The Arrival

Whew!  What a day!  As I write to you, I am COMPLETELY exhausted!!!  My trip consisted of one miracle after the other.  First, there was nobody beside me on the plane.  The flight was still rather miserable and I could hardly sleep, but I can’t imagine how terrible it would have been with someone sitting beside me.

           

        As I step onto the plane, I have never been so scared in all my life.  No one around me is speaking English. Even though I’m still in the US, I already feel like a foreigner.  Just as tears are beginning to well in my eyes, I hear a little voice to my right.  There’s a French girl (about 4 or 5) begging her mom to read to her and color with her—she is SO cute. 

I barely sleep and before I know it, we’re landing in Paris.  As we prepare to exit the plane, the captain warns us that the temperature in Paris is -4 C or 35 F.  Even his warning could not prepare me for the bitter cold that awaited me outside those doors.  Not long after I step off the plane, I realize that the airport is NOT heated.  I can see my breath in front of me.  As I wander around looking for customs, the cold continues to pierce through my body.  I find customs.  I am through the line and waved on in a matter of minutes.  No one searches me or by bags.  Bizarre, but a blessing.  I gather my bags and, to my delight, there are carts =).  I load up my bags and go in search of the train station.  I find a map and realize that I am in the wrong terminal.  So, I find the Airtrain and go to Terminal 2.  Once there, I keep following the signs for the train station.  Eventually, they stop and the train station is nowhere to be found.  After about 20 minutes of aimlessly wandering around in circles following signs that lead to nowhere, I find another map that tells me that the train station is on level 2 (I am on level 6—no wonder I can’t find it).

   

Once there, I loiter around for a bit looking for the bathroom.  I NEVER find it.  The bathroom signage is worse than that for the train station.  My plan to put on my long johns in an effort to warm up has officially been foiled. I decide to sit down and knit for a minute to clear my head (I have about 3 hours before my train leaves anyway).  The fierce cold on my bare finders soon becomes too much.  I put down my needles and put on my gloves.  The girl across from me stares at me unashamedly.  This seems to be happening a lot since I arrived in Paris.  Luckily, I spot an information booth.  I decide to be sure that my e-ticket will let me on the train (and I wouldn’t mind escaping the piercing stares of the girl in front of me.  Indeed my ticket is correct.  The lady is very friendly and also directs me to the money exchange booth.  My $200 quickly becomes 115 Euros and I feel poor.  My feeling of poverty increases when I discover that a Diet Coke is 2 Euros (about $3.50)!!!  Not wanting to return to my seat amidst a sea of stares, I decide to go in search of the bathroom again to apply my Cuddle Duds (I am, by this point, utterly freezing).  Once again, it is nowhere to be found and when I check my pocket to check the time of my train, my ticket is GONE!!!!  I am mortified, but I finally resolve to go back to the nice lady at the information desk to ask for her help.  I find that the staff has switched shifts and I stand face to face to face with (pardon my French) a Parisian bitch.  When the woman ahead of me tried to speak English with her, she just about bit her head off.  I, thinking myself ever wiser, speak French to her.  As it turns out, she is not grateful.  She all but yells at me when I try to explain to her what I need.  After screaming at me that she needs my passport and me telling her that there is no slot in which to place my passport for her to receive it, she begrudgingly cracks her window about 1 cm (just enough for the passport to fit through—heaven forbid she be exposed to the public).  She is mean, but she prints me another copy of my train ticket, which I tuck away safely this time. 

I find my train platform on the screen and mosey in that general direction.  As I step out onto the platform, I am horrified to discover that it is even colder than the station itself.  Even my gloves can’t save my hands from the piercing cold of Paris.  I again begin to well up with tears at my horrible transit experience thus far when, all of a sudden, Sugarland comes on the radio.  I don’t know what it is about this song, perhaps it is just hearing American Country English for the first time in what seems like forever, but I smile and regain my composure.       

                                

 My train finally arrives and I scramble on the platform trying to find my car.  I finally find it just seconds before the train begins to roll.  I find the baggage closet at the back of the train and make my way towards my seat.  I find my seat next to a middle-aged French man reading his Bible.  Another stroke of fate.  He is VERY nice to me (a relief after my experience in Paris) and I discover that he is also going to Angers.   I knit and sleep most of the way to Angers (to my delight, the train has heat =) ).  As we near the Angers stop, the man beside me rises and begins to gather his things.  I think it a bit premature at the moment, but soon wish that I had stood up with him.  Although the train was stopped for at least 10 minutes at all the other stations, it is only in Angers for about 3.  I struggle to open the baggage compartment at the back of the train.  A nice French man comes to my rescue and presses a magic button that reads “PRESS TO OPEN DOOR” which I overlooked in my panicked state.  He asks me where I am getting off and I hurriedly tell him, “Here!  In Angers”!  Horror spreads on his face.  He rushes me and my bags off the train just in the nick of time.  As soon as my left foot hits the platform, the train departs, the doors close, and I realize that I have just encountered another angel =)  I make my way downstairs (the elevator was conveniently not in service) and find the train station.  I am, by now, not surprised to find that it is also NOT heated!!!  I find a seat and begin to knit as I wait for my “maman” to arrive.  A sweet old man sits down beside me and begins to ask me questions about by knitting.  His presence reminds me why I am here—I can hardly understand a word that he says.  In any event, he is nice enough and eventually decides that I don’t understand him well enough to engage in a conversation of any value, and he leaves.   

I continue to knit until my “maman”, Corinne, arrives at the station.  She is NOTHING like what I expected.  She is probably in her mid 50’s and weighs about 90 pounds.  She is SUPER sweet and to my delight, she leads me to her CAR =) =).  We climb into the little European model sedan and take off.  We are home in about 5 minutes.  She lives on the 2^nd floor of her building (the 3^rd floor in America) and we take the elevator.  We enter her tiny apartment and she shows me to my room.  I am, by now, not at all shocked that her apartment is NOT heated.  There is a radiator in my room, which I assure you is JUST for looks.  There is also a small radiator that she keeps by the table for when we eat meals (it works =) ).  She gets me settled in and goes out to run a few errands.  I decide to take this time to shower and put on as many clothes as possible.   

Soon after I get out of the shower, she returns with her boyfriend, Fabrice.  He is a hoot and a half and a real jokester.  He speaks English and is displeased to find that I refuse to speak it with him.  It’s now our little game =)  I haven’t given in yet Dr. Mann-Morlet!!!  Fabrice shows me how to make some toast with different kinds of spread on it (once is some sort of black olive past, the other a pink fishy paste, and the third a guacamole paste).  After we make the toast, he insists that I arrange them on the plate in a way that is aesthetically pleasing (Nana!!!).  I do so and he is proud of my work.  My mom offers me beer of water to drink.  I accept the latter.  We sit down to eat our toast and Fabrice begins to correct the way I sit and eat at the table.  I am eating sitting upright (which is good), but I eat with one hand out and the other in my lap (just as cotillion taught me)—this is a big NO-NO in France.  En France, Fabric tells me, we place our forearms on the edge of the table, etc.  This continues all through dinner and my mom tells him to stop patronizing me.  He, of course, does not heed her advice and I affectionately name him Monsieur Manners =)  Amused by his new nickname and discovering my sense of humor, he begins to tell me dirty French jokes.  After each one, my mom warns me “these are vulgar; don’t repeat them dear”.  I vow not to repeat them and Fabrice gets to continue telling his “jokes”.  

            We eat soup; it is delicious.  Then, we eat quiche; it is also to die for; next, cheese and dessert.  My mom warns me that she won’t cook like this every day, so enjoy it.  Fabrice jokes her about being an old maid.  We laugh all the way through dinner and Fabrice pokes fun at my blunder of stating that Columbia’s population is 35,000 instead of 350,000.  I tell his that I was only missing a zero and he asks me if I have always had trouble with math.  He continue to joke and repeats what he knows about me to my mom: “so, thus far, we know that Sarah is from South Carolina, which is between Georgia and North Carolina; it’s very warm there and they have a population between 35,000 and 350,000”.  We all have a good laugh and Fabrice bids me goodnight.  During dinner, I also learn that my mom is a vegetarian and that she eats organically and that everything is “only about a 20 minute walk” from my apartment.    Translation—I’m going to be really thin when I get home.

            My observations of Angers thus far are as follows:  I will NEVER need my sunglasses (it’s so overcast that I can’t even see clouds), I will be wearing EVERYTHING that I own every day, my mom is super sweet (and I like Fabrice okay too), the people are friendly, and that the French know what’s good coffee (even if it is instant).