Farewell Bordeaux; Bitch-slapped by Paris

This is the weirdest place I have ever blogged.

I am on rue Washington in Paris, off of the Champs-Elysées, minutes from the Arc de Triomphe, in a line outside the Chinese consulate. It’s 8:40 in the morning and I’ve already been here an hour, and I’ve got another 50 minutes to go before the consulate opens at 9:30. I came here obscenely early because yesterday, the consulate ran out of numbers to issue at 9:50…a mere 20 minutes after they opened their doors. Thus I am braving sore feet and a chilly Parisian morning in a miniskirt, which is my genius wardrobe choice for the day and the only thing keeping me from plopping my exhausted self on the dirty ground. My laptop is propped up on a windowsill. People are staring.

My last day in Bordeaux was wonderful and heartbreaking. Alexa and I climbed 281 spiraled steps up la tour Pey Berland for the first time, a tower next to the central cathedral which offers amazing views of the city’s red tiled-roofs sprawling homogeneously beneath. We walked through the Miroir d’Eau in front of Place de la Bourse, dipping our feet in the water with children in swimsuits. My host mom made pommes de terre farsi for my last meal, potatoes topped with minced meat, one of my favorite dishes. As a parting gift, I gave her a potted plant of gerber daisies, four red blooms, and she told me that they were like her four daughters – her three real daughters, and me. She cried. I cried. “This house is yours, any time.” I had planned to say goodbye to some friends and get back at midnight to finish packing, but my host sister decided to throw a last minute goodbye party at the house. Her Facebook status announced that I was leaving at 5 in the morning and wouldn’t need to sleep that night. This was news to me…but I didn’t mind. Corona and Frenchies beat packing any day. After emotional goodbyes to Alexa and others in the wee hours of the morning, I headed to the train station. It was a strange feeling – even though my room was empty and white, as if I had never lived there at all, I still felt like I was going on vacation and would be back in a week. But watching the sun rise over the hilly countryside en route to Paris, I knew it was the last time I would be making that trip.

And then everything started to go wrong.

First of all, my train to Paris was overbooked. I had counted on one of the extra seats next to the doors, but by the time I made my way over they had already been filled. After awkwardly trying to sit on my uneven suitcase, my unsupported ass had had enough, and I tried to sit on the floor underneath a suitcase rack. Because God hates me, the rack was just short enough so that my head wouldn’t fit underneath. At this point I was exhausted, cranky, and depressed, so I decided to throw away what little dignity I had and lie down. On the floor. Of the TGV. Right next to the toilets (read: lots of people staring at me while waiting in line to take a piss). The best part was that there was another guy who decided to sleep on top of the rack right above me. The strap of his bag kept dropping through the cracks and whipping me in the face.

When we finally stop in Paris, the strap of my suitcase breaks in half the second it touches the platform.

[Tangent: someone is listening to “Everybody is Kung Fu Fighting” on their cell phone outside of the Chinese consulate…what the fuck.]

Next, the sole ATM in the train station was out of order, so I lug my 100 pounds of luggage into a mall to get money. Then I walk over a mile to find a taxi, only to happen upon the bitchiest driver of all time, who didn’t know any streets and whose only form of expression was yelling at me. I finally rush to the consulate to get my Chinese visa only to learn that they are no longer issuing expedited visas, which I had been counting on in order to make my flight to Beijing on Friday. I have no choice but to change my flight, which cost me a fortune.

I can safely say that that was the worst morning I have ever had in my life. So this is where things stand now: I am staying in Paris an extra week, up until next Friday, which I suppose is a blessing in disguise of a curse in disguise of a blessing. Let me explain. While I am grateful for this extra time in France, and especially in Paris, which is undeniably one of the most beautiful places I have been, I feel like I’m stuck in some sort of strange limbo. Maybe it’s my lack of spontaneity talking, but I would like to either be in Bordeaux, with my friends, or Beijing, with my family. I think I would be thrilled to be here alone under any other circumstances, but it gets a little difficult when you can’t stop looking back nostalgically on the last five months.

That being said, there has been no shortage of breathtaking moments in Paris. I’ll write about them next. Enough of the emo.