beinvenu à paris

One would likely assume a blog from Paris would include details of how wonderful the eiffel tower looks at night, and how great the wine and cheese taste as a picnic lunch in the champs elisees. This has not been my experience of Paris thus far: Instead my first impressions of this city were of a hospital. Stephanie, our travelling companion, arrived at London Heathrow airport sporting an unhealthy shade of green. It seemed as though something she ate had not been sitting well with her. Due to the fact that we had already booked our train tickets to Paris, she bravely decided that the show must go on! The poor woman braved a 7 hour flight, an hour on the London tube and 2.5 on the train to Paris, all the while she was growing more and more sick (aka throwing up quite frequently).
Upon arrival in Paris we stepped of the train and headed straight to security to ask for assistance. Now this seems to go without saying, but I’ll state it anyways… France is a French speaking nation!!! Now I was a French Immersion student in elementary school, but that was a long time ago, and I’m always shy with languages. I was hoping to be brave and order food, or ask directions or maybe even strike up a conversation, but I certainly was not intending to be promoted to the position of translator so quickly. Not to mention the fact that the medical care and well-being of my friend depended largely upon my ability to discern what was being said.
It ended up that Steph had food poisoning from something she ate before leaving Canada. I should add that she is doing much better now and is on the road to recovery. We have since headed to Eastern France and are staying in the home of a woman named Myriam who actually lived with my family in Canada for six months when I was four years old. It’s nice to be in a home with somewhat familiar faces after the trauma of the past couple days!

I’ve learned a number of things through this episode of my travels
- if you try to speak French most Parisians will respond to you in English
- don’t eat at Wendy’s before flying
- make sure you write home with all sorts of stories when describing your time abroad so people realize that travel comes with all sorts of successes, struggles and surprises:

Well I do believe that we have earned a great stay in Paris, and I’m sure we’ll appreciate it all the more when we head back there later this week.