Why Getting Lost Caused Me to Absolutely Panic- A Fear Realized in France

 

Why Getting Lost Caused Me to Absolutely Panic- A Fear Realized in France      

If you’re only here to look at stories about Ireland, this one will disappoint. This story is mostly about France. If instead you’re reading this because I am a bit silly, then by all means read on. This is one of the more funny travel stories, though it started out as one of my most frightening.

 As I’m sure you’ve noticed most of what concerns me most about living in Ireland is the driving. Part of this stems from my long held fear of getting lost. What if you can’t find your way back? What if you’re wandering around for hours? What if you run out of gas wandering around for hours?! All of these thoughts tend to send me into panic attacks and general mayhem ensues. I have a number of traumatic stories from my childhood as to why this is such a fear, but the most pertinent involves my first visit to a different country by myself. As a PhD student I was given the awesome opportunity to go to a research conference in France and present my research. Way cool, right?  Well, let’s just start with my limited French, I can say yes, no, thank you, and that is about it. If I can read it I can usually decipher what it is, but I took Spanish and so for all intents and purposes my French is nil. Well, we can now add “Baggage verts s'il vous plaît?” to my list because on the way over, I made the connection in Brussels but my bags did not. One reason I made it through Brussels was because of a fantastic gadget my mom got me before I left. Back before they were popular, my mom found a battery powered cell phone charger which I thought was brilliant.  It took 1 AA batteries, was silver and bullet shaped, which while going through customs/security, the agent mistook for an item of… well let’s just say he thought it was of a more personal nature than a cell phone charger. So as he pulled it out of my bag, he started blushing which in turn made my eyes bug out of my head when I realized what he thought it was and so I started miming and saying, “Oh, no no no!! It’s for a PHONE. You know, PHONE???” As if shouting and pantomiming a phone made it better, well as soon as he pulled that out he shoved everything else back in the bag and shushed me on my way. So, long lines in airport? Don’t worry ladies, just bring a phallic cell phone charger and all will be well, or you’ll just be so embarrassed you’ll forget all about the previous wait.

I was so surprised I found the exact model!! This is it!

            After breezing through security (thank you again mom!), I arrived in Marseilles France but my bags did not make it (this is where “Baggage verts s'il vous plaît?” comes into play because I had green bags). No problem! I packed a spare outfit just in case, so let’s see… Pants, shirt, dress shoes… oh shit! No undergarments or socks! There are lots of things I’m willing to do in the name of science, but wearing 2 day old underwear is NOT one of them! So after a wild cab ride to my hotel and a quick assessment of what I needed, I went down to the front desk to see if I could get directions to a store to buy underwear and socks. This is how the conversation went:

ME: Poly voo engles? (I left the phonetics in just in case you had any misconceptions about my lack of French)

Desk receptionist: Non-(imagine it with a haughty French accent. Now I’m not saying all French are haughty, just this one in particular.)

ME: Shit (under my breath) …OK, I. NEED. UNDERWEAR (pulled a bit of my waistband out of my pants). AND, SOCKS (pulling up the hem of my pants). LOST BAGS. (Sadly I fell prey to if you can’t speak the language speak louder and mime wildly what you want).

Desk receptionist: (Wrinkles her nose at me) Ici. (Hands me a map and points me out the door)

ME: THANK YOU!

Out the door I went on my first adventure! And as I looked down at the map I noticed something funny, well a lot of funny things… She gave me a map in GERMAN! Ok, so in the words of my high school voice teacher, “With that blond hair, light eyes, and broad shoulders, you just LOOK German!” which is why I learned to sing German songs first, but COME ON! My German is reserved for really bad poetry so I can tell you that you’re as beautiful as a flower, so lovely and gay, but I can’t navigate in it! And I spoke to you in ENGLISH. Well, do what you can with what you have, right? So I kept walking the direction she pointed and I start seeing more and more graffiti, and things are looking dirtier and dirtier… I’m thinking this may not be the right way… So I see some little old ladies and repeat a similar conversation with them as I had with the receptionist. They didn’t speak English either, but they did usher me on a bus when I showed them the map and pointed to where the bitchy desk woman said I could get my necessities. Eventually someone I tried to speak to on the bus who seemed to know where I was wanting to go, ushered me off the bus and I found the French version of Wal-greens (Sam McCulley’s here in Ireland), and was able to get my necessities. Alright! I’m ready to go back to the hotel! Oh hell, where am I???? One thing I found was that people were not very helpful when they realized I didn’t speak French so 6 hours, lunch with some American navy guys who only knew where their ship was, one traumatic subway ride, and 2 tearful phone calls to Matt later (time changes don’t exist when you’re jet lagged and lost, and all you wanted was some socks, underwear, and a cute purse!)  I met a group of people going to my hotel and followed them back. Now, what I forgot was that I probably could have just gotten a cab back to the hotel, but since I was so panicked all I could think of was how lost I was and how this was totally not how I expected my adventures to go! Screw the adventure I just wanted to get back to my room and go to bed! In my defense during the tearful phone calls, Matt didn’t recommend a cab either, and so I can only chalk that up to cabs not really ever being much of an option where I’m from. Yes you can get them, but we never did so the thought never even dawned on me.  So this is the basis for my fear of getting lost in a new country.  Once I arrived back at the hotel I decided it was time for dinner and bed. So I went to the restaurant got some questionable Indian food (at the time I had never eaten Indian so this perplexed me, I know I’m sheltered) and then asked for something to drink. The guy asked what I wanted and I answered in one of the only drinks I knew would be the same in any language. VODKA. The man looks at me, Vodka? Yes, du. Oh and 7 up. I think that second order reassured him I wasn’t a raging alcoholic, though I’m not totally sure.  He was also kind enough to provide me with a converter to use until my bags arrived. So I trudged upstairs, ate my questionable Indian food, drank my vodka and 7up, checked my e-mail and passed out until the next day when things started getting better and continued to do so until I left nearly a week later. As for my bags, they showed up late on day 2 so all was well.  That is until I learned never to climb a mountain in flip-flops, but that was my own fault not Frances. On a side note some of the most delicious chocolate I've ever had came from Puyricard chocolates, they were paired with one of the most delightful people I've met. He was the chocolatier for the shop and was very kind to me and some ladies from the CDC, so it seems that I met every awful person in the city on my first day. Though not everyone was as kind as the chocolatier, they were at least nicer than those I met on the first day.

Looking down on the city of Marseilles from the top of Basilica Notre-Dame de la Garde's hill/mountain

The harbor at Marseilles

Fresh seafood!! Not something I saw very often in Missouri.

As much as I wanted one of each of these, I was good and just took a picture.

Notre-Dame de la Garde

The inside of the basilica.

The other cathedral in town. Didn't get to see this one inside, just from afar.

One of Napoleon's palaces but he never visited it

One of the many statues in the city. This became a landmark for me traveling back and forth to the conference.

And a sea shell cow!

            When you come to Ireland you must understand, YOU WILL GET LOST… A LOT. This is a totally different experience than what I had in France. Whereas the people there are not really willing to help you, over here everyone wants to be helpful! More than once I’ve been in the car on the side of the road looking quite puzzled at a map or my phone and a stranger has pulled over to ask if I’m OK and if I needed help getting where I was going. More often than not, they will go out of their way and lead you to where you need to go if it’s close. If not they’re more than happy to give directions.

            Sometimes these directions are very well intentioned but not always helpful. I kid you not, this is an actual conversation I had with someone in Portlaoise (port-leesh):

ME: Excuse me, do you know where the Teagasc (Sha-gask) office is?

THEM: Ah sure, it’s very close to where the old Dunnes store used to be.

ME: Wonderful! How do I get there?

THEM: Go to where the old Dunnes store used to be and it’s right on that corner.

This is the Dunnes store closest to our house. It's a lovely shop that has a bit of everything. Think of it as a baby target greatland without the office supplies.

          I am clearly not a local (even though I now gleefully tell people I’m from Cork when they ask, tee hee!) but I apparently should have known where the Dunnes store used to be. After some puzzled looks, they told me to go out, make a right, then another right and its up on the corner. 2 rights and a left and a roundabout later, there it was! Half the time the GPS (Sat Nav here) has no idea where things are either, so you can’t rely on that. And then there’s google Maps… A bit better at location but you can’t trust it on time estimation to save your life. This is such a big thing that I’ll be writing a whole blog post on how you can’t trust Google Maps or your GPS. But so long as you're not trying to get somewhere to meet people or have a meeting, getting lost can be fantastic. Here are a few places we've stumbled upon while lost:

Ballybeg priory

Kanturk Castle

Barryscourt Castle

Lismore Castle

The Muskery hounds having a day out for their puppy show!

            The moral of the story for this post is that I’m not afraid of getting lost any more. In fact I look at it more as an adventure than something to be feared because usually I get to meet fun people and have a giggle with them about how silly I am for getting so lost. I also now have a GPS with a “go home” button which means if I ever get REALLY lost I can always make it home.  Life is grand in Ireland and if you come visit, enjoy every wrong turn.