One cool thing about this trip is that we’ve met so many people:
In Granada, our persnickety front desk clerk corrected the way I held my passport out to him because he didn’t like my hand positioning. He also spent about ten minutes drawing perfect swirly arrows all over a paper map for us, telling us what to do while there. (Who carries a paper map?!) He seemed pretty excited about sending us to a bath house, which I tried to goad Steve into doing on the days while I was at my work conference, to no avail.
In Barcelona we didn’t so much meet as we bonded with every other hotel guest in an exchange of angry faces at 11pm at night when the fire alarm went off and we had to leave the building and stand on the street. I’d been in the shower when it started so Steve assumed... I’d done something wrong in there to cause the alarm noise? I was about to make a joke that this is what marriage is all about— assuming your spouse is at fault no matter what— but then I realized that if the situations were reversed I would’ve 100% assumed HE had somehow showered wrong so... yeah.
In Paris we had a dinner at a sidewalk cafe and met two women who worked for Disneyland Paris who’ve lived there for 20 years. One of them had a stupidly cute one year old son who just learned to walk and who therefore walked in and out of the restaurant past us ... I want to say 70 times? He even held hands with Steve for a bit but I did not get jealous.
Steve’s feet are injured so he stayed in that cafe drinking while I walked around Paris for about 90 minutes but when I got back he was still there, now chatting with an uber friendly couple from Boston who now want us to visit them at their summer place in Cape Cod. I think Steve lured them into being his friends by lying, telling them they don’t have strong Boston accents. (I sometimes do this thing where I accidentally mimic people’s accents while talking to them but I felt like a free vacation to Cape Cod was at stake so I really restrained myself and tried to sound Canadian by saying ‘eh’ a lot.
We met a lovely museum employee when we took a train 280 miles outside of Paris to Nancy France for the day, just so we could see the one Caravaggio painting there. People in Nancy don’t speak much English at all, but they sure speak French quickly! I accidentally told her I spoke German because the French words for ‘German’ and ‘England’ sound kinda the same to me. The weirdest part of the whole thing is I have semi secretly been learning German on the duolingo app for a year, and I’m ashamed to admit this but the only German words I can really remember are ‘roommate’ (because it sounds like ‘boner’) and ‘desire’ (because the word is ‘lust’).
Today before we left Paris Steve took the metro out to see a special park while I stayed in the city and walked around the Seine, near Norte Dame. Paris has been so hot— 30 degrees every day, so I was cooling off under a beautiful tree in a park beside the Shakespeare and company bookstore when I look over at another park bench a distance away and a man there looks at me and gestures between us, asking if I wanted him to come over. I shook my head no, and laughed. He came over and sat down anyway. The confidence! And the audacity! of flirtatious young men in Paris! (And also I guess the desperation! Because I don’t look rich and I’m clearly old.) Right when he started to tell me I must have some German in my ancestry because of my perfect blue eyes, and was I visiting Paris alone? I got a text that Steve was ready to meet me at the bookstore. Park guy seemed a little startled but ultimately relieved that my husband wasn’t coming to meet me in the park when I explained this. I should also mention that park guy is Steve’s least favourite person we have met on this trip.
Now we’re in Rouen for a few days. Who is next??
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