Caught the train to the city yesterday, to meet up with a friend. It’s always exciting going to explore a new city, but it’s never been quite like this. Frankly it was a little chaotic at times! But it all turned out well, and that’s what counts.

So, left for the train before my friend had woken up (lets call him … C.). Didn’t have an address or phone number to him, but was counting on that he’d call when he woke – arrived at the city two hours later and still had heard nothing. Great. What do you do? I went to exchange some money and try to find an internet hotspot of some kind, asked a nice bakery-lady in my broken french (“ou est .. internet?”), because you can always check facebook when you’re abandoned in the city, right? Just when I was logging into facebook my phone rang, though, and luckily it was him and so I could start trying to find where he lived. Problem was, C had only arrived the day before and didn’t really know where he lived either, or at least, how to get there.

Managed to find a bus, and after five minutes or so spent prodding a ticket machine I had a ticket which I THOUGHT would last me there, and got on. You can always tell if someone knows where they’re going on a bus. The ones who are sure are relaxed, chatting, sleeping, not caring about their surroundings until they arrive. Then you have ones, like me, who sit up straight, nervously, looking out of the window for any sign, any hint of where they are. You look like such a stranger, but what can you do? Anyway I had no idea what the stop was called, just that I should see a sign telling the beginning of the suburb. Fine. I looked and looked and never really saw one, but got off somewhere I thought was within the suburb. My instructions had been: ‘turn right in the first roundabout, turn left in the second, walk a long way then turn right and there’s the house’. Great! It sounded so simple, so of course I didn’t take any notes of the name of the street or anything (which I promptly forgot, as well. Terrible with names). Hey, this is the 21st-century, right? I’m as dependent on my phone like anyone. If I lost my way, I reasoned, I’d just call the number back, I had credit.

Got lost, of course. Found a roundabout, but didn’t seem right, then the road that was meant to last for a long time was cut off after just 100m – was in some neighborhood with houses, walked past a few schools, things like that. Called the number C had called with. A lady answers, in French. The housekeeper, or something? I’d been warned about this, and told just to ask after his name. So, I say, so politely, “bonjour, je m’appelle Jessica, je voudrais parles avec C sil vous plait?” … and she says, in french, I have the wrong number. Ok. No I don’t, I KNOW it’s the right number! But ok, I say pardon and hang up and wander some more. Completely lost at this stage. Found a car with a man selling chickens (smelled very good) and bought some chips in my broken French; he tried to make conversation, and seeing as my extent of conversation is to smile and nod and say ‘ca va?’ it did last long.

Tried again to call; the lady declines. ‘Avoir!’

So, can’t remember the name of the street, can’t contact my friend, may have got off at the wrong bus stop, and can’t ask anyone for directions. I was a little panicked for a second.

It all worked out all right of course, eventually C called me himself, we managed to work out where I was on google maps and he led me right … made me realise though how dependent I am on my mobile phone, it was a good reminder!

Then we went and had a fantastic time exploring the city!

This post was deigned to fit best into the category "Living" and went live on the 26th January, 2010 at 11:05 pm