Montréal...
My last day in Paris was stressful. I wish I had taken a picture of my rudiculousness. But, imagine: One suitcase, two bike bags, one bike, a backpack, and a bike box. But wait, each item has a story, so let's go there...
A few days before I left Paris, I headed to Montreuil, where there is a weekend marché aux puces. I had in mind an older suitcase to fit my smaller bike bags and clothing into, to make check-in at the airport easier. I went up on Saturday evening, just before it closed up, and wandered the stretch, and, as usual in Paris, chatting with the lonesomes. It's Paris, and it's a flea market, so everything was crawling. And you can buy pretty much anything here, from vintage clothing (nice stuff, but way too expensive. I recommend pawing through Free 'P' Star in the Marais--and thanks to Lucy for the recommendation), to sewing notions, old bikes, 'antiques' (if one stretches the definition...) I didn't find anything that night; instead I went to the giant Carrefour and bought 1.5L of Orangina--it had been a while since I'd indulged that addiction.
I went back early the next day and took my time. Military surplus? Nah. New, cheaply made, moderately inexpensive, rolling suitcases? Definitely not. At the end of the stretch, buried in the machine parts and the greasy antiques, I found what I was looking for. A green, faux leather suitcase. I found the guy selling it and asked the price. Ten euro. I handed him a ten euro note. 'You've got pretty eyes,' he said. 'Are you going on vacation?'
'No, I'm going back to Canada.'
'Oh! You're Canadian? Are you coming back to Paris?'
'Yeah, but I don't know when.'
'When you come back, come find me.' Then he handed me a two euro coin. 'Go have a coke on me.'
The bike box I got from Toy's Paradise, just up the street from my hostel on Jules Ferry Boulevard. It was 10 Euro, and, well, let's go back to my last morning in Paris.
So I put my new/old green suitcase on the rear rack, the bike bags on the side, the backpack on my shoulders, my purse over top of that, and the flattened bike box across my overloaded bike. It looked like a disaster. Then I started walking up to Gare du nord. It wasn't too bad, in fact it was easy, until I got to Gare du Nord. The Gare du Nord is a multi-leveled, multi-serviced train station. The metro, the SNCF and the RER all have terminals, all on different levels. I needed to descend, and, once I'd actually found the elevator--after dodging shakily all the arriving and departing streams of passengers--I discovered that boththe elevators were out of service. No info as to where to go to, just a desolée and maybe not even that. So then I found a guy collecting the bins who lead me around trying to find an alternative way down. He left me with directions to the service elevator, but when I asked the SNCF guys (perhaps I shouldn't have?), they told me there wasn't one. I didn't quite believe them, but one helped me down the stairs to the lower level, gave me a salute,and disappeared. Then I looked up and realised I had another level to go down to get to the RER. Long story short, it was getting late, and I was getting a headache.
Once I made it to Charles de Gaulle, I had to stand in line for the elevator there. The slowest, most over-used elevator in the world. This thing makes the staff elevator at the central branch of VPL seem like rocket ship. I must have been standing there for at least 25 minutes, and I'm sure the actual elevator trip was 15.
I found the general area in the airport I wanted to be in, then attempted to assemble my box. The box was in two pieces and gigantic. I didn't even have to take off both wheels to get the bike in, which was a bit of a blessing, because I was really struggling trying to get the pedals off. One came off easily enough, the other stayed on. Leaving the rear tire on meant my derailleur wasn't dangling and vulnerable. But at the British Airways counter, they decided the box was too big. So someone went off to find a ruler, then they had to measure the length and height, then call someone who had to check with someone else before I could get the go-ahead. Then it was extra to take the bike, but when I explained I had purchased my ticket a year ago and had brought the bike with me from Canada for free, they had to call someone else to decide what to do. Except the someone else was busy, so we had to wait for a call back. Meanwhile, I was certain my flight had already left the tarmac.
It hadn't. I met a couple in line at security who were panicking because their flight was leaving in 15 minutes. 'We thought we were leaving tomorrow!' I let them ahead of me, which didn't really make much of a difference, but anyway. I got stopped because of a can of tea in my backpack and had to unpack and then repack everything--man, the stress! When I got to my gate, the couple were on the same flight as me, and the flight had just started bording. Perfect timing.
One thing the debacle did do was firmly remove me from France. I was now in full airport mode, the calm of the last month and a half far behind me, the amour of Paris washed away by the sweat of stress. Forever in Heathrow, (security there parallels American security--full fascist mode) which is just a huge strip mall of WH Smiths and Harrods.
It was steamy and raining in Montréal when I landed. The dream was over, but it felt bizarre, dreamlike to be in Montréal. Not that Montréal was dreamy, but that I was in a fog. North America was under my feet, and Europe was just a postcard place and journalled memories...
No comments:
Post a Comment