Christmas is coming, Christmas is coming! And, like every single year, like clockwork: the airports are failing, the airports are failing!
As far as holiday traditions go, I’m definitely a fan of the new ones I’ve adopted since being here; hot spiced wine, roasted chestnuts, catty roasted chestnut venders who scoff and yell at each other across the way and good-naturedly harangue passers-by…but most of all, the Code Orange This Is Not A Drill There Is Frozen Rain Coming From The Sky And We, The Airports Of The World, Are Not Equipped To Deal With This Sort Of National Disaster holiday news broadcasts.
Most years, I would be smack in the middle of this chaos, grumpily using my messenger bag as a pillow and swearing under my breath (just for the fun of being in a foul mood with everyone else—it’s a bonding experience!) as I spent seven euros on a stale [insert airport food of choice here]. However, this year, I am patiently waiting in a hotel for my family unit to arrive in one piece, while I watch French news correspondents with crazy eyes and ruffled French travelers who still look better than me on a good day, giving quotes like:
“I’m just…this is just REALLY NOT OKAY,” and;
“This is unbelieeeeeeevable! The flights are delayed, I am just in shock and no one is answering our questions and we will spend Christmas here I’m telling you because these stupid idiots here are unable to do ANYTHING, I will fly the plane, just show me where it is, I will fly it…” as if from a script.
Best Way To Wait For Your Family When All Of Europe Is Scared of Wet Snow
“Je vous arrête pour le meurtre…”
It’s Saturday night, and I’ve moved into a hotel room in the 6th arrondissement, across from restaurants cheerily dressed up for Christmas, with awnings covered in snow and menus with prices that make me snort with laughter as I stand outside, squinting at the posted lists of delicacies on the windows. One of my last friends left in Paris, Pete, and I meet up to attempt to ice skate in front of Hotel de Ville, but are thwarted by a flash snowstorm of big fat flakes that are piling up on the ice rink and blinding small children faster that we can keep up with. We duck into a café off a side road and spend a little over five hours with espressos, roast chicken with gratin dauphinois and a bottle of red wine, while the French bar cat sits next to us in the booth, but shoots us judging French eyes if I try to pet her. Typical.
After navigating the Châtelet Metro station in a food coma back to my new home, I settle into bed and wind up watching dubbed reruns of Law & Order: Criminal Intent on French TV channel TF1. Except here, it’s “New York Division Criminelle,” and Vincent D’Onofrio as a costaud Frenchman puts a whole other spin on the series. I watch two episodes and am unable to decide whether the spidery suspenseful music hanging off of the jolly smart-alecky French accent we all know and love works for me.
The terrible dubbing does make me feel better about some things, though. “You’re under arrest for the murder of so-and-so,” for example, becomes “Je vous arrête pour le meurtre de…” Translated: “I stop you.” I can’t help but giggle, alone in the hotel room, at the politeness of it all. “Ahem, I’m uh, really very sorry about all this, but I’m going to have to stop you for this murder. My apologies, again.” The next day I watch Jurassic Park: Le Monde Perdu. (The Lost World. You go Jeff Goldblum.)
After I sleep through free breakfast the first morning, I get my act together and lope downstairs like Eloise on Christmas at the Plaza—did anyone else but me read those books?— to enjoy a peacefully silent breakfast with free wifi that I don’t get in my room. On the second morning, I wise up and sneak an extra pain au chocolat and croissant back with me.
(Upon arrival, I called down to the reception desk to see if I needed a password for the wifi. There’s a pause while the receptionist, a man with hair like a French banker, looks up my room.
“Trois cent neuf, c’est ça?” (Room 309, right?)
“Oui, c’est ça.”
“Il n’y a pas de wifi au troisième étage.” (There is no wifi on the third floor.)
“Oh, okay. Merci.” (What the hell do you mean there’s no wifi just because I am mere feet above the second floor?? This is so typical France, man, I swear. I’m going to fight this, you hear me?? You hear me???)
I spend the next few days sitting in the stairwell a floor below checking my email to avoid sitting awkwardly in the lobby.
Paris has an odd, quiet and larger-than-life quality to it now that the wolf pack of ladies has disappeared back stateside. Before, with empty bottles of wine in hand as we skipped down Rue Mouffetard after a long evening, cackling like hyenas and guaranteed to miss the Metro, Paris seemed smaller and conquerable.
My first night in Paris, I was a day early than most people in the program, and I remember being terrified in my miniscule hotel room in the Opera district. Culture shock is a bitch, and it can show up out of nowhere—mine wasted no time, smacking me in the face at Charles de Gaulle. If I thought I had been taking French for the past 8 years of my life, I was wrong, it must have been Swahili judging by the way I flailed around for an hour, lost in the underbelly of French cruelty at it’s finest.
Now it seems, alone again before my family arrives and I am tasked with carting three Americans behind me to all the monuments and France-isms I have come to know and love, Paris is mine for the observing. Except this time, I can expertly snack on falafel from Maoz in front of Notre Dame with a honed French scowl on my face, secretly enjoying the cold and the ignorant tourists schlepping overstuffed bags up and down the stairs at Denfert-Rochereau station.
The panic attacks of withdrawal are already beginning.
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