No Change!

As much as I hated to admit it I was pleased to be back in Paris. And all this despite, finding myself in the notoriously, hectic, confusing web of signs and pathways located below the Gare du Nord. This was a transport hub at a major train station. Options for the metro and RER, were apparently located there. Somehow people managed to find their way around. Even with years of trying I would inevitably give up. Resigning myself to going out and joining the long queue as the side of the station waiting for a taxi.

On this day things were different. I searched, for and found, the ticket booth. I had long given up trying to use the ticket machines. If you were lucky enough to find one that actually works, your plans would still be thwarted. Apparently (at the time) n this tourist-ridden city these machines didn’t accept foreign credit cards. Still I was determined to take the Metro to the hotel. Even when I saw the ridiculously long line in front of the both, one to rival the line for a taxi, I was going to go for it.

There was one woman working in the booth. An odd setup, given that this was midday in a busy transport center. I doubted that this large group of people in front of me needing assistance was an anomaly. Yet the powers that be had decided that only one person was needed to work the ticket booth. Still I was going through with this.

The twenty minutes that I waited, patiently I might add, did quell enthusiasm for being in Paris. It gave me time to dwell on just how difficult the French could make things. (Seriously: How difficult is it to have a clearly marked route to the subway? Or have machines that accept non-French credit cards?) I slowly wheeled my suitcase, and myself albeit very slowly, closer to the booth.

However my spirits rebounded when it at long last was my turn. I approached the booth with a new spring in my step. I handed over my 50 Euro note with a confidence smile.

The woman behind the glass looked at me then my 50 Euro note. “Too much!” She yelled. Even from behind the glass it seem awfully loud. I felt sure that passengers on departing trains must have heard her. “I have no change!” and with a sweep of her hand I was dismissed.

The taxi line was even longer than the line in which I had just spent twenty minutes. This gave me even more time to brood, and cures not so silently to myself, about the place and the people locals who inhabited it.