Next stop: Culture shock

  Paris, France
Monday, March 24, 2008

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[J] Paris here we come.  It's been cold in Britain and we didn't bring a lot of warm clothes with us.  So we were hoping France might be a tiny bit warmer.  It is a little further south, right?  Imagine our delight when this is the first thing we see when our train breaks out of the darkness of the channel tunnel into France.  Yeah, snow.  Lots of it. Not wussy Stratford-upon-Avon snow either.  Real snow.  I had horrible flashbacks of a harsh Iowa winter that I thought we had escaped.  France was not making a good impression.  Luckily, we had a ways to go to get to Paris and we left the snow behind.

As soon as we got off the train in Paris and started to figure out where we needed to go to get on the metro (underground subway), I could tell this was not going to be easy.  We know no French outside of hello, good morning/evening, goodbye, pardon, excuse me and some basic numbers.  Oh, and deja vu.  Oh, and deja vu (sorry, had to do it). It looks like, when French is involved, doing ordinary things is going to take at least five times longer than when we did those same things in English.

We finally made it to our apartment after dragging our bags through the Paris metro.  The instructions I had from the apartment owner (who actually lives in California) were pretty clear and we made it to the building, punched in the provided code, and were into the lobby.  The keys were in the mailbox as promised and we were almost home.  The e-mail I had said there was a key for the apartment and one for the second door that led out of the lobby into the apartment building.  That statement lacks some accuracy.  We couldn't get either key to work on the second door.  We were stuck in the lobby.  We tried calling the cell phone for the apartment manager here in France, but there was no answer and we only had an address for the owner in California.  So as we're sitting there figuring out what to do (ring a random apartment and ask for help using our varied vocab of good morning, pardon, and some basic numbers?  Start unpacking our stuff in the lobby?), someone starts coming down the stairs on the promised land side of the second door.  This is good.  So I start walking towards the door acting like I know what I'm doing and just didn't get a chance to get my key out yet.  The guy comes out and holds the door open for us.  Man, I must be a great actor.

Ok, so we're in the apartment building, but how do we get out?  Will Sarah have to let me back in when I go out?  Will we have to visit sites in Paris one at a time?  We get up to our apartment and both keys fit the locks on the door there, so she must have just forgotten to give us the other key.  Then it hit me.  Hold the door dude had pushed a button on the side of the wall to unlock the door.  Therefore, it was an electric lock.  Therefore, we had the key in our hand the whole time!  It was the key chain (in the lobby, with the candlestick).  Dagnabbit.  Oh, well. At least we were only lobby prisoners for 10 minutes or so.

Once we got our barrings, we headed out for some food.  Man, this used to be a lot easier.  Fortunately, all of the restaurants have menus in the window so we can see what they offer.  Unfortunately, they might as well be written in Swahili for as much French as we know.  We are staying in a more residential area which makes it less touristy, but also cuts down on the number of people who speak English.  Needless to say the dining experience took much longer that it should have since we were plugging every word into a translator (and only half of the words were showing up).  The waiter was being very nice and patient with us, but he knew very little English.  I pointed at something someone on another table was having (a steak with an over easy egg on it) and Sarah ordered duck (which was very good).  So it was an adventure; which any little thing can turn into when you're in a foreign country.  And it was a blast.

Little foreign travel tip for you: Never order a Coke unless you can see how much it costs.  I got a bottle of Coke (the small glass ones with no free refills) and realized when we got the bill that I had been charged 4 Euro for it.  That's more than $6.00.  Six U.S. dollars!  For a Coke.  It's water at restaurants for me from now on.  And tap water, not that expensive bottled stuff.

J