Thursday, May 14, 2009
I arrived in Paris on my birthday, a rainy, slightly cloudy, but still beautiful day. It was only a light misting, so I didn’t need an umbrella most of the time. A couple funny things happened to me upon my arrival which were almost comical. First, Air France seemed to have lost my bag. It wasn’t until I had been waiting an hour and that I realized that they had probably booked my bag all the way to Tel Aviv. After waiting in line to talk to someone, my recent suspicions were confirmed. It might have been nice to know that important piece of information, but no matter. Soon I was off into the city—sans bag. It was okay though because I didn’t really need anything from out of it. I was only going to be in Paris one day anyway, and didn’t want to worry about lugging it to my hostel and back.
I decided to take a taxi downtown because I had already wasted so much time in the airport waiting for the bag that was not coming. After informing the driver that I needed to pass by an atm to pay him, we set off. It was a relief to find that the French really does come back, even if a little rusty. As French was the only language that the Cambodian driver and I had in common, it was a perfect way to exercise the long untested effort! All went well until we stopped at the atm near my hostel: it wouldn’t give me any money. So we tried another. And another. By this point I had an inkling I knew what was wrong. I had forgotten to tell my bank that I was going to be out of the country and was sure that was the problem. This is where speaking French really came in handy. I can’t imagine trying to explain to a cabbie, “Hey I have money, just can’t get it from the atm,” using only awkward gestures and earnest expressions. Luckily I managed to convince the French boy at the hostel to overcharge the bill in exchange for money from his till.
First crisis averted.
Should be smooth sailing from here, right? Well now I needed to call home to the bank and tell them to put a note in my account and then I’d be set to go. No problem. It was still early in the States, but the banks would open in an hour, so I’d go out and find a calling card in the meantime. All over the place there are little café-like establishments called Tebacs where they also sell tobacco (obviously), calling cards, along with the regular staples of coffee and a morning newspaper. I walk in, I pick up a cheap calling card, and voilà! Problem solved, yes? No. I hold out my credit card to the gruff man behind the counter who says, “espèces.” Or cash only. Well, that’s the problem in the first place, right? I can use my credit card as credit, but I can’t pull money from the atm.
Okay, not solved. This does create something of a pickle, though. If I can’t buy a calling card, I can’t call my bank to make sure they change my account, and I am still without money.
Let’s put this into perspective: I am now in a foreign country (granted one I am comfortable in), and I am without money. Hahaha. Far from being scared or worried, I was actually very amused at the situation I had put myself in. I was never in any real danger, fear not, but in a strange way I was delighted to be truly living the bohemian lifestyle Paris is famous for in the form of its starving, penniless artists. Okay, I was neither an artist, nor about to starve, but it was kind of fun to figure out my current crisis.
Here’s where serendipity comes in: I never carry cash. Ever. It seems so pointless and it bulks up your wallet, so I just don’t. However, I remembered just then that my friend Matt, who had owed me $30 for about six months, had finally ponied up the dough just before I left and it was currently in my possession. Oh, Matt would gloat for months and feel justified and probably tell me that I owed him for saving my butt in this situation if he knew. No matter. He’s good at weaseling his way out of guilt and I had $30, so who cares?
Well, a Tebac is not a bank and they certainly don’t consider doing favors if it isn’t in their job description to exchange money, so the search for a bank to exchange the money was on. There are non-bank institutions that specialize in exchanges all over the place, but there were only two problems: they charge an insane fee sometimes, and I couldn’t even buy a pass for the metro to get to the areas where they were in great abundance. Again, you need money to exchange money, it would seem. What an interesting conundrum this day was turning out to be. Luckily, I was enjoying the challenge and the creative thinking this problem was forcing me to use.
Thirty dollars in hand and a bunch of different banks to try in the somewhat near vicinity, I set out walking and taking pictures along the way. I was out to solve a problem, but there was no reason not to enjoy myself on the way. Plus, this is my birthday. And everyone knows you’re obligated to have a fabulous day on your birthday. Oddly enough, I wouldn’t have wanted to spend the day any other way. I was currently without means, but I in Paris!
Well, I found a bank on my first try that would exchange the money and voilà: I’m out on the town again. Back to the Tebac to buy the calling card so I can call my bank, so they can change my account, so I can get money from the foreign atm, so I can have money to pay for my life.
Sigh, it was almost a shame when all of this was taken care of. It was fun to run around Paris never knowing what would happen next and when I would have to start begging on street corners for my sustenance. Okay, not really. But wouldn’t that have been fun? A true bohemian experience in Paris!
Second crisis averted, and almost as easily as the first.
But wait—there’s more. (Which phrase always makes me think of an obnoxious announcer on an infomercial for a product that you don’t really need, but that will totally change your life and make all your dreams come true.) An hour after I talked to the bank in the States and they claimed to have fixed the problem, I walked up to an atm at random, stuck my card in and waited for it to spit out the desired denominations of bills that I had asked for, only to have the automatic machine tell me, “Nope. Sorry. No way, no how. You can’t have any money.” WHAT? After all that effort, and nothing?
In the spirit of true bohemian desperation, I tried another. Slightly different message, “Not enough funds in the account requested.” Yeah, okay.
Back to square one: calling card, call to the bank, bank tells me the information has already been added to my account. So why, one might ask, am I not able to get any from my account? Again: hahaha. Turns out in the four—or is it five—years since I lived overseas the banks have changed the default of their atm requests from checking (as it makes sense) to savings! Ha! All this time, all this truly bohemian effort, my pains and toils (okay not really) were for naught. The whole time, all I needed to do was to transfer money back into my savings account because that is where the foreign atms wanted to draw it from! Funny that just before I left I transferred all my savings into my checking to avoid just this problem.
Third crisis averted.
Back to hostel, transfer funds into savings, try the atm once more and quite a different message: “Mais oui! We’d love to give you money. Here, take what you want. Have a nice day.” Ah, the joys of having money to spend. Now I was able to buy a metro ticket—in fact several metro tickets, eat a fabulous lunch of jambon au buerre (which is ham and butter on a baguette, which may sound odd, but it seriously amazing), buy a couple pain au chocolat (pronounced pan oh chocolah), and enjoy the sights and sounds of the city I love and miss so much.
So there I was, remembering how much I loved being there and yet also realizing how much I love the States. What a strange patriotic feeling to be having at the same time I was missing living in France. Hard to explain, but I guess what that means is that I used to yearn to live there, but am now content to visit and enjoy without staying long enough to get sick of it.
I spent the rest of the day pretending I was a photographer, making friends with interesting French men who were probably twice my age and hitting on me as I’m crossing the street, telling people, “No, I am not British, I am American” and, “Yes, some Americans do speak French.” I always forget how everyone automatically assumes I am from the United Kingdom. They have such interesting stereotypes and one of them is that no American speaks any language besides English. I love it also, when they assume one doesn’t understand what they are saying and are surprised when they receive a reply in French. Especially when they are talking about you. That’s the best because I love seeing their shamefaced expressions when they realize how tactless they were. But despite their faults, they really can be a friendly people and they definitely live in a beautiful place!
Further, but probably less detailed, commentaries of the rest of my trip to Israel are pending. Check back for that, but enjoy Paris for now:
