5/22/05

5/22/05

We’re traveling on the train again, this time to Paris. I can’t believe we actually decided to go…this is insane. In London we could blend in and find our way independently pretty easily. However, without language we have nothing. We are truly strangers in a strange land. We’ve been really lucky so far, because lots of people are very willing to help us and practice their English on us. the average French person seems to know more English than both Ruby and I, at our best, know French.

It’s funny how a place that is socially an alien world for me can look so unremarkable. The train is taking us through the countryside, and apart from the occasional decorated steeple in the sparse petite villes, we could be on a stretch of the I5. with Jack Johnson playing on my ipod, and Ruby sleeping in the seat beside me, I could be home. I guess I’m a little homesick, and a little scared about wandering Paris without someone like Jess, who knows the language. We’re a few minutes to arrival, so avoir!

5/22/05 (later)

Not moments after our arrival in Paris, we were ripped off. We didn’t find out till later, but a scam artist totally hoodwinked us out of 66 euros. He was a “friendly man, with a wife and kids, trying to help 2 Americans buy a 2-day pass.” Of course a 2-day pass isn’t 66 euros! It was so obvious he was ripping us off, we were just too trusting. I’m having a hard time convincing myself that it happens all the time that it’s a part of going to Europe, that at least it was only $50 each and that we weren’t mugged, but it’s hard. Ruby has been in a bit of a bad mood since we found out our tickets were not a 2-day pass, and I was too for a while, but we’re both kind of over it. Hey, smile, it was only money.

----> 10:00pm. Speaking of money…well, 3 days left in Europe and I’ve run out of money. I’m borrowing from Ruby now, and I feel bad. It’ll be tight budgeting from here on out. Holy shit.