Finally here
disclaimer: i'm using a french keyboard which drives me crazy, so if there's a q anywhere that an a should be, don't blame me, blame the international community's inability to standardize technology.
ok, i'm a little short on time, so how about if i just tell the story of my trip now and then later, when i have more time (and there are more of them) i'll tell you about my first impressions of reunion.
Allright - the first legs of the trip, from Dallas to Toronto to Paris, were pretty standard. And in Paris i had a nice hour or two with Malkah walking around our old neighbourhood and getting a crepe at our favourite crepe stand.
But by the time I got through security at Orly, the length of the trip and the enormity of the undertaking were starting to get to me. I slept most of the ten hour flight from Paris to St. Denis, but whenever I was awake I felt rather scared and lonely. But things were better when I landed; i managed to get directions in French, and once I got on the shuttle to the city center and then on the bus in the direction of my hostel the beauty of the island really lifted my spirits.
BUT...ok, so the deal was: i had to take one bus out of St Denis, to a city near my hostel, then switch to a local bus line to get to the hostel itself. So i take the bus to St.Paul, get out at the bus station, and to to the information desk of the local bus line to figure out exactly what to do.
The young man behind the desk looks at my hostel information and calls the listed number to find out more...he talks to someone for a few minutes, gives them my name, and then looks up at me: "il y a un probleme" he says. It turns out that the hostel where I was supposed to be staying is closed for repairs, and they were supposed to have found other accomodations for all their guests, but someone had messed up and they didn't have a place for me.
Eventually, the woman from the hostelling agency found me a place at what is basically the french equivalent of a ymca in St. Denis. And two more bus rides and several blocks walk dragging my suitcase later, i have a room and a shower to myself, and internet access.
So now things are ok, but for a while it was super-scary. There i was, all alone with two heavy suitcases in a completely foreign country, with no place to go. Many times on the trip between St. Paul and my new hostel i felt like crying, but each time i reminded myself of the kindness of the man at the bus station in St. Paul and was able to stay calm. Not only did he make sure i was found a place to stay, he also kept me from panicking, cracking jokes while we waited to hear from the hostelling agency and letting me use his computer. Before i left the States, there was a fair number of people who warned me about the amount of caution a girl traveling alone should have, about the people who might try to take advantage of me. But there i was, entirely vulnerable, and for no reason but that it was the kind, human thing to do, that young man helped me solve my problems, asking nothing in return.
So i'm not really scared anymore, because i have a feeling that there are a lot more kind basically decent people like that man out there than there are the kinds of predators i was warned about. And i'm still a little lonely, but i'm going to go right now to meet some of the other english-speaking assistants, so maybe we'll take care of that too.
In any case, je vous aime!
posted by Monica @ 04:57
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