Holy Crap, I am an Idiot

Get ready for a long, long post. But knowing all the details of my life will be worth the time it takes you to read this, so read on.

What an unbelievable couple of days. If you’re a friend at all (or a blog stalker), you know that I was planning to fly to Chicago this weekend for an interview with Teach for America. My brother loaned me the money for tickets even though I don’t think I have much of a chance of getting accepted, especially after reading my horrible letters of recommendation. Still, I got this far and plan on trying to the end. My contract will be over soon and I want to travel in May without having to return to Nantes, so I packed up every damn thing I own and put it in a suitcase and big backpack. My room is completely empty right now, except for a pair of old shoes under my bed that I forgot to throw away. Of course, I couldn’t fly directly from Nantes because the tickets are too expensive. Instead, I took a pricey train to Paris and barely caught it. I dropped off all my junk in one of those luggage lockers and spent the night out with a pretty German girl who I’d met in Dublin and we walked around Paris, enjoying the city.

We first went to Shakespeare and Company, an English bookstore in the heart of Paris that attracts writers from all over the world and offers a free place to sleep (ie the floor) in exchange for a couple hours of work. I loved this place. It was chaotic with books stacked everywhere you looked, including on the stairs. Areas of the walls were plastered with handwritten or typewritten notes from nomad writers all over the world. Very cool place. Just as we were about to leave, someone with a good English accent asked if we wanted to stick around for a franco-anglais exchange that was scheduled. We stuck around for about an hour and chatted about a bunch of crap, including my home state of Texas. Some of them spoke English really well and some were difficult to understand, but it was cool to see all these people with real jobs and roots who were taking an initiative to practice other languages.

Unfortunately, we had to head out after about an hour because we had agreed to meet someone at cafe polyglotte (another language exchange) in a bar nearby. The cafe polyglotte in Paris is very different and much better than the one in Nantes. It’s not just for 2 languages, it’s for ALL languages. People from all over the world were there teaching each other a dozen different languages. Lots of pretty little girls, too. We were having a great time but my German friend brought up the fact that we should leave soon if we wanted to catch the last metro to the airport. Now, I wasn’t leaving until early next morning, but I figured I’d might as well stay in the airport because the public transportation wouldn’t be running early enough the next morning.

“Oh no, you don’t have enough time,” said some Frenchy. “The metro will close soon, and the airport is very far.” Well damn. We had to try anyway. First, though, we had to take a metro to the Montparnasse train station where I had absolutely everything in a locker. All of my luggage, which means every single damn thing that I own besides that old pair of shoes. We rushed over to the luggage lockers to find that they were gated shut. We looked around the entire room and found a small sign in the corner of one of the windows saying that it was closed until 7am, after my flight was scheduled to leave. “Maybe I can just leave all of my stuff here and go without it,” I said. No. I have nothing. My computer, my camera, my journal. My passport. My freekin passport.

I had to get in there. The train station was nearly empty at 1:00AM. I asked a cleaning man if I could get in, and he referred me to a help desk where he assured me I could get a key. Whew. I went to the help desk and they basically said, “damn, that sucks. You’ll miss your flight? Geez. Sucks. Oh you want us to do something? Noooo, we can’t do anything. Nobody has a key to that thing.” We talked with them for a bit longer and he took me to the Chef de la Gare, an incredibly sympathetic and friendly old man. He seemed genuinely sorry but assured me he had no key. He made a bunch of phone calls trying to help me and spent quite a while chatting with us trying to find a solution. His supervisor walked in and was very short with us. She said she was sorry but she wasn’t going to do anything because it was my fault for leaving it in there during closing hours (which it was, even though that sign was tiny) and because it was not urgent. “You left your passport and your ticket in there too? That wasn’t very smart, was it?” Actually, I thought it would be safer to leave my passport in a locker than in my pocket at a bar. Still, I had to agree. The woman left after shutting us down and offering no advice, but the man lowered his voice and leaned in as if to reveal a trade secret. “The janitors up here can’t help you because they’re separate from the downstairs lockers, but if you ask down there then they might have a key. They’re not allowed to let you in, but maybe they’ll be willing to help you out.” he said. “Maybe they’ll say they need the chef de la gare to come down. If they do, I’ll come down for you.” That’s exactly what we did, and that’s exactly what happened. Friederike shot up the stairs to get the chef who promptly put on his blue blazer and hat to accompany us to the lockers. I thought this was a miracle. These guys were bending over backwards to help some idiot tourist in the middle of the night.

The gate mechanically rolled open and I shot in, thanking them profusely. I insert my ticket happily to retrieve my bags when, to my horror, the wrong locker opened. They could do nothing anymore. I don’t know if I paid for the wrong locker or what, but my ticket opened up an empty locker above mine. I looked down at my feet in despair and noticed something. When I’d left my locker earlier that night, there was a large amount of a backpack strap sticking out of the door. It wasn’t there anymore. Immediately, I knew what had happened. The strap must have jammed the door and fooled me into thinking that it was actually locked. While I was drinking and learning chinese at cafe polyglotte, someone must have seen it and taken it. Everything. My computer. My camera. My passport, birth certificate, social security card. Everything. My heart sank, but I remained calm. “I’m really sorry,” the chef said. “There’s only one person who can open that locker, and he’ll get back at 7:00am. If I were you, I would just tell him that you lost your ticket and pay a small fee, because he won’t understand this long crazy story.” I took that to mean that he won’t understand my crappy French and agreed. Still, I knew in my heart that it was all gone.

Friederike felt terrible and accompanied me to the airport to cancel my flight. It was a long trip with little public transportation at night. We had to walk to a bus station that was far away and were lost. “Excuse me, how do you get to this bus station?” we asked a passerby. “Ah, that’s far. You should take the metro,” he said. “The metro? Is it running now?” “No no,” he told me. “That stopped running hours ago.” Thanks for the advice, friend. We eventually got to the airport around 4:00am and waited for the ticket booth to open so I could cancel my flight. They said I could go online to be reimbursed for a percentage of the flight. I assume that means a very small percentage. Bleh.

Around 7:00am we headed back to the train station. I probably spent over 100 euros over this night shuttling all over the city and paying for unexpected crap like a fee to open what I knew would be an empty locker. I got there and paid the fee. The locker man used some infrared device to try opening the locker. It wouldn’t work and showed an error message. He looked confused. After much effort the light finally turned green. You could hear dials spinning around for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, a click. He turned the knob and pulled open the door. I peered inside and saw my big orange backpack waiting patiently for me inside. How did the strap of my backpack get back in there? I have no idea, but not a thing was stolen. I immediately forgot my cancelled flight and was overwhelmed with relief. I was amazed at how calm and relaxed I was able to remain throughout the ordeal, sure that everything I owned including my identity had been stolen.

Friederike and I headed to the main terminal to grab a bite to eat and relax after a very nerve-wracking 12 hours overnight and no sleep. I pulled out my computer, still intact, to see if I could spend the day in Paris and leave for Chicago the next day. All the flights were about $1,400. No way I could go. Then BOOM. That’s right, BOOM. A flight with United appeared for $826 (about 50 less than my original ticket) and left in 2.5 hours. No problem, I thought. You should be at the airport for international flights 2 hours in advance and the airport is in the terminal next door. I used Shawn’s card to buy tickets yet again. “I have tickets!” I triumphantly announced to Friederike. “Great!” she said. “How are you getting to the airport?” I thought for a second. “Huh?… Oh.” I remembered then that I was not in fact in the airport train station, but another train station across the city. I think the lack of sleep and stress played with my head. “Crap, we have to run!”

I seriously ran, sweated, and stank the whole way. The train was a long ride and, when it finally arrived at the airport, I burst out of the doors and ran to the checkin line without a copy of my ticket. Luckily, it was no problem. They asked me all the normal questions and I answered all the normal answers. “You’re American?” she asked. “You speak like a French person.” I think it was more my BO that fooled her, but I thanked her nonetheless. Just kidding about the BO, French people. I love you. I ran to the gate and got on the plane 10 minutes before takeoff. Just enough time to tweet that I was Chicago-bound.

And that’s my story. I apologize if you didn’t like it.

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2. Tangier Bound
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