Journal 11/15, Part 2: Trouble in Paradise

I know this is supposed to be Part 2 of the 11/15 journal, but I didn't get to finish writing it yesterday, so here it is on 11/16. Let's not get hung up on the minor details. 

You can't live in France for seven months without going to Paris at least once; it's just a rite of passage. And no, the airport doesn't count. So, I made sure to check this off my list right off the bat with the first vacances, and Paris was my third destination after Barcelona and Marseille.

Paris itself wasn't necessarily bad—it was certainly better than New York City—so I wouldn't say I regret going in the first place, but dear god, I wish it had gone so, SO much differently.

Trouble started as soon as I emerged from the train station. I FaceTimed my mom while I waited outside for EG, and during this phone call my mom reluctantly shared some devastating news: my great-grandmother was going on hospice. I cried after I hung up, pulled myself together when EG arrived, then started crying again in the Uber on the way to the hotel. 

Check-in time was at 11:00 PM, but we didn't get to the hotel until about 11:10, so we were scared they would turn us away, but I called the front desk and they said not to worry, someone is there all night and could check us in a little late. Now, the thing with this hotel.... I'm the one who picked it out, and to be honest, I have NO idea how the heck I decided on it. I remember looking for something that was equidistant from the Eiffel Tower and the Catacombs, because those were our two major destinations, and I guess I picked this hotel because it fulfilled that requirement, but it wasn't even IN Paris: it was in Fresnes, which is a 30 minute drive outside of the city. I ended up spending almost my entire travel budget JUST on Ubers to and from the hotel. I don't know what I was thinking, but choosing the Ibis Budget Hotel Fresnes was definitely a major mistake and I regret it a lot.

Another regret (and there are plenty more of them to come) was not booking a ticket for the Paris Catacombs the day they went on sale. You can only buy tickets one week in advance, and I was vigilantly keeping an eye on their availability, but somehow, for a reason I don't remember, I waited a couple days before buying my ticket. A group of us TAPIFers had agreed to go together on the 29th, but when I went to buy my ticket for that day, they were completely sold out. In fact, the next available timeslot wasn't until November 1st. I would have been less upset about this change of plans if EG hadn't already bought her ticket for the 29th like we all originally agreed. The tickets are non-refundable and can't be exchanged for another time, so poor EG had to go by herself. CL had also just arrived in Paris, so I went with her to the Panthéon while EG did her solo Catacombs trip. There were a lot of really famous tombs in the crypt, including Victor Hugo. I should have brought a copy of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame or Les Misérables with me for a photo op. 

Afterwards, we reunited with EG and went to the Eiffel Tower, because you can't say you've been to Paris if you haven't seen the Eiffel Tower. A few other assistants happened to be in the area, too, so we met up with them as well and took our fill of touristy photos. Maybe this is just because, as I stated in my previous entry, I'm not big on architecture, but to be honest, I wasn't super impressed by the Eiffel Tower. It was just, I don't know... A tower. But again, seeing it at least once is a necessity, so I'm glad I was able to check it off my list. I enjoyed it much more at nighttime, since it was lit up and sparkled every hour. Everything looks prettier when it's sparkling. I told myself I wouldn't buy any of the cheesy souvenirs all the shady vendors had laid out on blankets every five feet around the Eiffel Tower, but I ended up buying a little Eiffel Tower that lights up rainbow colors, because it was only 5 euros and the guy threw in a free rose gold Eiffel Tower keychain. CL also got a light-up Eiffel Tower, but instead of rainbow lights, hers sparkles like the tower actually does, which is more accurate than the rainbow lights; but hey, rainbows!

At some point during the night, CL and I got separated from the other assistants (I forget if this was planned or not) and walked around the Tower by ourselves for a while. We found a carousel nearby, and because we are mature adults, we rode on it. I just love the whimsy of a carousel. I also bought roasted corn from some guy selling it for 2 euros, and it did not taste good, but it was worth it just to say I bought corn in front of the Eiffel Tower. Because I mean, it's cown!!!! 

So, that was a good day. The next day, October 30th, was when things started to suck again.

About two weeks earlier, EG and I had both purchased tickets for Parc Astérix, dated for October 30th, so we could enjoy their Peur sur le Parc Halloween event the day before the big holiday. Tickets were 46 euros and non-refundable. CL and another assistant, AR, wanted to join us, but tickets were sold out for the day. Somehow, though, CL's dad was able to find them two tickets through a third party website. A little suspicious, but yay! So, the four of us order an Uber and head off to the park. Apparently it was an hour away from our hotel, which is WAY farther than I'd thought; I remembered keeping the distance to Parc Astérix in mind when I chose the hotel, and Google Maps said it was only about 30 minutes. Apparently I was somehow just totally wrong about how far every single destination was from our hotel when I booked it. I really do not understand how I messed up so badly, but at least there were four of us to split the cost of the Uber.

About an hour later, we arrived in Plailly... and the exit that led to Parc Astérix was closed. Okay, so we'd have to take a detour; whatever, not a huge deal. Except then a police officer approached the window and told the driver that it's not just the exit that's closed: it's the park. The park was too full and so they stopped admitting people for the rest of the day. Keep in mind this was around 1:00 PM, and the park was open until 6:00 PM. We tried explaining that we already bought tickets, but they didn't care: they said we could use those tickets for a different day, except I had a dated ticket that explicitly says it CANNOT be used on a different day. There was no mention of a refund.

To say I was devastated is an understatement. Words can't express how much I love Halloween: it's my favorite holiday by far, and I always celebrate it in the biggest way possible. It's not very widely celebrated here in France, so the only options for a "big" Halloween were basically Disneyland or Parc Astérix. I had originally planned on going to Disneyland, but ultimately decided tickets were too expensive and chose Parc Astérix instead. I should have just gone with Disney in the first place! It would have been better to spent 100 euros and actually get to go to the park than to straight up waste 46 euros. I genuinely do not understand how they could just turn away people that already had tickets! And what's the point of selling tickets in advance if that doesn't guarantee you entry to the park?? I was pissed, disgusted, and heartbroken all at once. I literally couldn't speak for at least half an hour. 

EG told the driver to take us to Chantilly, because we were fairly close to there and that's where she lives. I had wanted to visit her there eventually, because it seems like a lovely little town and they have horses, but I was too depressed to enjoy the unexpected side trip. The worst part was that I was wearing my special Halloween outfit (left) that I'd purchased from Spirit Halloween specifically for this occasion. Now, in the US, I would happily wear this outfit anywhere on any day in October; but in France, where Halloween is just a fad that never really caught on to begin with and is continuing to lose popularity, I looked like an absolute clown. The outfit would have been fun and festive in a cartoon-themed amusement park, but in public, on the streets of a small town? I was mortified, and didn't want anyone to look at me. 

My hopes were lifted for a brief moment when I saw that the Chantilly Château was having a Halloween event... except it was sold out. So, we explored the castle, but with nothing Halloween-y about it. It was a really nice castle, but I was pretty miserable the whole time. Although, I did at least appreciate that the owner of the castle REALLY loved dogs: there were dog statues and paintings EVERYWHERE. Here's just one example out of many: 

After the castle, we took a train back into Paris. CL and AR went to see a play they'd bought tickets to (even if we had been able enter Parc Astérix, they were going to have to leave early), and EG and I looked for a bar. I'm really not a fan of alcohol, and I drink it extremely rarely, but I was feeling so sorry for myself that I actually wanted to go drinking. EG found a place nearby called Player One... And call me dramatic, but this bar literally saved my night. I loved it so much I even wrote an article about it. I won't repeat myself here, but it was SO much fun. They were also completely decked out for Halloween, so I felt much less out of place. In fact, when I left my friends (CL and AR had joined us after their play) to go get some nachos at the bar, a man from London said I looked adorable and offered to buy me a drink. I've only been to a bar maybe twice in my life, so it's not a big deal to say that this was the first time a man had offered to buy me a drink; however, as far as I know, a man has never even flirted with me in my entire life, so that interaction really did wonders for my self esteem. I didn't come to Paris looking for romance, though (boring, I know), so I let him pay for my nachos and add me on WhatsApp and then I rejoined my friends downstairs. I want to go back to Paris just for Player One.

We ate dinner at a burger place (aptly named Burgers & Fries), then headed back to the hotel, where CL and AR had also booked a room. I'm glad we were all in the same place, but I feel really bad that they joined us somewhere that was so out of the way. I know I've already said this, but I have no idea how I picked such a bad location after doing such intensive research.

The next day was my favorite day of the whole year: October 31st, Halloween. Feeling motivated by how Player One had managed to turn my day around yesterday, I was determined to enjoy the holiday to the fullest. Over the summer, my mom and I had gone to Paranormal Cirque and I bought a plague mask, so I brought that with me since it was easier to pack than a whole Halloween costume. I also bought a spiderweb headband at HEMA in Amiens to add to the look. I wore a black dress that I had worn to a funeral last year (morbid, I know; sue me) and black boots that I'd bought in Barcelona after I realized there were holes in the soles of the boots I brought with me. I called the costume a "plague widow." I would also like to note that the coffee I'm drinking in the picture to the right is the best coffee I've EVER had. It was caramel coffee out of a machine they had in the lobby of the hotel. You could choose your level of sugar, and I chose 5/5, and had at least one cup every day we were in Paris. As far out of the way as the hotel was, it was almost worth it solely because that coffee was so freaking delicious.

I originally wanted to go to the Catacombs on Halloween, but as I mentioned before, they were sold out, so instead we went to the zoo, which was having a Halloween event of their own. Tickets were discounted if you wore a costume, but I found out that the discount I get with my pass d'éducation was actually better; it was still fun to wear the costume there, though, especially since I was able to pose with other birds and get pictures like the one here on the left. CL and I got separated from EG and AR almost immediately, so we spent pretty much the whole day together. There were little events scheduled throughout the day, and we made sure to stop by all of them, but they were definitely tailored just for children, so although CL and I are youthful enough to love a carousel ride, we knew that these little skits were not intended for us. Still, the whole park was decorated for Halloween, which was really cool to see, especially knowing how unpopular Halloween is in France. 

I didn't know that there was a sloth at this zoo, and since sloths are my second favorite animal after goats, I was SO happy to see one unexpectedly. I'm pretty sure that was the first time I saw a sloth in real life, too! There were no goats, but there were two people dressed like fauns (goatmen) at one of the little events, and one of them took CL's phone while she was recording a video of them. Even though they were there for the children, most of the kids in the audience just started crying when they saw them, which I confess I found absolutely hilarious. On a much less hilarious note, CL and I witnessed a male baboon attempt to rip a baby baboon in half, which was the most horrifying thing I've ever seen outside of a movie. The mother baboon won the tug-of-war with the baby and ran off with it, so I don't know if it's okay or not. I even captured the awful moment on video.

The zoo closed at 5:00 PM, and we stayed all the way until then. Afterwards, we looked for any restaurants with Halloween decorations for dinner, and ended up at a place called Bistro du Commerce. CL and I both ordered beef bourguignon because it was perfect weather for stew, but we should have ordered what AR got: truffle raviolis. She let us try a bite, and it was HEAVENLY. The waiter was really friendly and accommodating, too, so when I come back to Paris for Player One I'll have to stop here again, too, and get those raviolis. I hope they don't change their menu before then. Also, instead of going house-to-house, the handful of kids that actually go trick-or-treating in France stop at participating stores and restaurants for their candy, and this bistro was one such participant. I asked if I was allowed to trick or treat since I had a costume on, and they actually let me! I only took a single piece of candy, but that's more trick-or-treating than I expected to do, so I was stoked.

At 9:00 PM, the four of us had tickets for a walking tour similar to the one CL and I did in Barcelona. We covered a lot of ground and learned a lot of history, but unfortunately our guide was really hard to understand, and the tour was super disorganized in the beginning so it got a late start. My favorite part was, believe it or not, probably when we stopped in front of the rat poison store that was in Ratatouille. I actually don't remember that scene, but the tour guide pulled it up on her phone to compare, and yup, that store sure was in the movie. I had CL take pictures of me flipping off the dead rats in my plague mask, because, you know, rats carried the plague; I need her to send them to me, though. 

Happily, and maybe even miraculously, my Halloween in Paris was a blast. I had no idea that in less than 24 hours, everything would go to hell.

Even though I couldn't make it to the Catacombs on Halloween as planned, I was able to snatch a spot at 1:15 PM on November 1st. My train to London wasn't until 4:15 PM, and the Catacombs would only take about an hour to walk through, so I figured that was plenty of time. I checked out of the hotel, said goodbye to EG and CL (AR had left early in the morning so we said our goodbyes the night before), and headed into the Catacombs alone. It was a surreal experience. There are so. many. bones. Like, I know in my head that there are hundreds of years' worth of bones stacked in there, but to actually see them was mind-boggling. Every time I turned a corner, I thought, "This has to be the last of them," but they NEVER. STOPPED. And several passages were blocked off from the public, which means there were even MORE bones than what I saw. My brain could not process that these were real bones from real corpses of real people that had lived as long ago as medieval times. The way that they were organized in the same tidy pattern over and over and over felt disturbingly unnatural. I took pictures of every single wall of bones I saw, all of those pictures probably look almost identical.

Unfortunately, I'll never know for sure, because I no longer have any of those pictures. Why? Well, because about an hour after I emerged from the Catacombs, someone stole my cell phone.

Here's what happened. After the Catacombs, I retrieved my suitcase and laptop case from the luggage storage where I'd left them, then walked to the nearest metro station, from which I would take a metro to Gare du Nord, where I would catch my train to London. I bought my metro ticket and followed the signs for the line that Google Maps said would take me to Gare du Nord. I believe it was line 4. I waited under a sign that said 4 (or whatever number it was) with an arrow pointing down, assuming that this arrow meant that train would arrive there at that platform. At exactly 3:05 PM, I sent my mom a text to let her know I was getting on the train soon, and when the train pulled up, I put my phone in my coat pocket and got on the train. Just to make sure I was in the right place, I looked at the map inside the train itself, and realized right away that Gare du Nord was not one of the stops, so I hurried off the train before the doors closed. And in the two seconds I took my hand out of my pocket to adjust my suitcase, someone stole my phone.

I didn't realize it was gone right away. I figured out that the downwards arrow meant that my desired train was downstairs, so I went down the stairs (fortunately there weren't many, because my suitcase was huge and heavy), and I found the correct platform right away. I stuck my hand in my coat pocket, and didn't feel my phone. No worries: I also had an umbrella and a beanie stuffed in that pocket, so it was probably just under or between them. I took out the umbrella; still no phone. Weird. I took out the beanie, and it wasn't in or under that, either. Okay... Maybe I'd actually put it in my other pocket. Nope, that was empty. Jeans pockets? No way, I knew better than to EVER put anything in my pants pockets in Paris, because I know how prolific pickpocketing is. (Ironic, right?) I knew I hadn't put it in my shoulder bag, but I unzipped both pockets and checked there just in case. Nope. Not in my laptop case or suitcase either, which I knew, but I was getting desperate. At this point, my brain still wasn't thinking "stolen"; I just thought I must have dropped it. So I retraced my steps and scoured the ground. Nothing. That's when the panic started to sink in. I double and triple checked every single pocket on my body, and then I ran back up to the main entrance to look for a security guard or someone to help me. I didn't see anyone, so I went to the ticket booth and told the person there that I lost my phone somewhere in the station. Instead of sending someone to help me look, they just looked annoyed and told me there was a police station nearby, and basically shooed me away. I retraced my steps again, dragging my suitcase up and down all those stairs, to no avail. 

Eventually, I ended up back at the main entrance. By that point, I was fully having a panic attack: my first one since arriving in France. Lost and hyperventilating, I stumbled outside, and then I broke down sobbing. A young woman in a young vest that said "Amnesty International" approached me and asked what happened. There was an Amnesty International club back at my college, and that branch was mostly concerned with stopping gun violence, but that was all I knew about the organization. Still, the woman seemed trustworthy, and I was horrified and confused and alone, and I told her that I lost my phone in the station. I told her that my mom might be able to track it from her phone using Find My Device or Life360, and that I could call my mom on FaceTime. The woman didn't have a Facebook account, so she asked one of her colleagues if he had one, but I told her that I had my laptop so if the train station had WiFi, I could call my mom from there. It did in fact have WiFi, so I went back inside, sat on the floor, booted up my laptop, sent my mom a frantic Facebook message, and then FaceTimed her. She was at work, but thankfully she saw my message and was able to step out and answer my call right away. I told her what happened, she told me to stay calm, and then minimized the call so she could pull up Life360 and Find My Device. She sent me the GPS coordinates, which said my phone was still within the train station.

To be honest, I have no memory of exactly what happened next. I would think that I would have asked the Amnesty International woman and her colleagues to help me look for my phone, but I'm pretty sure that's not what happened. I don't remember why. At some point, the woman handed me off to one of her colleagues that was fluent in English (I guess my French was getting worse the more I panicked), and he told me that pickpocketing is really bad at this station in particular, and unfortunately my phone was probably stolen, not lost. He offered to walk me to the police station, so we did that. There was a lady cop in uniform outside the station, and she said that if I had the IMEI number, they could track it. Thankfully, I had needed to send that number to my mom at some point, so I had it in my Facebook messages. But when they let me in the station and I gave them that number, they wouldn't do anything with it. I showed them the GPS coordinates my mom sent, and asked if someone could go there and look for it; they just ignored me. I sat there for an hour while a man at a desk filled out paperwork and insulted me for not speaking better French. He had absolutely no interest in helping me: since pickpocketing is so common there, as soon as he heard "stolen phone," he wrote me off as another hapless tourist that was a victim of a minor crime that would be put on file but never pursued or solved. It was agonizingly frustrating. It was when I was signing the stupid paperwork that I realized it wasn't just my phone that was gone: I had one of those sticky card wallets on the back of my phone, and in it were both my American debit card and French debit card. Fortunately, I'd never gotten around to activating my French debit card, so that was unusable to begin with, but my American card... That was a problem. I asked the officer (or whatever his job title was; he wasn't in a uniform) if I could use the internet to deactivate my card, and he looked at me like I was an idiot and said "You don't need to do that right away." So basically, he insisted that someone had stolen my phone and cards, but didn't seem to have any reason to believe that the thief would try to use my phone and cards. It didn't make any sense to me.

After that absolute waste of time, I wandered dejectedly back to the train station. I sat back on the ground and took my laptop back out, then messaged CL on Facebook, since I knew she was staying in Paris for one more day. Bless her heart, she met me at the station right away. My mom said my phone hadn't moved on either Find My Device or Life360, so, clinging to the hope that maybe I had just dropped it in the station and it was still there, CL and I returned to the platform where I'd last used my phone and searched again. We even enlisted the help of four police officers who were actually helpful. I told them I thought I dropped my phone when I got off the train, so they searched along the tracks, but they didn't find anything. They asked if I was 100% positive that I dropped it and it wasn't stolen, and as soon as I admitted that it is possible that it was stolen, they lost all interest. Apparently pickpocketing of phones is SO common at this station, and in Paris in general, that the police don't even bother trying to find the stolen items because there's just so many of them. Feeling utterly defeated, I followed CL back to the hotel (good old Ibis Budget in Fresnes again; since AR had checked out earlier than her, she had room for one more person in her room). I don't know what time it was by then, but my train to London had definitely already left. That trip was clearly not going to happen.

CL ordered UberEats for us, and I inventoried just exactly how much I had lost as a result of this incident, because writing lists always makes me feel better and more put-together. Thankfully, it could have been worse: I still had my laptop, my US drivers license, my pass d'éducation, 30 euros in cash, and, most importantly by far, my passport. I also still had all my luggage. But the amount of non-tangible things I had lost is nauseating. Looking at the full list upsets me so much that it actually causes a physical pain in my chest, but, to name just a few things that are now gone forever:

1. My brand-new Samsung Galaxy S22, which I had purchased in August and paid off completely for $800 in early October (you can read my post about that ordeal here). 

2. The ace flag phone case I'd bought off of Redbubble.

3. My Bank of America debit card, which could easily be deactivated and replaced for free; however, they can only send the replacement to my US address, so I have to wait for my mom to ship it to me, which could take weeks.

4. My Caisse d'Epargne debit card, which can also be replaced for free, but is also a sloooow process. At the time of writing this journal, over two weeks have passed and I STILL can't access the money in my French bank account.

5. About 30-40 pictures from the zoo on Halloween. I had started to upload them to Facebook when I got back to the hotel on Halloween night, but I was too tired to post the last batch and was planning on posting them either while on the train to London or once I got to the hostel in London.

6. Every single picture I took during the walking tour.

7. Every single picture I took in the Catacombs.

8. The pictures from Parc de la Ciutadella in Barcelona. I actually didn't realize that those were missing until yesterday, when I was working on Part 1 of this journal. I thought I had uploaded them to Facebook, but either I missed them or the upload failed, because they're not there. That especially hurts because that was my favorite part of the entire Barcelona trip.

9. My American phone number, which I've had for about 10 years and is connected to all of my email addresses and various social media accounts, including WhatsApp, TikTok, Snapchat, and GroupMe. I was able to get AT&T to make me a new SIM card with that same number, thank god, but again, now I have to wait for my mom to mail it to me.

10. My French SIM card. I have since been able to get that replaced, but it took several days and cost me 10 euros.

11. Any pictures I took, downloaded, or screenshotted after September 9th. My OneDrive had run out of storage on that date, and my Google Photos haven't updated since January. There's a chance that I may have had photo syncing turned on with my Samsung account, but I need my US phone number to access that account. I feel like I had all photo syncing turned off, though, so I'm not getting my hopes up. At least I have all my pre-September 9th pictures on OneDrive, but they're all in one big folder instead of the many folders I'd had them neatly organized in on my phone.

Since returning to Saint-Quentin on November 2nd, things have been really rough. I was able to purchase a crummy little 60 euro phone (thanks to a loan from assistant EC), but I wasn't able to put a SIM card in it until recently, because the first replacement I ordered was too small so I had to wait for a second one to come in. The WiFi in my apartment no longer works, but the very kind man that works at the school's front gate and lives on the floor below me gave me the password to his WiFi. The signal is very strong in the kitchen but weak and spotty in my room, but it was WAY better than nothing while waiting for my SIM card to come in so I can have a hotspot, so I am extremely grateful to him. I intend to send him a Christmas card from the US. 

My fellow Saint-Quentin assistants have been a huge help and support as well, especially financially. My 30 euros burned up really fast, so I've been surviving on loans for the past two weeks. Just from those 24 hours alone with CL in Paris, I ended up owing her about $127, which I sent her on PayPal (because fortunately I was still able to get into that account). I know it can't be helped, and I'm definitely going to pay them back, but I seriously hate asking people for money. EC convinced me to go with her and another assistant (L, I think I called him before) to Pierrefonds on November 6th, which was absolutely lovely and I might make a separate post about the trip. Yesterday, I was finally able to withdraw some cash from my French bank account, so that was a huge weight off my shoulder. My mom also shipped my package with my American SIM card, debit card, a phone that's the same model as the one that was stolen (she had upgraded her phone at the same time I did, but never got around to setting up her new phone, so it's just been sitting in a box), and some other goodies, so now I just have to wait for that to get here. 

I have my good days and my bad days, and it seems like things will start to get better and then abruptly get worse, but, I'm getting through it. I'm extremely thankful for my amazing support system, both here in France and back home in the US. I'm hoping that by this time next month, everything will finally be sorted out.

Oh, and one silver lining amongst all of this: my great-grandma isn't on hospice anymore! It feels like the universe said, "You can keep your great-grandma, but I'm taking your phone." I guess that's fair. 

Journal 11/15, Part 1: I'm Alive! (Barely)

Remember when I said I would try to post updates no more than one week apart? Lol. Good times. In three days, it will be a whole month since my last post. I'm determined to keep it going. In my defense, though, a LOT has happened in the past month. I have so many things to share that I almost abandoned this blog altogether, but for the sake of my future self and future TAPIFers, I decided I have to keep going.

When I last posted, I was getting ready to leave for the two-week Vacances de la Toussaint vacation. Here is what I had planned:

1. 10/21-10/26: Barcelona
2. 10/27-10/28: Marseille
3. 10/29-11/1: Paris
4. 11/1-11/4: London

Things did not go as planned.

Here's what I'll do. In this post, I'll talk about my trips to Barcelona and Marseille, because those were pretty good. Then, I'll make a second post just about the trip to Paris, because that was an utter catastrophe that warrants a separate entry. Ugh, it makes me sick just thinking about everything that happened. But for now, let's reflect on the good parts of the vacation.

Barcelona
I took a Flixbus from Paris to Barcelona late at night on October 21st. This was my first time using Flixbus, and it was.... something. First, I thought my bus was delayed by three hours, because I saw a sign saying a bus to Barcelona was delayed until 2:00 AM, which was terrible news. However, literally one minute before my bus was scheduled to leave, I double checked the sign, just in case... And thank god I did, because as it turned out, I was looking at the wrong bus!!! The 24 hour clock really throws me for a loop, and I had been looking at the 21h00 bus when mine was actually the 23h10 bus! You're supposed to board your Flixbus no less than 15 minutes before departure, but I was super lucky, because there was a woman having some sort of problem with her passport so they were delayed a few minutes anyway. The bus driver was pissed at me for being so late, but he let me on anyway, and that's what matters. What a close call!

The bus ride was 12 hours long, which is exactly as pleasant as it sounds. The seats recline back fairly far, so it's easy enough to get into a comfortable-ish sleeping position; except, the woman in front of me reclined her seat all the way back, so she was quite literally in my lap the entire ride. It also didn't help that someone near me (I couldn't tell if it was the teenage boy directly next to me or someone behind me) absolutely reeked of BO. I am very glad that I still wear face masks in crowded places. Much like on my flight from New Jersey, I don't remember falling asleep, but I must have at some point, because I would wake up and several hours had passed. We also stopped for breakfast at a gas station eventually, and I put my 1.5 semesters of Beginning Spanish to use and ordered a pastry and some peach juice (see the image to the right). I intended to keep the bottle the juice was in because it was the first thing I bought in Spain, but then I forgot to rinse it out and it got all moldy and disgusting so I had to recycle it. RIP. 

My bus arrived in Barcelona at 11:20 AM. The first thing I saw after getting off the bus was this police dog carrying a huge water bottle in his mouth (left), which I think is a pretty awesome introduction to any city. Such a good boy, keeping us so safe.

I had booked a bed at St. Christopher's Inn, which was about a 20 minute walk from the bus station. My Barcelona travel buddy, S (I forget if I've mentioned them already or not), had already arrived and was waiting for me in the lobby. My suitcase was very heavy (I'm not great at "packing light") and it was much warmer than I expected, so I was pretty miserable by the time I got to the hostel, and I'm sure I didn't make a very good first in-person impression. Check-in wasn't until 2:00 PM, so we just hung out in the common room and worked on our itinerary until then. 

I was super excited to try authentic Spanish empanadas, so for a late lunch we stopped at Folk Empanada near the hostel. I ordered two chicken empanadas, and they weren't bad, but I was kind of disappointed because I've had way better. (One of my coworkers when I worked in the Office of Student Development in college made THE BEST empanadas ever, and now I know for sure that they are impossible to beat, even in Spain.)

We spent most of the day at Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya. S was interested in the modern art exhibit while I prefer the older medieval stuff, so we split up and reunited later. The medieval exhibits were pretty cool, but also mostly just paintings of Jesus (in the museum's defense, that's pretty much all medieval art was). My favorite part of medieval art is all the animals that don't look like animals, and the funny little demons.

For dinner, we went to a Mexican restaurant S had scoped out ahead of time called Tacos Tacos. We split nachos and a taco (I think it was mushroom sausage? Something like that), and man, those nachos were BUSSIN'. Although I was also just really hungry and desperately missed Mexican food, so my perception may have been a little skewed. The taco was really good too, but it was RIDICULOUSLY tiny, especially for the price. 

We spent the next day in Montjuïc: first the cemetery, then the castle. The cemetery wasn't as spooky as I expected/hoped, but that's probably because it was in the daylight. It was pretty huge, and I thought it was cool how a lot of the graves were in the walls of the mountain. It looked like ghost apartments. We met up with two other assistants at the castle: one from Seattle, and one from South Africa. They were both SO nice! Spoiler alert: by the end of the trip, the girl from South Africa (who I'll refer to as CL), would become not only one of my TAPIF besties but also my platonic soulmate. On a less happy note, I made S really upset because I accidentally spilled my water bottle on their journal while we were at Montjuïc Castle. There must have been something really important in that journal, because they started to cry and left the group for the rest of the evening. I felt really horrible, even though it was an accident. I don't want to dwell on that, though, because Barcelona was the GOOD part of my vacation, so here's a picture of me in a hole at the castle:

Can you believe I'm wearing SHORTS??? In LATE OCTOBER??? I originally wasn't going to pack any shorts from home at all since I wouldn't be needing them in northern France, but I'm glad I brought two pairs because it was pretty toasty in Barcelona. 

For lunch (this was before the castle; I'm going a little out of order here), S and I went to La Sal del Port and tried another Spain necessity: paella. Now, I don't eat seafood (I'm not allergic or anything, I just hate it), so I was worried I wouldn't be able to try this traditional dish; fortunately, however, they had chicken and sausage paella, so I ordered that, and it was AMAZING. I'm salivating just thinking about it now. I need to find an authentic Spanish restaurant back home in New Jersey, because now that I've tried paella, I think I'll die if I don't eat it at least once a year.

For dinner, we ended up at a falafel place. I didn't order anything, but I tried some of CL's falafel and it wasn't bad (I'd never eaten falafel before). There was a Mexican restaurant called Burritos next door, so I ended up getting my own dinner there.

The next day, I met up with CL and another assistant, BK, to do some sightseeing. We planned on going to the beach later, so we stopped in Primark to look for a bathing suit and more summer-y pants for CL. Apparently the entire population of Barcelona was in that Primark, because Jesus Christ, it was MOBBED. We ended up separated from BK, and barely survived navigating the SEVEN floors of the building. I'm pretty sure purgatory is just the Barcelona Primark. I found this absolutely adorable stuffed reindeer in the Christmas section, and although it's utterly blasphemous of me to even LOOK at Christmas stuff before Halloween, I fell in love with him. Unfortunately, the checkout lines were at least 40 minutes long on all seven floors, so I had to give up on him.

For lunch, CL and I went to a Japanese restaurant, which doesn't exactly scream "Spain," but hey, we were hungry, it was there, and we're weebs. I told her about my plans to teach in Japan through Westgate in 2024, and now we're going to apply together! But for now: back to Spain. We went to Barceloneta beach, and ended up getting a free bus ride because the card reader was broken and neither of us had cash so the bus driver just said forget about it. The beach was BEAUTIFUL. I can't believe I went swimming just days before Halloween! The water was so clear and blue, and not too cold. There weren't even any waves, so I was able to swim around for a long time.

I had more empanadas for dinner, this time from a place called Muns, but if I'm being honest they were pretty gross and extremely unsatisfying. Folk was way better, but I didn't want to go to the same place twice when I would only be in the city for such a short amount of time.

The next day's adventure was Park Güell, and to be honest, if I had to pick one thing I wish I hadn't done in Barcelona, this would be it. Admission to the park was 10 euros, but there wasn't anything to do there other than walk around and look at buildings, and architecture really isn't my thing. Getting there also involved a loooot of uphill walking. If I had to describe the visit in one word, it would definitely be "exhausting." At least the company was good, though: I met up with CL and a girl from France that she'd met at her hostel. In one of the buildings, I saw a ton of people putting their phones on the ground, setting a timer, and taking selfies with the ceiling in the background; so, since we ourselves were simple tourists, we did the same thing:

We were also determined to see this one lizard statue/fountain (left), but to get there, you had to go alllll the way up and around. We did it anyway, and we did get to see the lizard, but when I stuck my hand in the water an employee yelled at me, even though some kids were literally splashing in the same fountain and none of them got yelled at. Ageism is a real problem and my dislike of young children increases every day. 

After Park Güell, the three of us stopped for smoothies at a delightful little café called Ciclopes. After that, CL and I parted ways with our new French friend and went to La Sagrada Familia together. It costs over 25 euros to enter the building, so we just walked around outside. As with all famous structures like that, the scaffolding and crane kind of ruined it for me. The McDonald's across the street didn't help, either. Still, I gotta say, even though I'm not an architecture gal, it's one hell of a building. Very big, very artsy. But the thing I remember most about the visit was finding out that CL also watches What We Do In The Shadows, which is one of my favorite TV shows (and the original movie is one of my favorite movies), and it was in that exact moment that I realized she's my platonic soulmate. She's also a very good photographer!

Our next stop was Parc de la Ciutadella, where we reunited with the assistant from Seattle and she introduced us to yet another assistant. This was definitely my favorite place we saw in Barcelona! Unfortunately, I can't find any of the pictures I took there, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

CL and I had tickets for a walking tour that night at 7:30 PM, so we couldn't stay at Parc de la Ciutadella as long as I would have liked. We ended up accidentally getting on a bus going in the wrong direction, and by the time we realized it, the next correct bus wouldn't get us to our destination until after the tour started. So what did we do? We ran. And let me emphasize that I am NOT a runner. Still, we miraculously made it just as the tour was starting! Our tour guide was an Irish man named Owen, and he was hilarious and very friendly. His mom (or his mom's friend, or his aunt... Idk, a woman he knows) owns a beach house on LBI in New Jersey, which is wild because my childhood best friend and my step-aunt also have beach houses on LBI. But they are from New Jersey; this guy is from Ireland and living in Barcelona. What a small world! We learned a ton of fascinating stuff about the city and its history, and I was going to make a Facebook post detailing all the cool things we learned, but I never got around to it and my memory is horrendous, so I guess they'll just have to remain legends. I do remember, however, that all of the sand on the Barcelona beaches is actually imported from Egypt, and the palm trees are "on loan" from Florida and California. That "loan" actually expired earlier this year, but it's unclear what exactly Florida and California plan on doing, if they plan on doing anything at all. 

After the tour, CL and I reunited with our new French friend to eat some patatas bravas: yet another food I could not leave Spain without eating. We went to a places called Amades, and it was AMAZING. The atmosphere was so homey, the staff was so friendly, and the patatas were absolutely delicious. 10/10, highly recommend if you're ever in Barcelona. 

I couldn't stop thinking about that little stuffed reindeer, so as soon as S and I checked out of St. Christopher's Inn the next morning, I braved the walls of Primark once more and sought him out. Fortunately, the lines were much shorter this time. I named him Rodolpho, and he is the best 5 euros I've ever spent.

I met up with CL and our French friend at one of the local markets; well, that was the plan, but I spent most of the time standing outside the door petting a dog that was tied up there. I was worried that she had been abandoned, but her owners were literally at the very first stall inside the building and they came back for her within five minutes. I hope she's doing well.

With plenty of time to kill before my 10:10 PM Flixbus, I took a solo trip to the Museum of Natural Sciences. It was a little underwhelming, mostly because I was hoping to see some dinosaur skeletons and was very disappointed to find that there were none. There was a cool video about the history of the Earth projected on all the walls, though, and there were some dinosaurs there, so that was cool. At some point (I forget if this was before or after the museum), I had lunch (or possibly dinner) with S. Since it was my last day in Barcelona, I got paella again: this time, chicken with peas. It was just as incredible as the first time. I know nothing will be as good as the real, authentic thing, but I'm hoping to find a recipe that comes close so I can attempt to recreate it at home. 

Lastly, S and I stopped at Farggi Café so I could try churros and hot chocolate, since my friend Heather from back in the US strongly suggested it after going to Barcelona a few years ago. I was expecting a mug of the beverage hot chocolate, but no, it was quite literally chocolate that was hot. Like, a mug of straight up melted chocolate. I did try to drink it, but that wasn't possible. There was too much of it for its sole purpose to be dipping churros, but eating it with a spoon seemed overkill (I'm not that big of a chocolate fan to be honest), so I just dipped my churros in it and let S have the rest. Churros and chocolate: what a novel idea!

Marseille
S and I took the same Flixbus from Barcelona, but we parted ways when S decided to get off early at the Aix-en-Provence stop. I arrived in Marseille at 5:30 AM, which is disgustingly early for me. The Airbnb I'd be sharing with yet another assistant (I'll call her EG) agreed to let me check in early at 9:30 AM instead of 2:00 PM, but that still left me with four hours to kill. I was a little nervous about where I would go during this time, but the train station in Marseille was much nicer than I expected, so I felt safe just sitting on a bench and then inside a Monoprix outlet when it opened at 7:00 or so. 

The Airbnb was easy to find, but I'd never seen or used a lock box so I struggled a lot with getting the door open. I took a nap until EG joined me around 11:30 AM. We got lunch (I got a burger, she got pasta), and then made the trek up the mountain to Notre-Dame de la Garde (not to be confused with THE Notre-Dame, which is in Paris and I saw later in this vacation). It was on this hike that I nearly had my first fainting spell in Europe. I have a fun little condition called vasovagal syncope, which means that under certain conditions—namely if I'm dehydrated, sleep-deprived, extremely hungry, I stand up too quickly, or the temperature changes too suddenly—I pass out. I haven't passed out in a while, but it's always a concern in the back of my mind. Fortunately, I can recognize the early stages and know when it's going to happen, so I told EG and she was very patient with letting me rest. I managed to power through it and made it to the top of the cathedral without progressing past the my-face-is-tingling stage. I still can't say for certain if the view was worth all that, but it was definitely really nice.

We took a bus back down the mountain, and planned on getting ice cream as a reward for all that walking, but I was feeling nauseas, which commonly happens after I've had one of my spells. When we got back to the Airbnb, I looked up local Halloween events, and saw that a nearby bar was having a Halloween party fundraiser for a seeing eye dog school. Halloween, dogs, and a good cause? What a combination! The event went on all night, so I was hoping that I would feel better soon and we would be able to go; however, after laying down on the bed, both of us decided that a quiet night in was the best move. EG ordered Uber Eats from a Japanese restaurant called Le Yen, and I got coconut rice, since rice is something I can handle when I'm nauseas. I also ordered mochi ice cream in case I was feeling better later, because even though I was feeling too sick to get ice cream when we planned on it, I still wanted some, even if my body disagreed. Considering it was just rice, it was surprisingly super delicious! The TV in the room came with Netflix, so in honor of spooky season, we put on two Tim Burton movies: The Corpse Bride and Dark Shadows, both of which I had never seen but really wanted to. The movies themselves were in English, but the in-film text (like the title screen and credits) were all in French, which I thought was interesting. Honestly, this was probably the best night of my whole two-week vacation. 

We checked out of the Airbnb at noon the next day, stored our luggage at the train station, and then spent the day at the Museum of Civilizations of Europe and the Mediterranean, or Mucem for short, which I thought was "museum" in a language I didn't recognize but is actually just an acronym. Admission was free with the passe d'éducation, so that was good news. There was an entire exhibit on the Mediterranean diet and free recipe cards throughout the building, so I took a lot of those (although at the time of my writing this, I'm not sure where they are). I also found a painting with a goat in it (left). We found out at the last moment that EG and I had accidentally booked separate trains to Paris and hers left almost an hour later than mine, so that was a little awkward, but turned out to not be a big deal.

And then, that's when things started to go wrong. Stay tuned for Part 2.

Journal 10/19: Last Post Before Vacation

11/15: I found this sitting in my drafts... Oops! This isn't finished, but I have no memory of what else happened on this day or the following two days leading up to vacation, sooo, I'll just post it as-is.

Wednesday 10/19
Have I mentioned how bad my Wednesday morning class is? I was super excited because today I got to do a lesson on Halloween, and I even wore a Halloween sweater. I thought that maybe they would at least be a little interested in this topic... But nope. Just like the last two weeks, they never stopped talking ONCE. Their teacher screamed at them constantly, but it never had any effect. These kids just do not care. I used the method of going around the room and making every student read one word off the board and then making the whole class repeat after me, so at least I was able to get them to say the Halloween vocab words I was teaching, but the talking in-between these words was nonstop. To make matters worse... Let me back up a little. Over the weekend, the teacher sent me a Halloween word search she had for the kids, and asked me to do a lesson based on the words in the word bank. So, I made a PowerPoint introducing all of those words. After I finished the presentation, I passed around the word search she had printed out.... and it was COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from the one she'd sent me. I even casually said, "Oh, um, this one has a lot more words than the one you sent me," and all she had to say about that was, "Yeah." So clearly she didn't even care that I had just done an entire lesson on vocabulary words that weren't even on the students' worksheet. I'm sure the kids didn't notice or care, but I was still really frustrated. Also, the word search she ended up giving them had bizarre words like "specter" and "wraith." Why teach 13-year-olds that barely know how to introduce themselves in English the word "wraith"? I didn't even know what a wraith was until I watched What We Do In The Shadows (the TV show, not the movie, although that is one of my favorite movies of all time). At the beginning of the lesson, I told the kids I would put on Halloween music if they were good; they obviously were NOT good, but I wanted to put Halloween music on anyway while they worked on their word searches, not because they deserved it but for my own sanity—something fun to drown out their incessant yapping. But their teacher told me not to because they were bad and I shouldn't reward them at all. Which is fair, but I wanted Halloween music. :( I tried to do the word search myself, but I suck at word searches so I didn't get very far. I had told the teacher that I'm going to Barcelona during next week's vacation, so she brought me an old guidebook and told me I could keep it because she's never going back there. I'll look through it later today.

I had my weekly lunch with B and Zlata today.