Last week, Paris and Finally Angers

It has been a full last couple of weeks since the last time that I wrote on this blog. It is amazing how things pass so quickly. I am writing this from my new computer that I needed to buy after mine went caput. I still do not know what went wrong; all I know is that in France, two things are certain: your electronics will take about three weeks to get fixed and they might cost about as much as a new model. So, I bought one in the US and asked my mom to send it to me, which meant that after paying the customs fee, it was all mine.
Although the summer was quite the adventure and although I learned much from the family and about life, I am so happy to be back as an independent woman again. For me, my independence is one of the most important things. I cannot function for a long time being dependent on others for my daily affairs. Of course, we all need help from time to time but when your schedule and your food are dependent upon others, it becomes a little tiresome after a while. Now, I am almost completely settled in to my new life with a wonderful family and a cute little room.
So, the story, the adventure and the traveling! I left Lechâtelet on Monday on the morning train for Paris. Getting to Paris was interesting in itself since I had two bags that each weighed about 60 pounds. Thankfully, the Lord sent me some help in the form of an 75 year old lady with a lot of spunk left in her. We chatted the whole way to Dijon where my transfer to Paris was. She helped me to unload my bags and also find help to carry the bags down the stairs, etc. Thank you Lord for those people who are willing to just grab a bag and carry it even a small distance. With my bags safely on the train, I settled in and waited to arrive. Already, I could feel my life changing. My friend was not at his house, so I ended up waiting about 2 hours before being able to drop off my bags, but whatever, I was just glad to be there. After meeting up with my friend at his house, I left for downtown to walk around a little before having to pick up my friend at the train station. She was scheduled to arrive on a train from Lyon. I just love Paris, just as much as I love New York. There is just something so spectacular about being in a grand city where there are people from every walks of life and every type of background. I love the hustle and bustle and the craziness you find in the city, where you can literally get yourself lost in the blink of an eye – sometimes a fun thing and sometimes extremely annoying and dangerous.

My friend did not arrive, in fact she got stuck in Lyon after her plane was 1 hour late. She missed her train and was informed there were no other trains going out that night. Oh, what a crazy time of trying to organize where she could stay and what to do, etc. Thankfully, the daughters of the family for whom I worked live in Lyon and I was able to get them to pick up my friend from the train station. The next morning was much less complicated because her train was on time and I arrived early to the train station. She has four bags with her! This will become more hilarious later on in the story. Considering this was my friend’s first time in Paris, we decided to walk all around the most famous sites with a couple of my French friends. We saw all the traditionally touristy sites – Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Louvre, Place de la Concorde, Notre Dame, the Seine – ate crepes and stopped at a café. I mean for only one day, I would say we packed some nice things in.

We then wound our way through the supermarket which is also something to be seen. If you think Wal-mart is crazy the day after Thanksgiving, go to a French supermarket during the after work hours and you will realize that the day after Thanksgiving never ends. I have never seen a grocery store that packed. I mean, of course it is like a Super-Walmart that offers really anything anyone could want, but still, there are about 20 cash registers all filled to the brink with people who do not seem to stop flowing. You have to weave in and out of the crowds and hope that you do not get run over. Oh, well, it is an experience for sure.

We left the Paris suburbs at 4 am on a bus, so with the help of my friend with our bags, that part of the journey passed flawlessly. It was when we took our bags out of the bus that I realized we were going to have some problems. My friend is about five feet tall and she is not that strong, so the responsibility fell on me to ensure that all our bags made it down and up all the stairwells we encountered, and let me tell you…we encountered a ton! One, Paris is not very handicap friendly and two it was very early in the morning, so many of the escalators were not working. Perfect! I have never lifted so many bags up and down stairs before. At one point, I was thinking about abandoning everything until I realized that would not serve me too well in the future. Two specific instances will probably stick in my mind for a very long time. We were going down one of the few escalators with our bags when my friend accidentally let one of hers go, which proceeded to tumble down the escalator and hit the man in front of us. I was mortified. Thankfully, he was a stocky and friendly guy who did not appear to mind. I could not believe it! The second instance was again with the bags of my friend which at one point toppled out of the metro right before the train was ready to move. She was inundated with her other bags, and I was also incapacitated, but again thanks to a willing helper, a middle aged and surprisingly spry man, jumped out of the metro and gathered all the things that had fallen out. Incredible! I am sure he was not expecting to have to do that at 6 am in the morning.

After all of that, we missed our train by 10 minutes due to my friends two extra bags. We plopped down into some free seats and chowed down on some cereal because after all of that, I was absolutely crushed. My arms were vibrating and my stomach was empty.

My friend looked down at her hands and realized she had developped some blisters. Her expressions of discomfort and her surprise over the whole experience made me laugh. I realized I had been traveling with a princess. Who else would consider bringing four bags with her? I told her that she better be prepared to walk on the riotous side if she wants to travel with me. It will be an interesting lesson for us both. There was another train leaving shortly after which we took and before we knew it we were in Angers and ready for the start of another adventure.

In fact, adventure just happened to follow me immediately. For the whole week, I had this thing on my left hand that looked more or less like a blister except that it did not go away after having been popped and furthermore, it became more and more red as time went on. Finally, the wife in the family where I am staying told me I should probably go to the nurse to see what is going on. I went to the nurse who sure enough told me that I needed to go to the doctor right away. Dragging my American friend along, we went to the doctor's office where I was told I needed to go to a hand specialist to ensure that surely nothing was wrong. So, I trudged through the city and went to the hand specialist. He took an x-ray and injected me with anesthetics, then cut open my finger. I could not feel a thing; it was incredible really. I have never had any type of operation in my life, so this was something completely foreign. After bandaging my finger as if I had had a major operation, I was off. Now I can say that I have experienced all that France has to offer, even their doctors.