Jan 10-11 2008,
I was in Paris for all of 20 minutes before I got into a fight that involved kicking, pushing, spitting and my favorite, junk grabbing. Something tells me Paris and I are not going to get along.
I met up with DC and her friend R at the train station before it left. At the ticket booth they got their stamp and went through. I was next but this strange woman, who didn’t understand the concept of lines, swooped in right next to me and almost - dare I say it -cut in front of me. You know I ain't having any of that shit (not sleep deprived and not if I was wide-eyed and bushy tailed). I stepped back in front of her. Eye to eye. “Excuse me!” A look of shock. I know I’m not invisible. The little man in the both smirked hoping for a fistfight because let’s face it, how exciting can working in a ticket booth be? But no. She just muttered an “Oh, you’re next?” And stepped back. Yes. Yes I was next.
So having set the rule early on in this trip that I was not to take any shit from anyone, I became the muscle. DC who organized the whole thing was the brain but lill R (who was even younger then DC, just barley legal) was the navigator. Her motto, ‘never be afraid to ask questions,’ got us places we needed to go.
On past security to the waiting area DC and I played catch up on our lives, having known each other since we were small, well since she was small, as she is few years younger.
The train ride was jarring. I had been awake for 24 hours, lost 5 hours from my life, only having to lose one more as we journeyed from London to Paris. Because we booked our tickets separately we all had to sit in different cars. Right away I encountered the language barrier. I have no French words in me and did absolutely no research into this trip. With so much else going on in winter break I just thought I’d show up and DC would have it all mapped out. Of course she did, however I forgot about the whole French thing. So the couple sitting next to me spoke no English (or just refused to) but using wild hand gestures we managed to come to an agreement that the assigned seats weren’t working because they had long legs and I wanted the window seat. Switches where made and we were set. The ride itself was a blur. It was night so there was nothing to see but scattered lights. I dozed in and out of sleep for the two and a half hour ride.
At the Nord station I found DC and R in the crowd, which is a good thing because my London cell didn’t work in Paris. At 12am in the morning, the station was deserted. For some reason DC was very anti taxicab. That meant us three girls, two with luggage and baby faces, me looking bitter and tired, wondered in search of help. Let me tell you we had many offers but one man actually showed us the information booth. We were told the French would lead us in the wrong direction but so far so good. We bought our ticket for the subway, after realizing we don’t know which train to take we went back to information and found out that our journey would include 3 different trains. Wonderful at 1am, with luggage and no idea of the language we are to do this how? Perhaps I should have said a taxi would be best but I was up for an adventure, or maybe I was delusional from being so tired.
That’s when my adventure really did begin though. Two men, well boys really, probably my age, headed to us at the entrance to the subway. I knew what they wanted. I let the girls go first then one of them comes and stands next to me pointing that I should go first. I say ‘no you’ and he in French insists I go. Finally I scream “Back off” he did but only as a ploy. I go in and he jumps in behind me trying to go through the gate with me, so he doesn’t have to pay. I stop, push him, kick him and scream. In return he kicks me back. I’m shocked! Oh no you didn’t, I thought. “Back off ass whole or I’ll cut off your dick!” and he does. So I walked away to join the girls who are both stunned. Some how the two guys get through the gate. Then lill R sees one of them coming towards me and screams at him “Stop!” which he does, not realizing I had company. The two follow us and scream French obscenities at me. The one kid grabs his crotch and says something dirty, I guess? Doesn’t work if I don’t understand you pal. His friend just spits like a camel. They looked like quite the pair, which made it hard to take them seriously. I half expected them to start throwing their feces around like apes but then I think oh right they’re French not German.
Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb stopped following us down the escalator and decided to spit on me instead from the railings above. They missed (it’s good for them that they did or I would have started WWIII.)
So we made our way, lost in the subway, over and under to 3 different trains. Finally, we made it to the hotel where the night desk clerk said there were no rooms for us. No check in past 12am. It was close to 1am. The panic and anger that surged through all three of us was apparent because after a beat he said with a huge laugh “I’m just kidding.” That immediately relieved the tension, realizing how bad it could have gotten but we all laughed (secretly wanting to do major harm to him) we headed upstairs to our tiny room. Then we noticed we had a balcony, not only that but this is what we saw from it.
Ah Paris we shall become friends yet.
Kafka’s Metamorphosis comes to life, like never seen before at the Lyric Theater. David Farr and Gishli Orn Gardarsson’s adaptation adds an over exaggerated element of physicality to the absurd poetic text of this 1912 novella.
