just a question of getting in the B&B that was the issue.
It was my first trip to Paris. I’d learned the language, planned my itinerary, gotten first-hand recommendations on where to go and what to definitely avoid. I even had the directions to my bed & breakfast down pat. By the time I’d gotten off the bus at Place de la Nation and confidently making my way toward my hosts’ apartment, I was proud of myself for knowing what I was doing.
Then I found myself outside the apartment, and realized that of all things people kept telling me about Paris, nobody said a word about how to open a door.
It’s always the little things.
Oh, there was a handle, all right, but the door was locked and so wouldn’t budge. There wasn’t a keyhole in sight, besides which my hosts had assured me a key wouldn’t be required there. There was a series of white buttons outside, and I initially took it to mean the same thing as in American apartment buildings—that each button was a buzzer corresponding to each apartment. However, not one of them was labeled with a resident’s name, and I wasn’t going to start buzzing everybody in the place and earn my hosts some very annoyed neighbors.
Well, okay, I did press a couple.
But they didn’t emit any noise, so that guess was incorrect anyway. (I never did find out any need for those buttons, because I later discovered the residential buzzers were located inside. So those decoy buttons? Meant to have a laugh at uninformed visitors, I’m sure of it.)
There was a separate button, round and white, that looked like a doorbell. It didn’t make sense for an apartment building to have a doorbell, but I jabbed at it experimentally. Nothing. I looked at it once more, then tried the door just to make sure. Still locked.
The preposterousness of the situation should’ve made me laugh, except I still needed a way to get in. I spotted a payphone up the hill, and figured I could call my hosts from there (“Bonjour. Um . . . I can’t get in”). But for that, I knew I’d need a payphone card, as they were phasing out coin-operated phones now—at least my preparations had taught me that much—and I didn’t have a phone-card.
Maybe I was at the wrong location. Could I, despite everything, have misunderstood the directions? I was sure I hadn’t, because the street name was there and prominent to be seen. But perhaps the street number was wrong. I walked down, retracing my steps, then came across an elderly woman in a dark blue dress. I asked her in French for directions—or rather, to clarify directions. With a big beam and twinkling eyes, she led me back to the exact spot I’d been.
Okay, so at least my sense of direction wasn’t the fatal factor here.
There was a café with a red roof just a hop away from the apartment. They sold newspapers, so it was worth a shot to see if they sold phone-cards as well. Not to mention whether they had any coin-operated payphones inside. The owner behind the bar helpfully replied in English: “We don’t have any phones here, but you can use the one up the hill.”
Back to square one. I let loose a rueful smile, and even though he had no idea of the reason behind that smile, the owner grinned back.
(On a sidenote, the above is another reason why it is ever-so-handy to just use carry-on when traveling. Could you imagine me trying to do that much trotting back and forth while struggling with a heavy suitcase behind me?)
I emerged out of the café just in time to see a man in a dark suit walking toward my hosts’ building. Spot of luck! Let’s see how he gets in. I headed for him and the apartment, just about convinced by this point that the whole procedure required a fingerprint scan and a secret password hissed in Arabic. I reached him just as he was pressing the round doorbellish button and snagging the handle.
The door opened for him.
I thought, Good grief. That’s it? And then, But I did that too!
Then I got it. It was about timing. I’d waited too long between pressing the round release button and grabbing the handle. Well, if you consider seven seconds to be “too long,” that is, but I’m guessing seven seconds translates to “oh fine, stay out, you bloody toad” in French.
I followed the man in, found the buzzer labeled with my hosts’ names, and in no time, the large and rotund Gérard was accompanying me up their tiny elevator and welcoming me through the threshold. After half an hour of being stumped with the technicalities of opening a mere door and wholly conscious that this incident deserved a long and ceaseless laugh track, I was finally in.
On a parting note: for the whole of the week that I was in Paris, each morning whenever I left the B&B to head for the metro, I’d pass the little red-roofed cafe. Each time I passed, I’d smile at the owner, and he’d smile and wave back.
It’s always the little things.
| « The Battle of the Bulge | Amsterdam Lesson #1: Take the A-Train » |
|