One of my flexible fantasies in Paris was to re-enact the strolls that Owen Wilson's characters took in "Midnight in Paris" around the streets of the City in Lights, but MJ and I were so tired by the time we got back to our hotel every single day of a whirlwind 3-day adventure that we conked out and were in bed way before midnight. We did get to romp around in the dark, though, on our way home: walking from our hotel with our bags halfway around the city to the nearest train station, the Chatelet les Haulles that would take us to Charles de Gaulle airport. Since our flight took off super early in the morning before the subway even started running, MJ was flexible enough to embark on this journey, a rather risky one since there were armed guards on the streets apparently guarding against Covid protesters and/or guarding President Emmanuel Macron's mansion at Elysee Palace.
Paris.....is definitely still lighted at 4:30AM in the morning, but much less quiet after all the party-goers and weekend warriors have went home. Luckily the homeless problem that San Francisco, L.A., and a bunch of U.S. cities are experiencing hasn't spread as much to France (although there were a few dudes camped out- relatively friendly and didn't smell too bad or be in danger of being stepped on), it was a great chance to reminisce on our trip, passing by the Opera district, going parallel to the Champs d'Elysee and the Gardens of Champs d'Elysee. A brisk November cold that didn't melt our faces off or blow our hats off, it was a reasonable temperature as long as we wore the winter jackets we were ready with, and I did what I love to do in big cities: walk around for a long time imagining the history and culture of one of the most famous cities in the world. It may be home to millions of residents and overrun with visitors during the day, but at 4:30AM in the morning, the city really belonged to MJ and I, and the presidential security guards with assault rifles of course. No wonder Owen Wilson felt the urge to ramble around.
My urge to ramble and be on the move is a double-edged sword: It helps me enjoy big cities, but it also is a killer for getting on the wrong train heading in the exact opposite direction, which is what happened this past weekend as I tried to commute to the airport to catch my plane to Los Angeles. I got down to the train platform, but since the platform allowed access to trains in both directions, I got on the first train that pulled up only to find within seconds of getting on.... "next stop, Wilmington, Delaware," in a completely different state, but my desperate attempt to hop on was met with the iron-fisted door of disappointment of the Amtrak train moving already......and wouldn't be stopping for another 45 minutes to the next location. No way I could make my flight now. Whereas I have made plenty of mistakes getting on the wrong subway or taking the wrong turn while driving my car, those are relatively salvageable and correctable......getting on Amtrak, not so much. The bad thing about not panicking and freaking out normally about small mistakes on the road and getting lost is that....I don't experience the pain and learn from those mistakes, settling in to a sense of complacency that even if I'm wrong I can salvage it, I'm invisible, haha! And makes big mistakes like this one all the more possible. Just a small split-second decision to get on the train without knowing exactly where it was going can lead to huge errors. Even when I realized my mistake, I still held out hope that maybe my flight would be delayed, somehow things would work out.......It eventually did, where I could cancel my flight and apply the funds to another flight later, but the prices would be double the bargain basement price I had paid for my original flight. A 3-figure mistake. Big for a guy like me who tries to squeeze every penny. Lesson learned now, I guess......and at the very least I felt like Amtrak Joe all those years ago earning his nickname....enough to etch his name in history at the Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Railroad station, aka Wilmington station, aka where I had to get off with my tail between my legs and take a train back the way I just came.
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