I took a "trenhotel" from Barcelona overnight to Paris. At first I was a little weirded out by the tiny box with 4 seats and 4 beds that fold out of the wall. Luckily I ended up with Becky, a new college graduate from Colorado, and Robin and Manuel, 2 young Swedish guys who were very chill. We chatted a bit, wandered to the cafe car, got some sandwiches (unfortunately Robin and Manuel's hamburgers never quite got warm) and then went back to our box to listen to music and chat some more. No robbers stole our stuff, no one smelled too bad, and the travel toothbrush kit was excellent.
I woke up in Paris in the same clothes I'd been wearing for 24 hours with no shower and made my way to one of the nicer neighborhoods in Paris to check into our posh hotel (especially compared to the places I've been staying). Needless to say, they looked surprised to see me. Margeau's plane was delayed and the room wasn't going to be ready for an hour so I made my way to a cafe and began to observe the differences between Spain and France.
First, some men in France match their clothes/shoes/belts really well (see above). They also wear women's hair accessories (read: banana clips). Second, my biggest problem appears to be not only that I speak zero French (although I'm trying to learn some) but that I'm so used to speaking Spanish I automatically revert back to that. Also, Spain's (specifically Barcelona) metro beats France's metro in air conditioning, cleanliness and convenience while France beats Spain in ham and cheese. To be honest, we haven't found a bad (or even mediocre) bit of food in France. Incredible.
Once Margeau arrived we each showered, found out that, according to the hotel, we're married, admired the floral smelling elevators, and went for a walk toward the Luxemborg Gardens. After wandering for a while in a bit of drizzle we decided to make our way back to the hotel.
We stopped to check our map on a corner and were suddenly being approached, ON THE SIDEWALK, by a gentleman on a motorbike. He was probably around 40, very handsome, very well dressed, wearing a motorbike helmet. (Margeau named him Michel). I tried to move out of his way but he stopped in front of me and said something in French. I replied that I don't speak French. This did not sway him. He switched to English and said "do you want to go to a cafe with me?" I said no thank you. He said, "I understand your language...AMERICAN!" (Now please know that after struggling with Spanish for 2.5 weeks and now feeling completely lost in translation with French I am not making fun of his English ability. It was more the totality of the situation that was amusing).
Anyway, I smiled and agreed we were American and he said, "Do you have time for speaking with me?" Not knowing what to do, I turned to Margeau and asked if we had time for speaking with him. She said, "ummm, no?" And I turned to him and said, "no, we are just going back to our hotel." He asked again and, although he was remarkably good looking and the French accent is a weakness of mine, I chose not to try to match "Vicki Cristina Barcelona" with "Heather Margeau Paris."
We got back to our hotel and suddenly my cell phone stopped working. Margeau went and bought herself a calling card and, while we tried to plan dinner and I tried to fix my cell, Margeau discovered that neither of the 2 phones in our room (well, actually 3...1 in the bathroom we have not tried) really worked. One phone has 2 lines so if you need to enter a code or select an option on a call it either switches lines, places your call on hold or dials the police. On the other phone, the "4" button does not seem to work. Margeau gave up and I decided to attempt to fix my phone from the lobby, out the window, on the sidewalk, no luck. So from the hotel I called T-Mobile on their international toll free # (although I bet the hotel still charges me) as there was no "4" in that #.
The man I spoke with made me re-do everything I had already done to my phone. He then told me that I needed blackberry support, transferred me over, and I was told there was a 12 minute wait time. F-that. We went to dinner.
After dinner I called again (slightly drunk) and spoke to another man who, after I refused to go through all the same steps again, was kind enough to call my hotel back so I wouldn't be charged and transferred me to blackberry support. I waited 8 mins, a woman picked up...and I got disconnected.
I called back, I got transferred immediately to bb support and the woman put me through a multiple choice exam that was more painful than the LSAT but not as bad as the multi-state portion of the bar. It took forever. Then, I was transferred to someone else and he told me that other customers were having the same problem (you think someone could have told me that 3 calls earlier???) and it could take 9 days to resolve. F-that, I went to bed.
Luckily...the next morning we were back! 7 hours later, T-Mobile called me to tell me that my phone was working. Yeah...figured that out on my own.
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