The day Paris rained… (but only on me.)
So, bear with me. This may be a long post.
Let me begin with the obvious - anyone who knows me knows that I am obsessed with France and Paris. At one point I counted over 17 instances of the Eiffel Tower just in my bedroom.
That said… you know in cartoons when there is a dark rainy cloud overhead that follows the character wherever they go, and rains ONLY on them? That is what Paris did to me today. It was sunny and nice outside, but I only felt rain. Up until today, Sarah and I kept commenting how easy and perfect our entire trip has been. Everything has been on time, things have been easy to find, all accommodations have been superb, everything has just plain and simply ‘worked out’ and been flawless… that is… until we got to Paris.
First off, our hotel isn’t great. Not horrible, but not great. There is ONE outlet in our entire room, and it is behind Sarah’s bed. Super convenient. This also might be the loudest hotel I’ve ever stayed in: slamming doors, screeching mo-peds and yelling can be heard at all hours. I’m a heavy sleeper and I’ve had insomnia each night since we’ve been here (hence why I am typing at 4 am). And I NEVER get insomnia. Oh, and the beds are awful.
So today (after about 2 hours of sleep for me) we woke up to start planning out the day. We planned to walk around, grab some breakfast and go for a walking tour of the Montmartre area. We did find a great breakfast spot, and then walked around for a bit, then went to the metro station Abbesses to meet our tour guide at 2:30pm. We got to the Metro stop at the tour meeting point and found no guide. We waited for about 20 minutes and finally gave up. So we walked around Montmartre on our own. I felt horrible as I might be the worst tour guide ever. Although I lived in Paris for awhile, my shotty long-term memory prevents me from recalling anything of use.
After wandering around aimlessly for awhile, we then went back to our hotel so I could take a quick nap to recover from last night’s insomnia. In talking to the front desk agent about our bill, he said (in English) “Speak in English, when you speak in French you say everything wrong.” This REALLY made me upset as I LOVE speaking in French, and I never have problems with any French speaker understanding me. Part of the reason I come to France is to practice my French, not to hear some jerk telling me I say everything wrong. BTW, this rude comment was made when I accidentally said that we already paid 65 Euros, instead of 75 Euros. Big deal!
After my nap I felt refreshed and ready to hit the Parisian town. We began walking down to Rue Oberkampf, a road near our hotel with lots of bars/restaurants. As I was walking, suddenly someone threw a bucket of water from their balcony and it landed right on my feet. I just looked to Sarah and said “Why does Paris hate me?!?!” I seriously felt like crying that the Paris portion of our trip was not living up to the rest of the vacation.
Luckily, the night improved soon after with some pizza, wine and some pub-hopping and meeting some nice Parisians (unlike our guy at the front desk).
I know these incidents may seem small, but for me they were huge. I love being here, and anything that dampens that experience really shakes me. We’ve also had such a flawless trip until we got here. After talking with Sarah about why I am randomly so upset about today, I came to the conclusion that I hold Paris too highly in my mind, so I set myself up to only be let down. So, I am officially taking Paris off the pedestal. I am looking forward to a Parisian day tomorrow with NO expectations.
