The Pink Piano OR Accepting Gifts from Strangers

I often wondered where my street smarts came from. I grew up in a small town, where people did not lock their doors, a place where it was okay to leave keys in the ignition and the door of the vehicle wide open. (Yes, my father did just that.) 

I grew up in a time when children went door to door on Halloween asking strangers / neighbors for candy.

Everyone in my life was trusting, and nothing bad ever happened.

So, when I moved to a big city, how did I instinctively know not to make eye contact with a ranting stranger on the street, subway, or bus?

How did I know to buy purses with over the shoulder straps and ensure that all important zippers faced in?

How did I know that it’s best to just “look like you know where you are going” even if you are lost? 

Was I just born paranoid?

Perhaps.

But as I started to reflect on stories of the motel from my childhood, I realized, most of my street smarts came from being raised in the manager’s apartment of a motel on the south end of a small town called Blackfoot, Idaho.

When I was in kindergarten, school only went for a half day. The other half of the day, I spent with my father or hanging out alone. I would help my dad clean rooms. I would walk around the parking lot and pick up cigarette butts, a penny a piece. I would wander around the back yard, inventing stories and going on adventures. I would watch my dad fix the pickup, van, or a sink. I would try to help him install a toilet in a room under renovation.

Not matter where we were around the motel, people would chat with my dad about their room or life or money situation. Everyone knew I was the manager’s daughter. If I was out in the parking lot without my dad, people would ask,

“Have you seen M___?” 

“Hey, is your dad around?”

My parents taught me very early, not to talk to strangers, not to engage. Being shy by nature, this was not a difficult thing for me to grasp. I got it. If you see a customer coming, avoid them at all costs, never answer the office door, and as I learned, one day, never take gifts from customers.

In the comfort of our home or in the backyard, no one bothered me, unless I walked past the back windows of their rooms.

One day, I was walking around the backyard, heading down the alley toward the “back back” yard, under the windows of a few of the rooms. Unexpectedly, a tenant, one of the weekly renters who was fairly new, called to me from his window.

Now, due to the nature of the arrangement, me, a small child, and the window rather far up, I did not feel like I was in any immediate danger. I knew I was breaking the rules, but it did not feel dangerous. This renter was a stranger, but we were separated by a large amount of space. He was just trying to make friendly conversation.

So, despite all warnings, this stranger was able to engage me in conversation. As I remember it, it was a fairly harmless conversation about what I was doing and if I liked music, and it ended with him handing me a little pink keyboard out the window of his room. I took the piano. Thanked him and went back inside to play with my new toy.

The problem came when my parents noticed this toy.

“Where did you get that?” My mom asked.

“The man in number 5 gave it to me.”

“What?”

“I was just walking to the back, back yard, and he gave it to me through the window.”

I remember that my mother was furious. Perhaps she was embarrassed, but more than likely she was worried or scared. My mom, never fond of raising children around an ever-changing group of wayward travelers, had thoughts of child abduction or molestation.

“You cannot keep that. Do not take gifts from the people staying here. You should not trust them.”

I was confused and scared, as she lectured me about the danger I had put myself in. As at all times in my life when emotions reach a peak, I started crying. I just wanted to keep that pink piano. I had no idea that I had put myself in danger. The man did not seem scary, and there had been a wall between us. I did not think I had done anything wrong.

“And never talk to anyone from the backyard. Just ignore them or tell your dad.”

My parents gave the piano back. I have no idea what words were exchanged, but I do not remember ever being bothered by that tenant again.

I do remember being nervous about passing under those windows. I do remember hurrying because I did not want strangers watching. I do remember being scared of any interaction with a tenant. And when I was old enough that I started cleaning rooms, I remember I would always clean the rooms I knew people had left first. 

I never accepted a gift from a stranger at the motel again.

I also gained my first real taste of street smarts.

Your face will get stuck like that OR A girl named Kim

As a young child, watching Bugs Bunny dig to China, presumably through the center of the Earth, and come out on the “other side”, got my thoughts churning.

I am a bit of a loner. I enjoy sitting alone, thinking to myself, musing about the events around me, watching people. As a child, these observations were budding, my musings simple. 

"What does it mean that Bugs Bunny changed when he came out on the “other side.” Was he still Bugs Bunny?"

Perhaps, it wasn’t actually Bugs Bunny. It is impossible to travel through the center of the Earth. Maybe it was Bugs Bunny’s doppelganger.

If it was, maybe I had a look-alike on the other side of the world, too. A girl named Kim who was exactly like me, the same age, the same interests, the same basic person, only, this Kim had almond-shaped eyes.

Sitting alone, in front of the bathroom mirror, mulling over these ideas, I decided I wanted to have almond-shaped eyes. I thought they would be more beautiful than my round eyes.

Suddenly, an idea popped into my head.

My dad had a way of getting us to stop pouting or throwing a fit, or at least trying to get us to stop.

“Make that face long enough, and your face will get stuck like that.”

Rationally, I may have known this was not entirely true.

The statement should have gotten the same “Daa-aad” response that, “If you stick your lip out far enough, a bird will come sit on it,” did.

But.

Take this concept that a face could get stuck a certain way, and apply it to the idea that I wanted almond-shaped eyes.

The result?

I sat in the bathroom for what amounted to be hours, holding the outer corners of my eyes, trying to get my eyes to “get stuck like that.”

Slowly the realization came that there was no way my face was going to get “stuck”. It became obvious that it was improbable that suddenly I would have almond-shaped eyes just because I wished for them.

Little did I know that in this thought, this wanting to have an eye shape that I did not have, I unknowingly had found the key to what in the future turned out to be “a girl named Kim who was like me.”

Fast forward to my life in Ulsan, South Korea, an industrial city where having cosmetic surgery is the norm and never having had cosmetic surgery makes you an outlier.

Here, I am constantly complimented on my small face and big eyes. Both of these things are thanks to my heritage, and the fact that holding out the corners of your eyes does not change their shape, no matter how determined you are.

In Ulsan, girls are not just holding their faces in a shape hoping their faces will get stuck. In Ulsan, I am surrounded by plastic surgery eyes, by shaved jawlines and “high” noses.

You would think that simply being surrounded by all this plastic would have reminded me of my brief, childhood dream of having almond-shaped eyes, but it wasn’t until winter vacation when a coworker of mine got double eyelid surgery, that I started remembering.

First it was the idea of changing eye shape, and then it looped back to “that girl named Kim who is exactly like me, but she lives on the other side of the world.” If by Kim, I meant a family name, and by exactly like me, I meant wanted to look differently than she did, then I found her. 

In Korea.

As an adult.

Transforming her eyes to look more like mine.

A Story of Chance: Wandering in Hong Kong

When I meet a new city, I prefer to walk it. Exploring on foot I have found a smattering of tucked away shops and cafes, but nothing yet compares to two discoveries made in Hong Kong. One with the help of a Couchsurfer turned friend. The other by chance.

This is the story of chance.

In Hong Kong, it is essential to walk and explore. Any Hong Konger will tell you the best way to experience the city is on foot. Skip the subway. Skip the buses. Skip the taxis. Pick a direction based on a hunch, a curiosity, or a destination, and walk.

Exploring on the Kowloon (mainland) side of Hong Kong, I started at the ferry terminal and Nathan Road. Then I decided to get off the main drag. I headed north in search of a gallery which promised a new perspective on “Touch” and art. Briefly disappointed and feeling lost after looking at immature work, thinking it looked childish for established artists, and only at the end of the exhibition finding out the work was done by students. (Thank goodness for the docent who told me!) I wandered back south.

I walked into the flower market, full of orchids, roses, lilies, rhododendrons, azaleas, bamboo. I was overwhelmed by scents and shoppers as I wandered.

Flowers in buckets and bouquets wrapped in paper. Vans picking up and delivering flowers in their daily routine. Tall buckets full of long-stemmed flowers packed tight. A florist trying to make room for more. Buckets toppling like dominoes. Water streaming into the gutter. I watched as staff slowly and calmly picked up the buckets. Their actions calculated movements, as if this was part of the daily routine.

Afterwards, I found myself in a bird garden (market) full of dissonant chirping. I heard a cacophony of birds trapped in cages, calling out, looking for a familiar voice in the mix. I saw beautifully carved cages, porcelain food and water dishes, multi-colored birds, old men and women sitting in stalls or outside the gates of the garden with so many songbirds. I could not take it all in. I left feeling stressed and confused. I sat on a bench trying to process the ordeal, taking a breath, writing some notes, eating a pear.

I wandered back to the street, more flowers, more open shops, garden flowers, and a main road. Prince Edward Road. Shops on the main level full of touristy goods. A subway station ahead. “I have been walking for hours. I am tired. Maybe I will go to the subway, head back to the hostel, and take a break.”

Then I see it. A sign. Literally, a sign. The sign marked the historic building I stood in front of. A building which retained original art deco elements from the font of the address on the door, to the ironwork on the doors themselves. I quickly skimmed the sign, and then I had a look for myself. On the second floor was a ceramics shop. Always on the look for unique moments when exploring cities, I wandered up the stairs. At the first landing, I looked at the doors, briefly confused at the lack of a ceramics’ shop, and then realizing for the umpteenth time that I was only on the first floor according to Hong Kong’s system of counting levels. I continued up the stairs.

Stairs with original tiling.

JL Ceramics

Concept Shop

“Open”

I pushed the door open and heard a chime which reminded me of a small metal wind chime. 

“Hello.” 

I heard in an accent I couldn’t quite place. 

“Hi,” I said, as I walked into the shop mesmerized by everything around me. I may or may not have made eye contact with the shopkeeper who sat behind an antique looking carved wooden desk with a large tapestry acting as a curtain behind him.

As I wandered around his shop, looking, not touching, amazed at the variety of ceramics I saw before me, enchanted by the lovely, detailed painting on a small porcelain tea set, he must have watched me. While I can’t say for sure that he wondered about my presence in his shop, as I walked around to the first shelf, his question gave me a hint. 

“So, what brings you in? You just wander into any open shop?”

Apparently I did not look the part of his usual, purposeful customer. I also had not initiated a conversation, secretly hoping that his curiosity would start the conversation and nearly overly excited at the chance to speak about my own wonderings and slightly out of breath, I said, “I saw a sign that this was a historic building, and I happen to like ceramics.” 

First he told me about the apartment. He drew my attention to the floor, “original tile.” I could tell by the lilt in his voice that he was happy to have a customer who appreciated the finer details of his apartment. I let him indulge, asking probing questions here and there, and finding out that he had to petition to rent this apartment. He made a proposal that he would keep everything original, while supporting and promoting local cultural arts. He won the bid. He hosts a variety of workshops at the apartment and at another location.

“What kind of ceramics do you like?” he asked.

“I like all kinds from very detailed porcelain to contemporary abstract works.”

He showed me his most prized items, kiln supports from an ancient Chinese dynasty, which had been discarded by the potters at the time because a bowl had been partially glazed to them. These kiln supports were rugged, heavy grog. The porcelain inside delicate and glazed with with celadon, a light green glaze praised by many potters because of the difficulty of achieving a perfect mixture.

I asked if he had work by local Hong Kong artists. We talked kilns. He showed me work he had purchased in Korea, opening the door for me to talk about my story. He then launched into his. He lived in Melbourne for 10 years before returning to Hong Kong and opening the shop. Finally, his accent was put in its place.

After my own wandering and his tour, I knew I could not leave without a piece of this place. I knew what I wanted but worried it was out of my price range. Luckily, I had just enough for two small teacups minimally and artfully painted. Perfect reminders of my trip and this lovely discovery.

Before heading back to wash and wrap my selections, the shopkeeper pointed me to a beautiful selection of fabrics and clothing, which he had seen me brush past in my excitement about pottery. He told me he had a large selection of fabric woven in Shanghai in the 1950s, and he had decided to try his hand at designing clothes. I then noticed, the shirt he was wearing came from the same selection of blue and white striped cloth. 

This was heavy fabric. Beautifully dyed and woven. I immediately thought of my grandmother. And as he slipped away to take care of my tea cups, I admired his handicraft, but mostly the weight and feel of the fabric. Modern fabrics are woven by machine, but these fabrics had the feel of hand-weaving. Uneven, thick, rough, and masterful. Realizing there was no way I could carry a whole bolt of fabric with me back to the hostel or back to Korea, I looked down. Remembering that I had seen other storage areas on lower shelves around the shop, I found the remnants. When he saw me sifting through them, it was as if he knew I was wondering about price. 

“Pick one,” he said across the shop. “Those are scraps. For you, take one for free. For the memory.”

“Really? Wow. Ok! Thank you so much.”

These were very well kept remnants, and I selected one which I found the most attractive of the lot.

Giddy with the excitement of the discovery of this shop, the fact I was spending my last 350 HKD and still had a couple days left in town, the pleasure of knowing that I would soon be the owner of two beautiful tea cups, and holding the remnant, I headed back to the front of the shop and his desk. We conversed a bit more, and then I walked back out to the street.

Out of the shop, suddenly I was exhausted. I needed to find food, an ATM, and get back to the hostel to take a nap so I could keep going for the rest of the day.

Nothing lost, nothing gained? Losing 300 USD in Tokyo.

Sometimes, in a move to be social and see a different side of a place, you agree to go out on the town, even when you are tired and want to wake up early the next morning. For me Monday, September 28, 2015 in Tokyo was one of those nights. I was on vacation. Why not get to know new people from the hostel and explore a different side of Tokyo?

I had spent the day exploring. I had eaten an awesome meal of ramen, suggested by the host of the hostel, and I was just hanging around in the common area planning my Tuesday. Not many people were around. It was 9 p.m.

I went upstairs, debating with myself what to do. I could go to sleep. I was tired after a long day of walking and exploring, but when I heard people talking in the room, I took a chance. I stepped out of my capsule bed and ask if anyone had plans for the evening.

That was when the evening turned from a potential quiet night to a night I will not soon forget. M the Italian girl in the room said, “Yes, another guy from the hostel and I are going out. Do you want to join us?”

I hesitated for a split second, then said, “Yeah, why not?”

I thought for sure we were going out in our area, so I only packed a bit of cash, about 4,000 yen (40 USD). When I went downstairs, I found out we were going to Shinjuku, a place full of yakitori and small bars. I asked if I would have enough for the evening. G the French guy who was coming with us assured me that it would be enough. “We won’t be out for that long. I want to be back before 2 a.m.”

We were an unlikely group of three. M a graphic designer who worked for an architecture firm, G a teacher trainer on sabbatical who had coordinated visiting artists to schools, and me, a EFL teacher, formerly an art educator. We came together at a great place, Kai(su) Hostel, attracted by the artistic layout of the hostel’s website and the charm of its interior design.

As we headed out to Shinjuku via two transfers on the metro, I considered what I would do if 4,000 was indeed not enough. I had my bank card. I knew I could always stop by a 7/11 ATM and withdraw more if needed.

We started the evening at a small yakitori bar and left around midnight. Already, I knew it was going to be a long night and my 4,000 yen had somehow already dwindled to 1,500 yen. It was not a good feeling. No one else was ready to head back, and I didn’t have money for a taxi. So, the conclusion was to stay out, tell M and G my money situation and figure out how to pay them back later. Feeling like an awful mooch, I let them know that I was pretty short on money.

“No problem!” was the response that I received.

After dinner we wandered over to Golden Gai, a series of alleys crowded with small 7-8 person bars. Between my method of using GPS and G’s method of asking every time he felt we were going the wrong direction, we made pretty good time. As we walked through the alleys of Golden Gai, we discussed the criteria for selecting a bar.

First, no cover charge. Many of the bars charged a cover for foreigners who may have just come to see what all the hype was about rather than to sit down, have a drink, and talk to the bar tender.

Second, there had to be people in the bar.

Third, it needed to look like fun.

As I predicted, I was out of cash after the first drink and a half. That was when things started to get uncomfortable. Sure, it’s not hard as a woman to get men to buy you drinks, but I like to pay for myself. I felt the guilt starting to rack up. We were all travelers on limited budgets staying at a hostel – so when we left Golden Gai in search of a place to dance – I kept my eyes open for an ATM. I didn’t care to dance, but no matter what we did, at this point, I felt I needed to grab some money.

That’s when I saw a 7/11 bank. This was my chance to get cash and pay everyone back for their generosity. I went into the bank, put in my Korean ATM card and started pressing buttons to withdraw money. I had remembered from before that 10,000 yen (100 USD) was the minimum I could withdraw at a time in Japan, but this time it seemed as if I could withdraw 50,000 Korean won (5,000 yen, 50 USD). I was excited, it would mean less money left over in yen at the end. I withdrew the money, put it in my purse without examining it, and left the bank.

After I took the money, we walked a bit more, looking for a club, and finding only places with hopping music and no dance floor. By this time it was 4 a.m. well past the 2 a.m. I was promised and well past my budget for this night out. Finally, to my relief, we headed, yawning, toward the metro. We were somehow under the impression that the metro opened at 4 a.m. When it wasn’t open, G, in his way, asked the poor student on the steps about the opening time, 6:30 a.m. We all agreed that it wasn’t worth the wait.

It was time to take a taxi.

Now was my time to pay back the favors, so I offered to cover our taxi ride of 2,400 yen (24 USD). When we arrived at the hostel, I handed over three bills to the taxi driver. G handed me a 1,000 yen bill for some reason. I received 600 yen in change from the driver, and I got out of the taxi and headed for bed.

The next day, I checked out of the hostel around 10 a.m. as planned and made my way to the Imperial Gardens and then on to a traditional looking area of Tokyo, known as Taito, where a hidden gallery called SCAI THE BATHHOUSE resided. The gallery didn’t open until noon, and I was a little early. So, I wandered around.

Not too far away was a great little hidden bakery and coffee shop nestled into traditional wooden houses. I went in and grabbed a couple low cost baked goods.

I thought I had about 3,600 yen in my pocket left over from the night before, 2,000 from the ATM withdrawal, 1,000 from G, and 600 in change from the taxi driver. I hadn’t bothered to check my wallet when I left the hostel. I just packed the extra 5,000 I had saved for transportation and was on my way. When I was at the metro, I put 1,500 yen on my card to get to the airport, so at the bakery I should have had 2,100 yen immediately accessible in my wallet.

I put down a bill for the baked goods, and waited as the cashier counted change. She took her time and grabbed a 5,000 yen bill and some 1,000 yen bills. I was about to wave her away and tell her she was wrong when I looked down at the bill I had handed her. In Japanese style it was still in the money tray on the counter. It was a 10,000 yen bill.

I stopped in shock. My first thought was, “Oh shit. G must have handed me a 10,000 yen note. What am I going to do? I don’t have his contact information. I don’t even know his last name.” I started thinking about how I could possibly pay this forward or return it to him.

After enjoying my snack, I went back to the gallery and then wandered on to the metro to head to the airport. I still had no idea what to do about the money, so I brushed the thoughts aside. I could figure it out later, when I had had more sleep and less alcohol the night before.

When I got close to the metro, I decided to stop by a convenience store to grab some water or something to drink. I went in and grabbed a marker and a drinkable yogurt. Then I went to the counter. At the counter, I opened my wallet and pulled out the change from the 10,000 yen bill. To my surprised I found another 10,000 yen bill. That’s when my neck flushed. I fumbled a bit, paid for my things with change from the first 10,000 yen bill and got out of there.

“What is going on? If I have two, it wasn’t G who made a mistake. I must have taken 50,000 yen (500 USD) from the ATM?”

As I thought of all of this and the foggy events of the nights before, I walked toward the metro, found my train, and got on. As I sat on the train, I badly wanted to open my wallet and do some calculations to figure out what was going on. If it was true, that I had taken 50,000 yen, maybe I misremembered the taxi ride. Maybe I gave him one bill and he gave me different change. The only other option is that he took 30,000 yen (300 USD) from me and gave me 600 yen in change. This couldn’t be right. There’s no way.

After a few stops, I got off the train to transfer and make sure I was on a train to the airport. I desperately wanted to find a place to hide and count my money.

There was nowhere to hide on the outdoor platform.

I would have to wait an hour until I was at the airport and in the bathroom. I had an hour to remember and make clear the events of the night before.

I remembered. I went to the ATM. I must have withdrawn 50,000 yen, there is no other explanation and it makes more sense that 50,000 Korean won. I was in Japan after all. I got in the taxi. At the end, I handed the taxi driver three bills. I distinctly remember this action. I also remember not looking at the bills, ever, until the bakery. I just assumed that 1 and 0 that I noticed were followed by two more zeros not three.

When I finally arrived at the airport, I was 90 percent certain of what had actually occurred, but I had a small sliver of hope that maybe I was remembering the night wrong. What kind of taxi driver, takes 30,000 yen for a 2,400 yen taxi ride?

I resolved to go into a stall and cry about my loss. 300 USD. The equivalent of a month of my teacher training course. Money that was supposed to go home. Money that I should have held on to, but not money that put me at a complete loss. Maybe the taxi driver needed that money … or maybe he was just a jerk who hated foreigners.

I went to the stall, still slightly clinging to hope. I opened my wallet with one last wish, and then I counted. One 10,000 yen bill. Two 5,000 yen bills. Three 1,000 yen bills. There was no longer any question. I had done exactly what I dreaded. I withdrew 50,000 yen and gave 30,000 yen to the taxi driver.

There was simply no other explanation. It will be absolutely confirmed when I see my sad bank account.

I traded 300 USD for a story.

Nothing lost nothing gained. 

There is no real excuse for the confusion ...

Driving in Paris and Other Memories: Paris Syndrome

As I read Tahir Shah’s Paris Syndrome, a flood of memories poured over me. Memories connected to false hopes and crushed dreams associated not with Paris or the city itself, but with a failed relationship, loosely connected to Paris, that has greatly affected my life and choices. When this relationship lay in the wreckage of confusion in Marseille, I hopped on a train to Nice, and then on to Paris for a brief moment to meet up with a friend who was also piecing together a shattered heart. We had a plan. We would meet in Paris. I had an international driver’s license, so we would drive north to Omaha Beach in Normandie, retracing the footsteps of her grandfather.

I met my friend near Gare du Nord, and we headed straight for the car rental area. Renting outside of America, I dreamed of a finally getting to drive a French car, a Citroen or Peugeot. You can imagine my disappointment when I found that the car in our spot was a tiny little Ford Fiesta. Regardless, we loaded up the car and drove out of the parking garage into the streets of Paris to begin our journey north.

Driving out of the city was deceptively easy. Parisian traffic seemed low key and more orderly than I had imagined, and I adeptly weaved my way onto the A14 heading north, briefly waylaid by a passing emergency vehicle. The drive back into Paris did not echo our drive out. Beautiful and ingenious as it may seem, Paris can be a nerve-racking mess for contemporary drivers without a GPS.

The plan seemed easy enough. On our return trip from Caen, I took the A14 and aimed for the peripherique, a road which circles the city and drops drivers near to their destinations. As an inexperienced Parisian driver, I missed the turn onto the peripherique and headed straight into the heart of Paris, a spinning round-a-bout full of traffic, an intersection of five roads, ten spokes.

 My head hurt.

Feeling pressure because we had to return the rental on time, I imagined the worst. Chances were that we would get lost, take the wrong spoke, and spin in the wrong direction, possibly toward another, perhaps even more convoluted round-a-bout.

It was here, entering this giant mess of five roads coming together into a centrifuge, shooting cars in every direction, that my friend, fighting motion sickness to read the map, must have said something like, “Take Avenue de Wagram.”

“What?!”

As I drove into the round-a-bout, trying to keep abreast of traffic, in this land with no divisions between lanes and a hundred cars merging into one place, it was all I could do not to lose it. “I don’t know which street that is!”

Parisian roads are labeled like those in most of the world outside of the Les États-Unis. That is, they are not on sign posts clearly discernible to a speeding vehicle, rather they are on the sides of buildings easily understandable to a pedestrian or, as in Haussmann’s time, a horse and carriage, but nearly impossible for a vehicle traveling nearly 40 miles per hour (65 km/h). It was not as if I could just slow down and approach each spoke timidly while inquiring about which road to take. That surely would have meant being crushed by the oncoming drivers inside our tiny Ford Fiesta.

Feeling as though a giant crevasse had opened between us inside the car, I yelled to my friend, “Forget street names! Just count! How many do I need to go? How many spokes?”

She counted frantically, figuring how many spokes we had already passed, egged on by the distress and urgency in my voice. Cars screamed past us as I tried to keep control and not veer too close to the center or edge of the centrifuge.

“Three more spokes!” she yelled across the void.

One.

Two.

Three!

Suddenly, we were out of the first round-a-bout. We passed the first test, and the crevasse closed. We were back to sitting close, side-by-side, separated merely by the bucket seats and gear shift.

As each subsequent round-a-bout approached, we developed a strategy. A) Determine which road we had ended up on. B) Find the road on the map. C) Count how many spokes to the correct road. D) Check to make sure we ended on the correct spoke before hitting another round-a-bout. We proceeded with this strategy for what felt like an eternity. In reality, we probably drove through the heart of Paris for twenty minutes.

Then I saw it, a sign for Gare du Nord! “There it is!” 

I was elated. We had somehow survived Parisian traffic and countless round-a-bouts! We had made it!

Then I looked down at the gas gage.

Nearly empty.

Oh well. I did not care if we got charged me 9 Euro a liter for a tank of gas. I was not about to venture away from the portal that would take the car and us down into a garage and off the streets. I had had enough of Parisian traffic and of the crazed people who drive there. I still have not determined who regularly drives in Paris. I have not met a single Frenchman who has said, “Parisian traffic? No problem.” Instead they look at me like I must be crazy trying to drive through the streets of Paris.

Exhausted, we dropped the car and walked back to the apartment my friend was lodged in. It was 9pm. We had yet to hear from her hosts, who were out of town. I still did not know if it was ok for me to stay. At 10pm, my friend got a message. The girlfriend was not comfortable with a stranger staying in her apartment. I was kicked to the curb to look for a hotel near Gare du Nord.

For those who do not know Paris, this is not a comfortable neighborhood for a solo female traveler. Full of shady, back alley dealings, I was skeptical that I would find a hotel suitable for sleeping before my flight back to Marseille. Rather than tell my friend about my discomfort. I googled the nearest hotel, called to make sure they had a room, and headed out.

The hotel was “a stone’s through from Gare du Nord [and] doubled as a bordel”. I know that Tahir Shah’s book is fictional, but I imagine that in his travels Shah has experienced a place much as I did, a place I found in an exhausted state, at the last minute. After a long drive through the convoluted streets of Paris, I just needed a place to sleep.

On the exterior of the hotel, a sign with red letters in English but not in French said, “Guests may not have visitors.” Shaking off the red flags that were mounting, I entered. Next to the forbidding sign, there was a TripAdvisor sign. That should mean something, right? I took a breath and pushed the door in. A bell rang and the man sitting behind the counter hardly looked away from his television. I confirmed that I had just called, and he told me the total. I promptly handed him a card to pay. That was when he finally looked up at me.

“No cards,” he grunted.

I scrambled, taking out my wallet and counting and recounting my cash. The total for the room was something like 54 Euro. I only had 40 Euro, 44 with coins. I hesitated. I really did not want to venture back out on the street to find a cash machine or another hotel. I showed him that all I had was 44 Euro. He grunted and grumbled something about barely making ends meet. Then he took the money and gave me an old-style hotel key. Apparently at 10pm, I was an inflow of cash when there might have been none otherwise.

As I headed toward the narrow staircase that would take me up to my room, I took in my surroundings. Dark, due to nicotine covered light fixtures and no natural light from outside, the interior of the hotel was uninviting. I climbed the stairs as best I could, lugging a suitcase behind me. At the top of the stairs, I found the elevator door straight ahead and my room door directly to my right. I unlocked the door and walked into a tiled floor room, immediately turning around to lock and deadbolt the door. I heard the bathroom facet dripping, inhaled stale cigarette smoke, and heard the television through the thin walls. Luckily, my flight left early in the morning, and this would be a short night.

I was paranoid about bugs and the sounds coming from rooms all around me, but the hotel really was not bad. In a different circumstance, I might have thought it quaint. Even though I was exhausted, I did not sleep well on the uneven mattress, and in the morning, I skipped breakfast and got away from the hotel as quickly and early as possible. Badly needing sleep, I headed for the airport to fly back to Marseille and deal, once again, with wreckage and collect my things.

While I did not ever experience Paris Syndrome as extreme as Shah’s characters, I can see exactly why such an occurrence would happen. The city is touted as the most beautiful in the world, but the reality is both beautiful and gritty. It is a city of contrasts. A city with fabulous food, architecture, and history, and a city full of crazed drivers, prostitutes, and grime. A city I have spent as little time in as possible.