As we speak there is a nice “small man” as he was described to me cleaning the condoms and mountains of dust and dirt on the floor. He also placed his helmet on my freshly washed mattress cover. This ought to be good. After a lovely gathering celebrating my new journey, I hopped on my Air France flight. I hauled my 3 bag carry-on load down the aisles of the plane back to my seat where, I was delighted to sit next to a lovely young French girl. Luckily for the first time in a plane, I slept, only waking up every hour on the hour. As the sun began to come up the girl next to me opened the window of the sunset. My first picture of the trip!
I exited the plane in Paris. My adventure had begun. I road the bus with the rest of the passengers to the terminal to retrieve the other 2 bags I had checked. I couldn’t help but think about what an awful place LAX is and how if it did the same thing and bus people to a terminal, wouldn’t they slowly be able to build a new one. Then I remembered that our economy is in the toilet and that wouldn’t happen any time soon.
I walked to the customs part of the airport I decided to use some of the French I had learned. I walked up to the counter and said hello the lady and asked how she was. As I handed her my passport she was slightly shocked and delighted that an American had taken the time to learn French. She asked me back if I spoke French, I nodded and said a little. The French are extremely proud and in this case, a little went a long way. Instead of asking questions, she stamped the passport and sent me along.
My bags arrived, one within the first minute of their being unloaded and put into the belt. I had flashbacks to Hawaii when they opted out of putting my bag on the plane. As I sat in the terminal I took a picture of my first real French thing for Claire.
I arrived at my apartment to find a man waiting for me. He was there to do a check to make sure everything was functioning properly and account for any damage.
I wont go into detail about the frustration of yesterday walking into an insanely dirty apartment and will skip forward to my dinner with two of my favorite Frenchies, Audry and Emilie.
They met me where I was staying and boy was it nice to see their beaming faces. I think I had a smile as big as the universe when I saw them. I could not have been happier to see them on a long and stressful day. The air was perfect and refreshing. I felt like we were in Sex and the City, three girls walking thought the streets of Paris looking for a place to eat. We walked my district and found a lovely café. The 10 small outdoor tables were taken so we ate inside. The couches were purple suede and the tables were small, so we put two together. The waiter was a slender man who Emilie said reminded her Jim Carrey. The other waiter had some gnarly teeth and kid of reminded me of the creepy guy that kept cutting Drew Berrymore’s hair in Charlie’s Angels. I ordered a goat cheese salad, Audry had a salmon pizza and Emilie, penne carbonara.
We had a lovely time catching up before I fell asleep at the table. The temperature dropped as we walked home, but it felt great to be in Paris with my girl friends. I guess its time to start learning French.
Well Paris, I hope you will enjoy me as much as I will enjoy you.
No comments:
Post a Comment