I’m here in France because time is no longer on my side. Not that I have an incurable disease or anything like that although I did survive a bout of cancer about ten years ago. No. "It is just the ear," Dr. Wong, my patient ear doctor had said in his thick Chinese accent, implying it's not the heart or lungs or liver, something that could kill you. I was inexplicably losing my hearing, but it felt like my life. And I needed a distraction; I wanted to improve the French I'd been trying to learn since college. It felt urgent now. The time is ripe – while I can still hear.
I arrived in Paris on a heat wave. Blazing sun. The phone number to my shuttle service didn’t appear to be working at any of the French telephones it was supposed to be working at; and my first thought was that I had just thrown away $34 on an Internet shuttle scam.
The person at Airport information couldn’t read the English email instructions I had but directed me to Air France’s shuttle which was just 16.50 Euros, or about $20.00, to Gare de Lyon, in Paris, which was near my train station, but not that near. I could take the Air France shuttle to the Gare de Lyon and then a cab to my train station, but I hated the thought of throwing $34 away, and I had specifically gotten this shuttle service to get me directly to the train station, so I wouldn’t have to lug my near 50 pound suitcase and 20 pound back pack everywhere, so in sort of a panic , I went back to try a phone one more time.
There, instead of a dead line, I got through to a recording that said both in English and French how sorry they were but that all the operators were busy and could I try back later. I tried back a minute later and got the same recording, and then again. I checked my clock, a vintage metal alarm clock in my back pack because I had forgotten my watch at home. It was 10:30 a.m. How long could I keep trying before I just took the Air France shuttle? Until 11:00 or until noon and take a $100 cab from the airport? I had a 2:00 train to catch or I’d be stuck in Paris, which might not be a bad thing, but it would be an expensive thing and a big hassle thing.
I’m weighing all this when a woman across the bank of phones from me asks if I speak French. I shrug and say, “Somewhat.”
“I can’t understand what they’re saying,” she says and she waves a piece of paper that has the name of the same shuttle service that I’m using.
“You got through?” I ask.
“Yes.” She says hanging up the phone disgusted. “It says to press one, and then it’s all in French.”
“But you got through?” I exclaim again. “I couldn’t even get through.”
Then it strikes me it all depends on what phone you’re using as to what level your call will go through.
“Try again,” I say.
She tries again and is soon talking to someone, explaining the situation and then taking my piece of paper and explaining my situation.
Clearly this woman has hit the equivalent of the phone jackpot.
We figure out where we are, Gate 2A. Fifteen minutes and our shuttle will be here.
This woman has all the luck, travels as a consultant for Microsoft and has picked up all these Hilton points, so now has an $800 hotel suite for herself and a girlfriend for a week for free (Because after 32 years of marriage, she and her husband are taking separate vacations. Her husband went fishing.) However it wasn’t perfect luck because the airline lost her luggage on her standby flight.
The shuttle picks us up and then a few other people, all Americans, and we’re piled in the van. The freeway traffic is moving but horrible for 11:00 a.m. on a Saturday.
The driver is kind but doesn’t really speak any English; all the passengers are kind but don’t really speak any French. All the same we communicate quite well and the driver even warns us about pick pockets in Paris and to hide our money. I know enough French to ask our driver if he is going to drop me off first because all the signs are saying Bersy this and Bersy that, and Bercy is my train station, and I see a few signs to that.
Then I notice the signs pointing to the Gare de Bercy are now in the opposite direction from which we’re going.
The driver says, you’re going to Gare de Bercy? Yes, I say. And he rolls down his window and asks another van in traffic where that is. (This sort of reminds me of India!) The other driver gives directions, of which I clearly hear derriere, behind us.
Our driver then pulls into a busy intersection and makes a U-turn, including having to stop and back up in traffic to execute it. (This is just like India!) He drives around a while and I can seem my fellow passengers are getting antsy; I’m getting antsy. Finally we approach an intersection and there is a sign pointing to the Gare de Bercy to the right. I think about mentioning this to the driver but think it’s probably not necessary. And then he turns left.
Then he turns again and turns again and drops me off at Gare de Lyon. I try arguing with him in French, but he insists this is it, that all I have to do is take the down escalator inside the station. He is nice about it, and I don’t want to delay everyone any longer. So I take my suitcase which is nearly, did I mention, 50 pounds and a big breath and head to the wrong train station.
It’s crowded. I make my way to the escalators where there is indeed a sign saying Gare de Bercy. I stumble on the escalator with my luggage and follow more signs to Gare de Bercy and more signs up the street past bus stops to the Gare de Bercy and keep going and finally there it is, Gare de Bercy. By this time I’m hungry, thirsty and have to pee. Of course I might have taken care of all that at the Gare de Lyon teeming with humanity and shops, but this is a small train station with one small sandwich stand, (bagette sandwiches 6.50 Euro), and a bathroom, outside, across the drive way: a port a potty.
I still have time, plenty of time. In fact I could have caught the 12:10 train which is about to leave in 10 minutes, but mine is the 2:03 train.
I weigh my options once again. There were some restaurants along the way should I try one of them? Or should I save money and use the port a potty and buy a sandwich?
I make my way with my suitcase in tow to the wheelchair accessible port a potty, get close enough to smell it, which is not all that close, and decide to find a restaurant.
Back on the street again, there are several restaurants, finally I hit a place that seems right and get a table outside. I order a salad and a glass of Sancerre for the occasion. Across from me are Americans and I interupt their conversation to ask if they can watch my bags while I find the restroom. They cheerfully oblige.
I come back to find my lunch and wine has arrived with a large bottle of water and a basket of bread.
After lunch I realize that I am really going to be uncomfortably hot the rest of the trip if I do not change. I am wearing a black sleeveless polyester top and black jeans. The weather forecast for Sancerre was also sunny and I’m willing to bet it has gotten sunnier. Fortunately I packed a change of clothes for the plane but that hadn’t seem necessary when we landed, but it seemed necessary now.
I thought about asking the Americans if they would watch my bag, but I didn’t want to impose twice and anyway they were leaving. I dug through my backpack for my clothes and pulled out a couple of books on cathedrals that Tommy J. had lent me and my alarm clock which had come in quite handy. I set it on the pile of books. The waiter came out; he was a nice enough guy who spoke broken English to my broken French. He laughed when he saw my alarm clock. I pointed to my naked wrist to explain. I asked him in French if I could leave… and he said in English he’d watch my bags, pointing a V with his fingers at his eyes and then at the bags.
I dropped him a two Euro extra tip when I got back, saying, “C’est bien,” when he dug out change for my 20 Euro bill on an 18 Euro check. “Thank you,” he said.
Tips are included in French restaurants, which is kind of hard to get used to. You always walk away feeling sort of cheap. But I didn’t feel that way now. I felt expansive and so much better.
The train came and I heaved my near 50 pound monster up the stairs. A handsome bald man who could have been a weightlifter offered to shove my oversized luggage into the oversized luggage rack by the door. “Merci,” I said. I ran into a few of the other people sitting around me in first class (the only ticket I could find). We sort of tripped over each other with our luggage saying “Bonjour.” I overheard two of them talking about going to Cosne sur Loire in English, exactly where I was going. I could continue to pretend to be French and ignore them but I figured I would be found out sooner than later, so I revealed my humble identity. “Are you going to the school there, too?” I asked. Sara and Earl were and so was my bald friend, Michael. We chatted for a while, and then fell silent watching the French countryside go by. Mile after mile of old brick houses, terra cotta tile roofs everywhere, neat but not overly manicured gardens, old tall windows and balconies, flower pots and laundry hanging out to dry. I fell half asleep, checking my clock periodically.
The train stations along the way have walkways underneath the tracks to keep people from crossing the rail beds. I kept thinking of the M. Hulot film where a crowd of people run up and down the stairs to their train on the other track only to find the train on a further track. We arrived at Cosne on one of those further tracks, which meant lugging my luggage up and down the stairs; Sara twice swooped up beside me and helped carry my load while Michael was helping out several other people.
There were quite a few other Coeur de France students on the train; we were all gathered in front of the small train station around a woman holding a Coeur de France sign. Marianne is her name, a trim petite woman of an uncertain age.
We get shuffled off into cars and taxis. Michael is in mine and I offer him the front seat. Are you sure? he says. I’m sure; he’s earned it.
Marianne is my instructor. The others, Eric who sits beside me and another woman, beside him, as well as Michael, are in the beginner class together and will have another instructor. Marianne speaks almost entirely in French doucement, sweetly, it is perfect for me to understand, clear and simple. The others are rather lost although Michael seems to be catching quite a bit. Eric strikes up a conversation with me in English when he hears I’m from Seattle. I know how it goes; you can be in France and get rather tired of not understanding anything. He’s going to Seattle in a few weeks for a Coast Guard training.
Marianne gives us a bit of a tour of the region, which is green and lush; we cross over the Loire River and then on to Sancerre, which is about 15 minutes away. Sancerre is just like the pictures and drawings I’ve seen of it, an ancient village perched on the top of a small mountain. Marianne drives through the village and again I am reminded of India, this time because the buildings are so old and the streets are so narrow and tiny.
The school is in a wonderful old building that once was the hotel, which in France used to mean large home, for the physician to royalty, the royalty being Henri de Bourbon Prince of Conde. In the courtyard is the physician’s family coat of arms and a small sculpture of a face hangs on the wall just below it, a relic from the Bastille. But I don’t know any of this until the next day when I wondered around the historic village and read the plaque at the school.
Marianne drops Eric, Michael and me off and has us wait in the courtyard while she takes the woman sitting next to Eric to her apartment.
Eric, Michael and I admire the old building and talk. You can share quite a bit with strangers and especially fellow travelers whose interest and distance from home you have in common.
Eric wants to learn French because he is stationed in African countries, not so much the African countries you want to go to, he tells us, but more like the Congo. His job is to inspect ships headed for the U.S. to make sure they comply with our security requirements, but he would love to be able to at least talk a little to some of the people he meets there.
Marianne comes back and takes him away to his apartment and Michael and I chat. His story is one of unemployment, not an uncommon one these days. Having been a reluctant engineer, he wants to do something new with the business degree he also has and combine it with an interest he’s always had in learning French. His wife encouraged him to take this course, not for two weeks like most of us but for four. He says he feels a bit guilty about that, for being so self indulgent. I think his wife’s a saint.
Marianne finally comes back to get us and we agree to drop me off first. We’re driving around Sancerre and almost immediately this beeping in the car goes off. No one says anything about it, but I’m wondering what it is and if there is some car issue. But we continue to chat in French about everything else and I’m trying to think how to ask about the petit bruit because the noise is getting rather annoying and I can’t understand why Marianne isn’t worried about it. Then we slow down to park in front of some old buildings. My apartment is number 77; I’m so intrigued to find it I forget about the noise. We get out of the van, and Michael gets my suitcase as I begin searching for number 77. But that noise keeps following us. “I think that sound is your alarm clock,” says Michael.
So it is, and I explain about forgetting my watch. But the apartment is lovely. We drop my stuff in the bedroom, and Marianne shows us the living room/kitchen and the sweeping view of Sancerre vineyards I have out the windows. My bedroom also has windows that open to the living room/kitchen and technically to the view. Just below is a patio garden with table and chairs for a picnic. There is a stairway inside down to the garden and Marianne shows me the trick with the lock (which I immediately forget), and we step out into the garden. It’s not called Le Jardin apartment for nothing. It’s perfect, I say, marvelous, fantastic, every superlative I can think of in French. I’m ecstatic frankly. I don’t think I’ve been this happy about anything since my wedding or the birth of my child. Everything is just what I expected and more. They leave and I cry tears of joy and exhaustion. Then I walk around the apartment just taking it in and realize my alarm clock is still going off.
I arrived in Paris on a heat wave. Blazing sun. The phone number to my shuttle service didn’t appear to be working at any of the French telephones it was supposed to be working at; and my first thought was that I had just thrown away $34 on an Internet shuttle scam.
The person at Airport information couldn’t read the English email instructions I had but directed me to Air France’s shuttle which was just 16.50 Euros, or about $20.00, to Gare de Lyon, in Paris, which was near my train station, but not that near. I could take the Air France shuttle to the Gare de Lyon and then a cab to my train station, but I hated the thought of throwing $34 away, and I had specifically gotten this shuttle service to get me directly to the train station, so I wouldn’t have to lug my near 50 pound suitcase and 20 pound back pack everywhere, so in sort of a panic , I went back to try a phone one more time.
There, instead of a dead line, I got through to a recording that said both in English and French how sorry they were but that all the operators were busy and could I try back later. I tried back a minute later and got the same recording, and then again. I checked my clock, a vintage metal alarm clock in my back pack because I had forgotten my watch at home. It was 10:30 a.m. How long could I keep trying before I just took the Air France shuttle? Until 11:00 or until noon and take a $100 cab from the airport? I had a 2:00 train to catch or I’d be stuck in Paris, which might not be a bad thing, but it would be an expensive thing and a big hassle thing.
I’m weighing all this when a woman across the bank of phones from me asks if I speak French. I shrug and say, “Somewhat.”
“I can’t understand what they’re saying,” she says and she waves a piece of paper that has the name of the same shuttle service that I’m using.
“You got through?” I ask.
“Yes.” She says hanging up the phone disgusted. “It says to press one, and then it’s all in French.”
“But you got through?” I exclaim again. “I couldn’t even get through.”
Then it strikes me it all depends on what phone you’re using as to what level your call will go through.
“Try again,” I say.
She tries again and is soon talking to someone, explaining the situation and then taking my piece of paper and explaining my situation.
Clearly this woman has hit the equivalent of the phone jackpot.
We figure out where we are, Gate 2A. Fifteen minutes and our shuttle will be here.
This woman has all the luck, travels as a consultant for Microsoft and has picked up all these Hilton points, so now has an $800 hotel suite for herself and a girlfriend for a week for free (Because after 32 years of marriage, she and her husband are taking separate vacations. Her husband went fishing.) However it wasn’t perfect luck because the airline lost her luggage on her standby flight.
The shuttle picks us up and then a few other people, all Americans, and we’re piled in the van. The freeway traffic is moving but horrible for 11:00 a.m. on a Saturday.
The driver is kind but doesn’t really speak any English; all the passengers are kind but don’t really speak any French. All the same we communicate quite well and the driver even warns us about pick pockets in Paris and to hide our money. I know enough French to ask our driver if he is going to drop me off first because all the signs are saying Bersy this and Bersy that, and Bercy is my train station, and I see a few signs to that.
Then I notice the signs pointing to the Gare de Bercy are now in the opposite direction from which we’re going.
The driver says, you’re going to Gare de Bercy? Yes, I say. And he rolls down his window and asks another van in traffic where that is. (This sort of reminds me of India!) The other driver gives directions, of which I clearly hear derriere, behind us.
Our driver then pulls into a busy intersection and makes a U-turn, including having to stop and back up in traffic to execute it. (This is just like India!) He drives around a while and I can seem my fellow passengers are getting antsy; I’m getting antsy. Finally we approach an intersection and there is a sign pointing to the Gare de Bercy to the right. I think about mentioning this to the driver but think it’s probably not necessary. And then he turns left.
Then he turns again and turns again and drops me off at Gare de Lyon. I try arguing with him in French, but he insists this is it, that all I have to do is take the down escalator inside the station. He is nice about it, and I don’t want to delay everyone any longer. So I take my suitcase which is nearly, did I mention, 50 pounds and a big breath and head to the wrong train station.
It’s crowded. I make my way to the escalators where there is indeed a sign saying Gare de Bercy. I stumble on the escalator with my luggage and follow more signs to Gare de Bercy and more signs up the street past bus stops to the Gare de Bercy and keep going and finally there it is, Gare de Bercy. By this time I’m hungry, thirsty and have to pee. Of course I might have taken care of all that at the Gare de Lyon teeming with humanity and shops, but this is a small train station with one small sandwich stand, (bagette sandwiches 6.50 Euro), and a bathroom, outside, across the drive way: a port a potty.
I still have time, plenty of time. In fact I could have caught the 12:10 train which is about to leave in 10 minutes, but mine is the 2:03 train.
I weigh my options once again. There were some restaurants along the way should I try one of them? Or should I save money and use the port a potty and buy a sandwich?
I make my way with my suitcase in tow to the wheelchair accessible port a potty, get close enough to smell it, which is not all that close, and decide to find a restaurant.
Back on the street again, there are several restaurants, finally I hit a place that seems right and get a table outside. I order a salad and a glass of Sancerre for the occasion. Across from me are Americans and I interupt their conversation to ask if they can watch my bags while I find the restroom. They cheerfully oblige.
I come back to find my lunch and wine has arrived with a large bottle of water and a basket of bread.
After lunch I realize that I am really going to be uncomfortably hot the rest of the trip if I do not change. I am wearing a black sleeveless polyester top and black jeans. The weather forecast for Sancerre was also sunny and I’m willing to bet it has gotten sunnier. Fortunately I packed a change of clothes for the plane but that hadn’t seem necessary when we landed, but it seemed necessary now.
I thought about asking the Americans if they would watch my bag, but I didn’t want to impose twice and anyway they were leaving. I dug through my backpack for my clothes and pulled out a couple of books on cathedrals that Tommy J. had lent me and my alarm clock which had come in quite handy. I set it on the pile of books. The waiter came out; he was a nice enough guy who spoke broken English to my broken French. He laughed when he saw my alarm clock. I pointed to my naked wrist to explain. I asked him in French if I could leave… and he said in English he’d watch my bags, pointing a V with his fingers at his eyes and then at the bags.
I dropped him a two Euro extra tip when I got back, saying, “C’est bien,” when he dug out change for my 20 Euro bill on an 18 Euro check. “Thank you,” he said.
Tips are included in French restaurants, which is kind of hard to get used to. You always walk away feeling sort of cheap. But I didn’t feel that way now. I felt expansive and so much better.
The train came and I heaved my near 50 pound monster up the stairs. A handsome bald man who could have been a weightlifter offered to shove my oversized luggage into the oversized luggage rack by the door. “Merci,” I said. I ran into a few of the other people sitting around me in first class (the only ticket I could find). We sort of tripped over each other with our luggage saying “Bonjour.” I overheard two of them talking about going to Cosne sur Loire in English, exactly where I was going. I could continue to pretend to be French and ignore them but I figured I would be found out sooner than later, so I revealed my humble identity. “Are you going to the school there, too?” I asked. Sara and Earl were and so was my bald friend, Michael. We chatted for a while, and then fell silent watching the French countryside go by. Mile after mile of old brick houses, terra cotta tile roofs everywhere, neat but not overly manicured gardens, old tall windows and balconies, flower pots and laundry hanging out to dry. I fell half asleep, checking my clock periodically.
The train stations along the way have walkways underneath the tracks to keep people from crossing the rail beds. I kept thinking of the M. Hulot film where a crowd of people run up and down the stairs to their train on the other track only to find the train on a further track. We arrived at Cosne on one of those further tracks, which meant lugging my luggage up and down the stairs; Sara twice swooped up beside me and helped carry my load while Michael was helping out several other people.
There were quite a few other Coeur de France students on the train; we were all gathered in front of the small train station around a woman holding a Coeur de France sign. Marianne is her name, a trim petite woman of an uncertain age.
We get shuffled off into cars and taxis. Michael is in mine and I offer him the front seat. Are you sure? he says. I’m sure; he’s earned it.
Marianne is my instructor. The others, Eric who sits beside me and another woman, beside him, as well as Michael, are in the beginner class together and will have another instructor. Marianne speaks almost entirely in French doucement, sweetly, it is perfect for me to understand, clear and simple. The others are rather lost although Michael seems to be catching quite a bit. Eric strikes up a conversation with me in English when he hears I’m from Seattle. I know how it goes; you can be in France and get rather tired of not understanding anything. He’s going to Seattle in a few weeks for a Coast Guard training.
Marianne gives us a bit of a tour of the region, which is green and lush; we cross over the Loire River and then on to Sancerre, which is about 15 minutes away. Sancerre is just like the pictures and drawings I’ve seen of it, an ancient village perched on the top of a small mountain. Marianne drives through the village and again I am reminded of India, this time because the buildings are so old and the streets are so narrow and tiny.
The school is in a wonderful old building that once was the hotel, which in France used to mean large home, for the physician to royalty, the royalty being Henri de Bourbon Prince of Conde. In the courtyard is the physician’s family coat of arms and a small sculpture of a face hangs on the wall just below it, a relic from the Bastille. But I don’t know any of this until the next day when I wondered around the historic village and read the plaque at the school.
Marianne drops Eric, Michael and me off and has us wait in the courtyard while she takes the woman sitting next to Eric to her apartment.
Eric, Michael and I admire the old building and talk. You can share quite a bit with strangers and especially fellow travelers whose interest and distance from home you have in common.
Eric wants to learn French because he is stationed in African countries, not so much the African countries you want to go to, he tells us, but more like the Congo. His job is to inspect ships headed for the U.S. to make sure they comply with our security requirements, but he would love to be able to at least talk a little to some of the people he meets there.
Marianne comes back and takes him away to his apartment and Michael and I chat. His story is one of unemployment, not an uncommon one these days. Having been a reluctant engineer, he wants to do something new with the business degree he also has and combine it with an interest he’s always had in learning French. His wife encouraged him to take this course, not for two weeks like most of us but for four. He says he feels a bit guilty about that, for being so self indulgent. I think his wife’s a saint.
Marianne finally comes back to get us and we agree to drop me off first. We’re driving around Sancerre and almost immediately this beeping in the car goes off. No one says anything about it, but I’m wondering what it is and if there is some car issue. But we continue to chat in French about everything else and I’m trying to think how to ask about the petit bruit because the noise is getting rather annoying and I can’t understand why Marianne isn’t worried about it. Then we slow down to park in front of some old buildings. My apartment is number 77; I’m so intrigued to find it I forget about the noise. We get out of the van, and Michael gets my suitcase as I begin searching for number 77. But that noise keeps following us. “I think that sound is your alarm clock,” says Michael.
So it is, and I explain about forgetting my watch. But the apartment is lovely. We drop my stuff in the bedroom, and Marianne shows us the living room/kitchen and the sweeping view of Sancerre vineyards I have out the windows. My bedroom also has windows that open to the living room/kitchen and technically to the view. Just below is a patio garden with table and chairs for a picnic. There is a stairway inside down to the garden and Marianne shows me the trick with the lock (which I immediately forget), and we step out into the garden. It’s not called Le Jardin apartment for nothing. It’s perfect, I say, marvelous, fantastic, every superlative I can think of in French. I’m ecstatic frankly. I don’t think I’ve been this happy about anything since my wedding or the birth of my child. Everything is just what I expected and more. They leave and I cry tears of joy and exhaustion. Then I walk around the apartment just taking it in and realize my alarm clock is still going off.
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