A Comedy of Errors

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2003-09-09
Mapquest

5:39 p.m.

I guess that I really should make an amendment to the earlier entry. I know that I give plenty of reason for people's general disbelief that has accompanied their knowledge that I, Cari Anne Goulard, would attempt something so extraordinary as going abroad to study for a year in another country, and one of which I have a limited grasp of the language. I know that you're all wondering how I have so far managed to find my way around, much less survive so long in Strasbourg without falling into the canal, getting run over by the tram (which almost happened), losing my passport, locking myself out of my flat, and any other number of dumb things that I tend to do. But yes, I was almost run over by the tram the other day, which I forgot to mention. I had just climbed off one and was going around it and tripped and nearly fell in front of another one. Oops. So, there you go, proof that while I may have managed to make it this far, I'm still the same ol' clumsy me. ;) So much for becoming sophisticated in France!

1:39 p.m.

Apparently, I gave off the impression with my Paris entry that I had blithely hopped on the metro without so much as glancing at a map, without trying to figure something out, without even getting my own bearings. I think what scares me most is that some of you really and truly seem to think that I would actually do that. I know that I come across as clueless and that if I got lost in my own office at work, you would not be that surprised. Oh dear. Maybe my wide-eyed innocence ploy has worked too well. Even here; for some reason, people are under the idea that I am a nice person. Go figure. I am doing my best to disabuse them of that notion. ;)

When I travel, spontaneously or not, I carry as many maps with me as possible, and the first thing I do is look at maps whenever I get somewhere. I am a firm believer in maps and trails and such. Two people who are not are Paul and Debbie, who get lost going to downtown Houston, but for them, sometimes getting lost is the fun part because then you have to figure your way out.

So, when I arrived in Paris, the first thing that I did was look at the maps that I had, including my guidebook. Then, I checked out the three maps on the wall. They were all different, but all had pretty little pictures depicting the famous sites, so as long as you knew what the Eiffel Tower looked like, you could find it, even if you couldn't figure out that it was called le Tour Eiffel. The problem was that Napolean's tomb is located in some church-type building, and known by another name, and not a pretty little picture on the map. Nick didn't know it, so how was I supposed to know? What he told me, exactly, was "I don't know. I walked there." and did NOT tell "I flew into Orly. I took a bus to the city center, and walked to it from there." I didn't know Paris at all, so for all I knew, it could be next to Charles de Gaulle airport, which is where he was originally flying into, until he decided to get on the one to Orly at the last minute. Admittedly, what I really should have done was send him somewhere that was famous, and was on the map, like the Louvre, which is where we ended up meeting, anyway.

There you go. I'm not completely witless, just mostly. ;)

Now here is a time when being a "dumb American" actually paid off for me. On the train to Paris, I had forgotten to get my ticket punched. Why you have to do that, I really don't know. Anyway, there's a decent fine for not doing that. I knew I was supposed to do it, but forgot. When the conductor came by to check it, I played that I was asleep. That didn't work so I gave him my ticket. He looked at it and was about to hand it back to me when he noticed it wasn't punched. He said something in very fast French, and I said, "pardonez-moi". He said, "Ahhh, anglais" and then proceeded to explain to me about punching the ticket; "You need to, er, punch ticket. There is, er, orange box, little. You put ticket in, it punches, er, stamps." To emphasize, he made stamping motions with his hands. I just used my apparently very effective wide-eyed innocent look and kept saying "I'm sorry" and "okay", and in English, too, as sort of proof that I really was just a simple American who didn't know anything. It worked!

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