Something I simply do not understand and never will : bathrooms in France.
My stress level increases ten fold every time I have to use les toilettes — is it possible for that word to sound better or more appealing in any language? Prob not.
So the Frenchies toilette doors run all the way to the floor. Meaning: there is no gap. Pas de space. This is extremely nerve racking for me. Not only do I feel like I’m going to suffocate in a 2×3 area that I’m not even sure how a toilette was even installed in, I’m perpetually terrified that I’m going to get locked in.
Because it happened.
The second time I visited Paris when I was 16, on a school trip, I used a toilette at the Louvre. Mine never opened. Holy shit. Do you know the terror that is?! Forget the Revolution. Take anyone and stick them in a space that you can barely fully turn around in, and that will be a true Reign Of Terreur.
It was only about 20 minutes I was locked in, but it felt like 4 hours of pure hell. The worst part was, there I am having to bang and knock on the door and no one heard me! Eventually {what all ten mins later?} the tour group realized they were minus a weird girl, and Security came in and got the door opened.
I think about this moment each bathroom I step in. It’s always there in the back of my mind … will this be the one?! TC makes fun of me every time I’m like, you send someone in there to get me out if I’m not back in 15, but he’s never been stuck. And that’s a good thing, because his dramatic ass surely could never handle it.
SO yeah, just do not get the bathrooms. The other thing I don’t get? Which is nothing short of horrifically disturbing … all the times I’ve been called Madame … as in they think my dad and I are … oh god, I can’t bring myself to say it, let alone type it … here we go … married.
Or, worse yet, my lover. I thought I was making myself clear the other day when I corrected the waiter and said, Mademoiselle, but then he asked, votre amant?
Excuse me while I go throw up.
How French is that? A young thing with an older man. Or someone on the side. We’ll leave it at disturbing.
On a completely different disturbing scale is my WiFi situation. Well, there is no situation. That’s the problem.
The WiFi never worked this summer, I just used my ethernet cable and would go to parks and squares to get on the WiFi, email pictures to myself, post them and then be able to forward onto ma famille. When Délphine arrived to go over apartmenty stuff, I asked her about it and she said she’d get back to me. She hasn’t. It’s pathetic, I’m very aware of this. I should be able to chillax over something as miniscule as damn wireless. But.
I’m in Instagram withdrawl, desperate to quick hop on any connection when I get the chance, which have been few and far between thanks to TC’s sudden energy bursts. I’m hoping Versailles has been wired up to date so when I can’t handle TC’s gasping and history lessons and scolding me about why I don’t know every thing about Marie Antoinette, I can just Instagram instead.
So for my own sake in remembering, here’s what went down today with us Francophiles:
1.TC wakes me up for pillow talk. At 8a.m. I tell him I refuse to get out of bed till at least 9. He ignores said request and sits down “to gossip”. Yes, those were his exact words. I know this tatic. I don’t respond. Fall back asleep.
2. Wake up at 9:30 to TC yelling that the entire day is gone and we won’t be able to do anything. I get ready.
3. We leave at 11, delayed due to TC wanting to write postcards {I kept saying he should just write them at a café, but non, he was afraid he’d spill something on them and look like a tourist stupide – point taken}.
4. We arrive Sainte Chappelle at 11:20, both of us pissed off that even though we have the Paris Museum Pass that says you don’t have to wait in any line — they have posted a big sign saying that there will be no priority given with those who have the pass. Ridiculously long line. F this, F that and many GDs said. On we go.
5. Walk in the Concergerie at 11:23. TC insists on sitting in front of every film du histoire they’re playing and looking at everything. I, on the other hand, can’t stop picturing people being murdered left and right.
6. 12:30. We hit up Les Deux Palais across the street — I noticed a sign saying they sell concert tickets for Sainte Chapelle, and suggest we buy two tickets for Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Take that, no line priorité. We’ll school your ass afterall and have the best personal viewing of Sainte Chapelle there ever was. We also decide to eat lunch. My French suddenly seems to have improved 17 fold. Language compliments galore. I’ll take them anytime. Hey, who doesn’t enjoy some self validation every now and then?
7. 14:00. Finally pay damn bill {why does it take an extra 25 minutes from when you ask for l’addition to when you pay and are out the door? Is that too American of me?}. Get on le métro at Cité, switch at Chatlet, haul for 9 minutes to get our connection {1 towards La Défense}, switch again at Franklin D. Roosevelt, pick up the 9 and ride one stop to Alma Marceau.
8. 14:50. Descend below ground for the Sewer tour. Fascinating. Loved it.
9. 15:23. Head back to le métro, switch again to the 1 towards Château de Vincennes — which we take all the way to the end, to visit le Chateau. Of course, I have to open my big mouth and ask what the hell Château this is and TC had to again yell at me for not paying attention to French history and how can I not remember important historical facts … but come on. How can anyone in their right mind keep all these GD Chateaux and Kings straight? They all start blending into one in my mind.
11. Arrive le Château at 16:04. For the record, which means, for my own memory, Château de Vincennes was built by Charles V and was the childhood home of Louis XIV. Awe struck. Floored. Dazed. Astounded. The usual.
10. Leave Vincennes at 17:00 when they close, get back on le métro, heading home to the l’appartement.
11. Arrive chez nous à 17:50. For some reason, a little after 18:00, I think to check the time of our concert. The woman at Les Deux Palais told us 8 — which I asked twice, huit? Vingt heures? And TC as my witness, agrees that she said, huit, twice in response. This is five huits between the two of us. Sure enough, le concert starts at 19, and you’re supposed to be there 30 minutes in advance, so we quickly haul out.
12. Arrive Sainte Chapelle. at 18:33. Concert promptly begins at 19:00. Continued astonishment. Inspiration. Just magnificent. Hell, just sitting there in that church. Hearing that gorgeous music being played in such an intimate setting. From 1239!! The height and perfection of Gothic Architecture … and to think, that at one point Louis IX had Christ’s Crown of Thorns there! That’s what it was built for — to house Louis relics.
13. 20:15 – leave le concert and head out to dinner.
14. Of all places, TC finds, Le Buffet Japonais. Turns out buffets are wildly spreading throughout Europe. It doesn’t get much more American than that … in Paris and at a GD buffet. However. Best deal I’ve seen on dinner yet for €16.80/person. And the food was out of the this world … you really could order anything. The way they do their “buffet” is you just order off the menu in the designated “buffet” section.
Practically everything was included. I stuffed my face with sushi after sushi roll, soup, beef and cheese on a stick {TDF}. Fan of le buffet français now.
15. 21:45 : walk back to l’appartment. Winding our way through every fabulous sight in the VIième arrondissement … L’eglise Saint Germain-des-près, Les Deux Magots, Café de Flore, Saint Sulpice, Rue de Rennes, Le Bon Marché … I do declare, this is my absolute fave part of Paris.
16. We are off to Versailles early tomorrow a.m. I tried to convince TC that we should hit up Chantilly or Fontainbleu but then he did the whole, GD I just want to see Versailles before I die and I probably won’t ever be back here again, which promptly depressed me and had me almost in tears thinking about how devastating life will be one day without him. So of course, I was like, yes, yes! Versailles!
17. I really need to go to bed. At this rate I’ll be up in six hours.
18. I’ve only been this detailed and psychotic sounding in my heure par heure breakdown of the day because TC said he’d cut me off from Nutella crepes if I didn’t have a detailed account.
19. I take crepe cutoff threats very seriously.