la police de paris

ok... so the first of the europe stories... at the request of Mrs. Dub who hasn't heard any. i guess i'll start with the paris police.

so, we flew in to london and then pretty much immediately took the chunnel to paris. we arrived in paris only to discover that all signs were in french... duh... but still sort of unnerving. i don't know what we were expecting really, but it was a little odd to suddenly realize we didn't know where we were going and couldn't read any of the signs to figure it out. lucky for me, i took 8 years of french in school (which was TOTALLY useless, since i remember nothing) and could decipher from what little i learned on milk cartons and cereal boxes in canada, that "billets de train" meant "train tickets". we spent a couple minutes in a long line to talk to someone who luckily spoke a tiny morsel of english and understood "idiot" sign language (WE were the idiots to clarify)... and we got our tickets for the paris metro. we took the metro to our stop, only to discover that we stopped a little early... but a good brisk walk in paris with all your luggage is good for you, right? so... we arrived at our hotel, really tired and really sweaty and praying that the person at the front desk would speak english. he did. we'll call him fred... so i don't have to refer to him as "the guy" throughout the story.

we handed fred our reservation. he took it, looked in a book... looked on a computer... made a couple phone calls (in french)... looked in another book... tried the computer again... and then said the word i had been dreading since we left utah: "problem". he said that they didn't have our reservation. we assured him that we had not only made a reservation (proven by the paper we handed him) but we had also paid for the reservation in full. he was very nice actually. said he would see what he could do. in the meantime, i used the hotels bathroom... as there are conveniently NO public bathrooms anywhere in paris. :) when i got back, burton told me that fred said he had a "no show" and had decided to give us a room with two twin beds for the night and would switch us in the morning. we agreed. we took our things to the room, and went out for the evening. on the way out, fred informed us that he had found our reservations and that they had mistakenly been sent by lastminute.com for the 26th rather than the 28th, but no worries... we were paid in full. no problem.

the next morning, we packed up our things and took them downstairs so they could be moved to our new room while we were out for the day. that day in paris is a whole nother story... i'll just sum it up by saying, we took the metro as far as we could, got off to get an extension, nothing was in english, no one there to help us, started raining, thunder and lightning... then a wall opened and a little man behind a window took our money and sent us on our way (it was such a weird 15 minutes)... got to chateau versailles, stood in the longest line i've seen in my life, got about 30 feet from the door and it started to sprinkle again, got 20 feet from the door and it started to rain, and 10 feet from the door the line completely stopped moving and we stood in the POURING rain and got drenched. POURING. DRENCHED. after what felt like a really long day, we arrived back at our hotel and we were met by the manager (we'll call him jerk-face, just for fun... cause he was).

so we approach jerk-face at the desk and ask him if we can get our new key. he tells us that there has been a mistake, that our reservations had actually been cancelled by lastminute.com. after a long day of standing in lines and avoiding the rain, this SUCKED! we were pleasant, but frustrated. until he said that the "no show" from the night before had arrived at the hotel 10 minutes after we took his room, and they spent the next few hours trying to locate him a hotel -- they found one, for 200 euro and sent him there in a taxi. which, if you were in the US, would not be your problem... but since we were in europe, where everything is your fault if you're american (or canadian, in my case), jerk-face expected us to pay for the "damages" we had caused. JERK FACE. so after a good 15 to 20 minutes of arguing that we would never have stayed in their hotel the night before if we had any idea that we would be paying 170 euro a night (i won't even bother explaining where that number came from) and that we were specifically assured that we had in fact paid for our room in full, we told him that we would be happy to pay the 66 euro we had anticipated paying for the room, but no more. jerk-face wouldn't budge, but he did so kindly offer us our room for the next two nights at 140 euro a night. so kind. so thoughtful. :P we decided to wait for fred to arrive (he was going to be there in 10 minutes) and then we would straighten it out with him, since he had informed us he found our reservation. fred was no help -- clearly he was in BIG trouble and protecting his own skin. anyway... long story already way too long... we decided to leave our things there and go find a new hotel. we walked up the street 3 blocks, found a best western for 85 euro a night, and said "we'll take it"... we walked back to our other hotel to get our luggage.

we walked in, and fred was sitting there. jerk-face was gone. we told him we had found a new hotel and we grabbed our luggage to leave. as we were leaving he said, "wait... you have to pay!" and we said, "you have our credit card. aren't you just going to charge it." and he said, "i can't... that's just for miscellaneous things like the phone." well, this created a whole new situation... burton said, "well, if you don't have our credit card, this is a completely different situation. there is no way i'm paying you 170 euro... i'm happy to pay you 66 euro though... but i won't pay the 170 euro." well... this caused fred to come completely unhinged. i don't loosely use the term "crazy frenchman"... but that he was. he started ranting and raving... swearing like crazy... "well, 'F' me then! 'F' me!!" (i didn't have the heart to tell him that not only was that completely uncalled for... but "oh i'm sorry... it's actually 'F' you"). and finally he says, "fine! fine! don't pay! see if i care! i'll just call the police and have them come find you! i have your ID, you can leave and they'll come find you. see if i care." so... not too excited about the idea of encountering the paris police on our second day in europe... we handed him our good ol' american express card. after which, he apologized for getting so upset, and we left.

(as a little plug for lastminute.com... although they completely screwed up by cancelling our hotel reservation in paris, they completely took care of all the extra expense. both the extra we paid at the first hotel and the extra it cost us to stay somewhere else. along with an apology for their mistake.)

so... that was our first two days in europe. needless to say, i was second guessing our decision to come at this point. but things got better... and yet... we were still in europe... so we dealt with many more scenarios almost just like that.