A Sign

Am I sad that I cancelled my solo trip to Barcelona? No. Am I sad that I’m not going to Barcelona–yes and no. Yes I’m sad that I’m not going, but I’m not sad that I’m not going alone. I am especially un-sad about this after the incident at Gare du Nord this morning.

We arrived very early for a 6:30 train, so nothing was open. My husband took off to try to find an open restroom (for me of course, and no such luck–yet another thing I don’t understand about the way things work here) and he had no sooner disappeared down the escalator than I was accosted by a homeless woman slash gypsy. I’d prefer to call her a gypsy because, well, she looked like one, and was much better dressed and more coherent than any homeless person I’ve ever encountered. After I (politely) refused to give her any money (and I honestly didn’t have any cash) she stood there and yelled and cursed at me, both at close proximity (way too close) and then from further away, cursing me and damning me like some sort of French Stephen King character.

Doug eventually returned, and I am never letting him out of my sight again. Oh and thanks to all of the other people around me, who clearly saw that I was alone and being harrassed, and did nothing to help me. Nice.

There’s yet another thing I do not understand about this woman–and a similar, younger woman with the same speech we encountered outside the Louvre. She seemed very mobile, very in her right mind–and hell, she could speak two languages. Instead of standing there cursing me, telling me what a nice life I must have not having to live on the street, why didn’t she just get a job? Nothing about her made her unemployable; in fact, if the two of us were up for the same job, with her language skills, I bet she’d get it over me.

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Please note: as we are enroute to Amsterdam, all posts for the next two days will be written from my iPhone. So they may have more…cough…typos than ever before. Sorry!