Tag: university

Stranded in Paris

In late 2008, I was invited to Paris to celebrate a friend’s 21st birthday. With only a few weeks to get sorted and looming deadlines at University I left the planning to my close friend who was also going. She was a student too, living in Coventry and I saw her as much as my schedule would allow. 

The plan was set, I would get my usual train up to Coventry and after sleeping top and tail in her tiny student room we would set off for Paris. It felt so strange to turn over control to someone else but truth be told my second year of my English Literature degree was kicking my arse.

It took one cab, a train and a bus at 4am to get to the airport for our flight. Once landed there was another short journey on a coach before finding our way around on the metro to meet our friend. They’d taken the hotel booking on for us and we found ourselves in a small triple bedded room with an exceptionally tiny private bathroom.

We would be in Paris for approximately 24 hours and time was ticking. We wandered the Champs Elysees, ate fromage and baguettes and spent time looking up at the Louvre. Paris felt like a playground. 

After a quick wardrobe change we met our friends and their french companions at a small back alley restaurant. The tables and bench seating were traditionally rustic and the food was fantastic. I still remember the duck, or canard, I had even now. It was remarked to be a peasants dish but I’d never tasted good like it. Rich and delicious. 

After food and lots of wine, it was time to dance. We paid the hefty (to us students) entrance fee to a very small basement club and descended the stairs from street level. There was bench seating around the walls and the room left for dancing was no bigger than my living room now. 5 metres squared at the very most. There was one door in and out of the room. No windows or vents. The music was booming and the sweat was pouring. 

I remember paying for a round of drinks that had been ordered as we were all scattered and the waiter was impatient. Now, owing to the fact my memory is shocking and that it was 14 years ago, I can’t say I remember getting back to the hotel or sleeping in particularly late. 

It was a Sunday in Paris and the sunny skies of Saturday had been replaced by thick clouds. November was bringing winter to France. Packing up our bags, I took my friend’s lead and headed back to the coach station where our trip in Central Paris had begun. 

On arrival, it was evident that no coach was heading out soon. Our flight was in a little over two hours, so asking at the kiosk was vital for us getting some help. This is when we got a nasty shock. 

The next coach would be in an hour. We had just missed one. What on earth could we do? I’d paid for the hotel, for my friend and I, out of my remaining cash and only had bank cards left. They had little to nothing on them. On asking a taxi how much it would cost and how long an airport run would take we realised how very screwed we were. No matter what we did right now, we were going to miss our flight home. 

My friend looked at me as my holdall fell to the pavement. Think, think, think. And then the snow started falling. I remember seeing the white specks littering the space around my bags and laughing. What on earth were we going to do? 

I called home and told my mum what had happened. She said we could use her card in a taxi, but the card needed to be in Paris. Eventually my brain engaged and I gave her my banking passwords and she was able to transfer money from my savings to my bank account. After withdrawing the maximum amount from the ATM, I grabbed my bag, told my friend the plan and we headed to Gare Du Nord. I remember her being angry, upset and most likely embarrassed. She walked ahead of me in the tunnels of the metro and I let her. We jumped on a train and didn’t talk. My job at this moment was to get us home. 

On arrival at the station I headed to the ticket desk. For two tickets home the €300 cash in my hands was not enough and I had to use my bank card to make up the rest. It was something like £500+ for two last minute fares. The whole trip so far had cost less than £80. 

I swallowed my shock and watched the tickets print behind the glass. With my purse, passport and new ticket in hand, holdall in the crook of my elbow, I turned towards the escalator that would take me to the Eurostar departure lounge. As I took my first step onto the moving stairway a hand arced over the handrail and made a ‘swipe’ movement. Out of nothing but instinct to react my hand pulled away. It wasn’t until we reached the top that my friend asked if I was okay. I said, ‘yeah, why?’. She stood there shocked and related what she had seen. That a homeless man had made a grab for everything in my hand and I’d barely taken it away in time. In shock from what had taken place out on the streets, my mind and my body had become separated in thought and action. I thanked my subconscious instincts and we carried into passport control. 

There was less than 30 minutes until the train was due to depart and, as they always are, the queues were phenomenally long. For the first time, I started to panic. We could not miss this train! The queue was soon checked for train departures and we were sped through the line. With bags in hand and our tickets flapping in the breeze we ran to our train. Final calls being yelled. Door buzzers sounding. Our feet slapped loudly against the platform. We all but launched ourselves into the waiting doors of the compartment. As we sat down, we looked at each other for the first time in hours. Relief flooded my face and lungs as my friend collapsed into my lap with loud sobs. It was time to go home. 

Still sitting still

When I was in University I was a mess, I was scared to enter the lecture room, and knowing now what I didn’t then, I know anxiety has ruled my life a lot longer than I ever realised. For a worrying moment, when I noticed how far back the anxiety stretched, I wondered if it had stopped me doing much in my adult life. 

Today, I had the most bizarre flashback, whilst sipping tea on a bench in my garden. I wasn’t covered in compost anymore nor was I chilly in the April breeze, I was in Paris. I was sitting outside a Parisien cafe, drinking coffee and watching the world go by. It was a Sunday morning, the early morning sun was making the cobbles blush and there was calm in the air. It seems it is one of my fondest memories, because it made me smile, really smile. 

It got me thinking, about other seemingly insignificant moments, that have created a collage of beautiful memories I unlock from time to time. 

New York, 2007, the Empire Diner, Sunday brunch. I’m wearing a lace tunic top and the waiter is parading up and down with peoples eggs and coffee as if he had just come from the Catwalks of Gucci. He had swagger. He had confidence. He had attention. And he loved it. He had a wonder woman tattoo on his upper arm, and paused by our table to say ‘Honey, I love your top’ in his American drawl. I have a photo of the two of us vogue-ing, it was fabulous and so was he. I picture him now, on Broadway in some garish and absolutely fantastic musical number, living his dream. 

Santa Susanna, Barcelona, 2014. The first sunny afternoon in 6 days, we dash to the beach to thaw our bodies and grasp back some of our holiday before the rain returns. The beach is busy. The sand is hot. Glorious! Women and men selling their wares stomp up and down; sunglasses, hats, scarves, coconuts. The cacophony of their voices, mingled with the muffled chatter and the gentle waves, just screams beach holiday to me. A sunbathing man calls over a small asian woman, selling her skilled masseur hands, I remember glancing over, and seeing her kneeling on the sand. She starts to dig a hole with her hands. Dumbstruck I continue to watch, the man waits, as if nothing is out of the ordinary. She continues to dig a deep round hole. In time, she stops and the man lays a towel over the hole, and it is only then that I realise the void is for his belly. I force my staring eyes away from the scene and tell myself to act normal. But for the rest of the day, I laugh internally, to the scene I witnessed. Lets, assume the man had seen this particular lady before and knew this was common practice, that’s one theory. Alternatively, I often think about someone being unprepared for the practice of the void/belly scenario and looking at the woman in complete disbelief. Much like I had. That memory generally floods back to me when I go to or see a beach. 

The Great Barrier Reef, Australia, 2013. I’m drinking a cocktail out of an enormous glass, my legs are over the side of a huge catamaran and all that stops me from plunging into the ocean is a thin rope that acts like a fence at the side of the top deck. I’m sunkissed, curly haired and tired. I have spent the day swimming the coral reefs and am in awe of where I am. I am nine and a half thousand miles from home, I have quit my job and am living out my dream. I am the luckiest girl in the world. No time to think of going back to England. No time to think if a brush will go through my hair later. No time to waste on anything but this moment. 

I often feel the best memories of my life, so far, are the ones that happen when I’m not moving. While I’m static, the world carries on around me, and I can appreciate the moment. What’s funny is in those moments, I never realise how much impact they can have, how much you’ll flit back to them in the future. How warming they’ll be when you are doing one of life’s mundane tasks. Maybe it was wishful thinking today to think of Paris whilst potting up some planters in the garden. Maybe I’m just grateful to have lived a life so rich in travel and culture. Maybe I’m starting to realise the small moments are the important ones. 

This is why when I had the truly horrifying thought that anxiety had stolen so much of my adult life it took me a while to come back to these memories. I have pushed and pushed myself to do and see everything when I travel because there’s an irksome voice in my head saying ‘make the most of it, do it all, miss nothing’. As lovely as it would be to see the world and run from experience to experience it would seem you aren’t in fact seeing all there is to see.  It is now that I truly believe when we stop, sit and look, we’ll find the world will continue turning, it doesn’t mean we are missing out, it means we are able to relish in it. Drink a cuppa, take a breath and appreciate it all.