Level 1: Searching for Dante. Push your way through the crowds at Gare du Nord to find the Hertz office (along with other rental agencies) in a subterranean catacomb. Take an elevator further down; descend a flight of stairs to find your car wedged in a stall with 2 inches to spare on either side. The lighting is dim, the cavern walls damp. Crawl across the gear shift to the driver’s side, wriggle the car out of the space, trying not to ride the clutch. You have completed the novice qualifying round!
Offer the keys to your son-in-law who has spent the last week driving a stick-shift through the Spanish Pyrenees and has a fearless attitude. He accepts the challenge and agrees to complete the course.
Level 2: The Corkscrew. Follow the exit signs to a circular ramp with such an incredibly tight screw that, for five levels, walls on both sides are scarred by the paint of past vehicles trying to escape: black, gray, blue and blood red scrapes reflect the screaming curses of previous drivers. You creep out unscathed amid cheers and adulation from the passengers in the back seat!
Level 3: The Street Market. Debouche (we’re practicing French!) into a traffic jam; make a wrong turn and end up in the middle of a market. The sliver of street has parked cars on one side; stalls of fruits and vegetables, handbags and scarves on the other. Vendors hawk their wares in strident pleas. An elderly woman, back bent into a question mark and wearing a frayed pink cardigan staggers in front of your car while pulling her trolley of groceries home. You do not hit her!
Cars, bicyclists and motor scooters clog the road. You try shortcuts, have no clue where you’re going. Your co-pilot pulls out the GPS.
Level 4: The Peripherique and the By-ways. Take advantage of the straight-away and catch your breath. Six lanes of organized traffic bring your heart beat back to normal. You stop for lunch and to smell the roses at a roadside rest. You dawdle through beautiful small towns in Normandy. It’s easy driving. Where’s the NASCAR challenge?
Level 5: Pick Up Speed. Resume the challenge when you return to Paris on the Peripherique. You need to buy gas or pay a $225 fee to Hertz. Catch a glimpse of a gas pump icon on an exit to Place de la Porte Maillot– zoom across five lanes of traffic and swerve on to a city street. Brake quickly as you find yourself in the Bois de Boulogne, traffic inching along in stodgy lanes. Old men sit on benches; children squeal in the playground. It is rush hour, but no one is rushing in the Bois. No gas station is to be seen. You do not lose your temper!
Level 6: Pit Stop. Circle back to the Place. Ask a gendarme for directions to the gas station. He says to go straight on and then descend into an underground parking area that also vends gasoline. Miss the turn, circle back … plunge down the chute to the unvented parking garage filled with gas fumes. Fill the tank, then realize that the exit is a 45 degree uphill plane. Slam the car into gear, flatten the gas pedal and pray. You spurt out into the oncoming traffic that miraculously swerves around you!
Level 7: Final Triumph. Shoot along the Avenue de la Grande Armee. Undisciplined traffic bucks and plunges alongside the rental car as you circle the Arch of Triumph, holding the inside like a good racehorse. A bicyclist looks scornfully at your hand-held GPS as he dares you to hit him. Dodging scooters and delivery trucks, you dare a purple Mini Cooper to challenge your progress; she backs down with a look of dismay at being bested by a tourist.
Your breath becomes quick and shallow; you focus on speed, crevices in the traffic, and screech out of the circle – the exit to Avenue de Friedland, the final straight-away to Gare du Nord and the Hertz return. You cruise through the last stretch. After a quick left and then an immediate right into the station, the checkered flag is waved!
The Winner and CHAMPION with no scrapes, no dents, no penalties, no deaths!
We are ensconced in our apartment in Montmartre, with its incredible view of the Sacre Coeur and the rooftops of Paris. At night music and cigarette smoke drift through the open balcony doors from the Square de Willette seven floors below. Like Owen Wilson in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, I am quite sure that Hemingway, the Fitzgeralds and Sartre are driving about the streets, and I will run into them around the next corner!
The apartment is everything that it was advertised to be on the Vacation Rentals by Owner Website (VRBO). We have two bedrooms, a separate water closet, a dishwasher, and even a washing machine! But what we didn’t have was an extra supply of wine glasses for entertaining our family. Since the apartment had been recently refurbished with IKEA home design, we decided to buy some matching glassware. The nearest IKEA was in Roissy, at the Parc des Expositions. We felt very global – Americans searching out a Swedish store in France. But getting there without a car was the challenge!
We consulted the Website for public transport directions: first a Metro, then a train, then a local bus. We’re Metro pro’s now, so we were soon at Gare du Nord, one of the major train stations. Buying a train ticket presented the first predicament – the automatic machines took only coins, and we had bills. After fierce negotiations with the official at the Bureau de Change whose job, he reiterated emphatically, was to exchange foreign currency NOT Euro’s, we emerged victorious having traded our Euro paper for Euro coins. We popped our money into the machine, and out popped two tickets.
To Go … or Not to Go?
Looping our way through the throngs, we arrived at the designated platform. A train was waiting … but was it ours? As we puzzled through the list of stations searching for “Expositions,” the warning bell rang. To go … or not to go… that was the question!
Passengers crowded forward. The bell rang again, and the doors began to close. We shrugged, and with inches to spare, we leaped aboard. What did we have to lose? If the train wasn’t going where we wanted to go, we could just get a return ticket at the “unknown destination.” Or, if the unknown destination turned out to be fun, perhaps we would buy a toothbrush and stay there for a day or two!
The train interior was utilitarian, with plush seats worn to a hard glaze. Outside, the cinder track beds ran alongside each other; power lines rusted overhead. I thought of black/white movies of troop trains going through a gray and rain-soaked Europe, but the houses along the track had colorful window boxes behind the hedges and shutters thrown wide to catch the afternoon sun. I wondered how they had looked when my uncles were part of the liberation in 1945.
How Do You Say IKEA?
After screeching stops at various stations, the train surprisingly halted at Parc des Expositions! We scrambled out of our seats and on to the platform. The Website had suggested bus number 640 or 23; each had its own bay and we settled uneasily between the two, ready to board quickly when one or the other arrived. Bus 640 rolled in and I approached the driver, “Est-ce quec’est l’autobus du magasin …?” I hesitated. How do you say “IKEA” in French? I substituted. “…du magasin de la Suede? …Does this bus go to the store from Sweden?” The driver grinned. “Oui, madame. Cet autobus va EYE-KEY’-AH” . It sounded like the IKEA in Minneapolis, Houston, Denver, and probably in Sweden as well! He made sure we got off at the right stop.
Far more confident and many Euro’s less, we returned by bus, train and metro to the apartment … bearing wine glasses and other impulse purchases. We were impressed with ourselves – especially with our spontaneous decision to jump on the train to nowhere at the last minute! If we had ended up on the Riviera or in the Dordogne Valley, we would have bought toothbrushes. We have all the time in the world … or at least six more weeks!
We filled our glasses, stood on the balcony and saluted the Sacre Coeur with a good chardonnay!
“You ride the Metro?!” Parisian friends had been aghast that we would be so common, but then fearing they had offended us quickly modified their stance. “Well, I guess it works very well for tourists and students to get around Paris.” It also works very well for those of us who have decided to live the life of a Montmartre local for two months.
With photos in hand we stood in line behind 30 or so others at the ticket/information booth at Gare du Nord .Only one attendant was on duty; we marveled aloud at his patience as he sold train tickets to London, answered questions about Metro connections, explained the value of Euros, sympathized with a couple who had missed their train to Amsterdam. The blonde university student behind us in the queue listened to Perk and me chatter, and then asked in broken English why we had the photos. We explained about the month’s pass.
As the queue wound slowly forward, Perk worked with her to figure out which would be the most economical package for her three-week stay in Paris. (You know how he LOVES numbers!) She decided on the month’s pass, but needed to get her picture taken. At least thirty more people had joined the queue behind us. She pondered. Were the savings worth losing her place in line?
“You get your picture taken, and we’ll save your spot,” we volunteered. The students behind her agreed to the plan and she loped toward the nearby kiosk.
Soon she was engaged in an argument with a uniformed agent. He kept shaking his head forcefully, “No, No, NO!” She kept arguing, gesturing toward Perk and me. “Yes, Yes, YES!” The uniform eyed us suspiciously as she kept talking. What was she telling him? Why did he keep looking at us? Did he think we were smugglers, terrorists? Had he seen Perk’s picture?
The ticket line moved forward as they argued. Only two groups were ahead of us. Finally he shrugged, and she dodged into the photo booth; the uniform continued to watch us closely.
Within minutes and pictures in hand, she jumped into line behind us. The agent grimaced and moved away.
“Thank you,” she gasped. “The kiosk attendant wanted to work on the machine. He said he would take 30 minutes. I said, ‘No, I must have my picture taken NOW.’ He argued.
“Adorable” in the US. “Gentille” in France. Either will do.
I am going to Paris for two months with only one suitcase (thanks to the washing machine in the apartment we’ve rented). When my in-laws visited us, they drove a station wagon from Memphis to Minneapolis because my mother-in-law Mary brought everything in her closet!
Although I adopted Mary’s philosophy enthusiastically, we scaled it down a bit and usually traveled with two suitcases for me, two for each of the children, two for Perk – plus assorted carry-on pieces – a tour group’s worth of baggage for four people. Of course we brought most of the clothes home unworn, but we always had everything we needed!
And then I ran into an uncooperative airline agent. After a business trip to Malaysia and Hong Kong (and after too many non-business trips into the local markets) I was heading home with suitcases strapped shut. Airline baggage restrictions had changed, but I hadn’t changed my habits.
From that day forward, I weighed my luggage wih a handheld scale that lets me know if I’m going to run into any overwieight luggage problems. AND I vowed to have plenty of room in my suitcase for new items by taking less to begin with!
Take less; bring more home!
I created a travel planner that has made my vagabond life much easier! I enter the activities that I think I might be going to do each day; I choose the clothes and shoes that I might wear, and add them in the grid. Then I consider what I could possibly wear twice, and cut my list in half; I transfer the clothes into the bottom half of the planner for packing purposes… and voila! I can usually cut another third off the list when I see that I planned to take three black sweaters when I only need one (or maybe two). I know that I have done a great job of planning when I return home and drop my suitcase by the washing machine because everything in the bag needs laundering!
The best part is that if I don’t have what I need, I “have” to go shopping. And whether I need those hand-stitched shoes and pewter vases or not, I now have plenty of room for them in my suitcase!
Save time, save space, save money! Download the free and editable Cyndee Perkins basic travel planner from Google docs.
One of my favorite playthings was a table-top wooden map of the US, with each state cut separately and painted a bright color – the better to distinguish it from its neighbors. I loved putting the map together, hearing the slap of wood against wood as I plunked the states into place in the frame.
I always started with the easiest piece, Florida’s dangling peninsula; it was bright orange – a perfect color choice since oranges came from there. Blue California next to the ocean was second, then butter-bright Texas with its yellow roses. One-by-one I slipped the states next to each other until I had a paint-palette of geography. One day I overheard my mother and a friend discussing the Arizona desert. NOW I understood why the Arizona piece was tan!
South Dakota was deep green, of course – thick grass grew in our yard, leaf canopies shaded our house, and July’s knee-high corn covered the fields outside of town. Yes, the South Dakota puzzle piece was a satisfying, lush, expected green.
How long before we got to Iowa?
How far away would we be before I could see it?
How much further did we have to go?
Was it over the next hill?
My parents were confused; Iowa was not a big deal. Why was I so excited? And sunglasses? I watched cornfields go by, regularly punctuated by the dwindling mile markers – Five miles to go, Four, Three – I was bouncing in my seat! Two, One!
“Here it is!” my mother exclaimed, looking at me expectantly … and I burst into tears.
The key to traveling anywhere in the world is simply to love the experience. I got over that Iowa was disappointingly green. I had a wonderful time riding the horses, picking berries and wading in the Chickasaw Creek. Since that fateful trip, I have learned a lot of travel lessons, most of which have been a result of making the wrong assumptions, not following directions, or just being too eager to jump into the middle of things.
When I have unrealistic expectations about a travel adventure, I’m likely to be disappointed … but as soon as I “get over it,” I have a great time!