can get to the train line that I need. So, I go on this wild goose chase for exit 5. Finally, after getting it wrong once and having to drag my suitcase down some stairs to get back to the original, wrong place, I find exit 5 and get to it. So there I am standing trying to figure out how to get the doors to let me out. They won’t open. Great, what am I supposed to do now? Finally some people came down and told me I should go back downstairs and that I could find the train line I need that way. Well, I took their word for it and in fact that was not right. So, I repeat going up the exit 5 escalator and go out the doors (they showed me how earlier). I find an information person, and ask in terrible French/English about getting to the train line I need. The man said I would have to cross a river and go into the metro there. OK, a river, it’s midnight, the possibility of another staircase without escalator…. I’m done with this adventure, find me a cab.

So I go out the exit and hail a cab. The cabbie…. does not speak English. OK, thank you Tzipporah for including in your “French for Dummies” cheat sheet the question “how much does it cost?” (= combien ca cout) along with pronunciation. The good news was that the cabbie was very nice and the ride wasn’t going to cost a small fortune. The bad news was that he didn’t know where the hotel was. He headed in the direction of Arcueil and I crossed my fingers. Once we got close, he say the hotel from the road and we figured out that the name of the hotel as it was given to me by hotels.com (Stars Paris Arcueil Porte d’Italie) was slightly different from the ACTUAL name, which was Hotel Stars. So glad that he went in to ask to confirm that it was the same hotel, though I have to admit that I was afraid to let him drive away before confirming that they had our reservation. Still haven’t spoken to David.

Fine, so the next adventure is at my door – dealing with the front desk. The man working there at that moment does not speak English, but I figure I can write down David’s name and my name and he can punch it up in his computer and lead me to my sweetheart. No. So, it’s after midnight, I have no idea where David is and he has no idea where I am. The clerk summons the other person working, who does speak some English. When a French person tells you they speak a little English, it’s true (no offense, since compared to my French, their English is great). Then the second man comes and tries to find either one of us in their system. I explain that David would have checked in earlier that day already. He can’t find the reservation or David, but he said don’t worry, I can have a room for the night. But where is my fiance? Did he stay at the other hotel? What hotel is that? Is he worried about me? Is he calling the airlines, hospitals, the American consulate, President Bush, what? It’s late, I’ve been through a lot and the tears start. The man seems to be trying very hard to figure things out and tries to comfort me. Finally after about 10 minutes, he looks one more time and finds David – he calls the room and I talk to him – he’s here – *exhale*.

I go up to the room and we finally rendevouz, like a scene from a movie. At once he is glad to see me and curses me for the wrong directions. He had been through more than me that day. He actually followed the directions and went to the other hotel! Along the way he went through the train-station-of-broken-escalators and carried TWO bags HIMSELF up and down those stairs. OMG. Got all the way to the wrong hotel and was so tired (remember he just came on a 10 hour flight from Dallas) that he took a cab to the real hotel. Luckily his cabbie had a navigation system (we both did have the address, thankfully). Needless to say it was a long day for both of us and we were ready to get some well-deserved rest. And it was decided that from this day forward I would never be in charge of getting the directions.