Monday, July 31, 2017

The Trip That Went Wrong

For this next post I wanted to try something a little different. I wanted to share a story with you all about the unfortunate experiences I had on my vacation to Paris a few years ago.

As a young girl, I've always been in love with the French culture. I began taking simple French classes in second grade and continued it all through middle school, high school, college. I had never been to France so my mom decided to buy me a trip there as my high school graduation present. (I wanted to add this quick disclaimer before I go on: I am incredibly grateful to have had experienced such a wonderful city and I definitely would like to return.) She booked us a week long trip at the end of August. Since I had just finished high school, my friends and I were all going to be heading to college before I was going to return from France because their schools all began earlier than mine. I was incredibly excited for the trip, but already had a bit of a sour outlook since I was missing all of the college goodbyes and send-offs. I realized that I'd meet everyone again soon and I should go enjoy my trip, but then everything that could've possibly gone wrong, went wrong.

As I arrived at the airport, I learned that my flight was delayed for two hours and it wasn't because of the weather. I'm relatively scared of airplanes as it is, and automatically assumed there was something wrong with the plane, which made my fear even worse. As we finally boarded and landed in France, we headed to the luggage carousel and waited for almost an hour only to find out that my luggage was still in New York! We landed on a Sunday which meant that most of the clothing stores around us were closed except for a large outlet mall. Assuming that outlets would be cheap, we headed over to pick me out a new wardrobe, but once we looked at a map of stores, we realized this was no ordinary outlet mall. The mall contained stores like Gucci, Prada, Armani, Celine, and other extremely high end designers. I searched the mall high and low and eventually stumbled upon Sandro and Maje, two also rather expensive stores, but definitely more affordable. I purchased a few new outfits, stocked up on toiletries, and prayed my luggage would arrive the next day.

Two days later, my luggage arrived and I felt much better about the trip. Unfortunately, matters got a tad worse. As I walked along the Champs-Elysées, the camera strap to my DSLR randomly snapped and my camera fell to the ground and cracked the screen. I was devastated especially because that meant I now had to take pictures with my awful, at the time, iPhone 5s (I'm beyond thankful for the new 7 plus camera!). As that point, I just accepted that it was a rough trip and that I shouldn't let little things like this ruin the vacation of a lifetime. I had saved up a lot of money and went on a shopping spree. One of the items I purchased happened to be a pair of Gucci shoes. As my mom and I exited the Champs-Elysées and hopped on the train to go back to our hotel, a pick-pocketer attempted to steal the Gucci shopping bag right from my mom's arm! We're so lucky my mom has fast reflexes because she successfully fought the not-so-sneaky thief off and ran to the next train. I had been on the phone with my dad and didn't realize that any of this happened. In addition, I had no idea where my mom went. We ended up on two opposite ends of the train but it was quite scary being alone on a public train in the middle of an unfamiliar city whilst carrying a ton of shopping bags way too heavy for me.

Finally my mom and I found each other and sat down for our last dinner in Paris. As we toasted a glass of red wine, a woman with a very large handbag walked by and hit my arm causing my wine glass to spill all over my light pink dress and the white tablecloth. At that point, all I could do was laugh about all of the terrible incidents that happened while in France. My superstitions made me feel like Paris was bad luck and that maybe I should never return, but my love for the French culture and language overrides any terrible mishaps I may have had while in that amazing city. Despite all inconveniences, I had an amazing time in Paris and hope that one day I get the opportunity to return.

Hopefully if any of you ever visit Paris, none of this ever happens to you! Until next time!

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