h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I thought Sol's challenge A87679886 sounds like fun, so have racked my brains to come up with something. Whether or not it is true will be for you to find out. I'm sorry this is such a long-winded tale, but I *did* make an effort to make it worthwhile. If you don't like my ramblings generally, best unsubscribe now.

I've never told anybody the story of my first visit to Paris, so this in itself is a first.

My grand aunt H (my mother's mother's sister) was a very err- interesting woman, to say the least. She was a spinster who insisted on being addressed as Miss for one thing. She had very firm ideas of how people should behave and of people's place in life and treated them accordingly. We called her 'Tante Holzhammer' (aunt sledge hammer) behind her back, cause it felt as if a sledge hammer had hit you when she told you what she thought of you and /or your behaviour.

She categorised the family members: there were those who were pretty but as thick as a plank (ie her sister, my mother, me), and those who weren't much of a looker but who were intelligent (my dad, my sister).

However, despite my lack of intelligence, I had a knack for learning foreign languages, so when I was 14, said aunt invited me on an organised trip to Paris for a week. I was in my second year of French in school and had very good marks, and she wanted to be accompanied by somebody who spoke French.

I was thrilled. It was the first time I'd go to a foreign country I knew the language of (even if it was only a basic knowledge).

Aunt sledgehammer was well off financially, so she travelled a lot. She was in her 80s, but went on a trip to Egypt just a few weeks before we were going to France. While there, she was robbed - somebody grabbed her with all her documents and stuff and ran off.

This was too much, even for as seasoned a traveller as my great aunt was, so she opted out of the paid-for trip to Paris.

Due to my being only 14 it was out of the question to let me go on my own, so my mother was chosen to go with me.

What I didn't know then, was that my mother was mentally in no fit state to go to a country whose language she didn't speak or understand.
She was going through some sort of depression which influenced the whole journey.

So, the day of departure came and we went on the night train to Paris.
As this was an organised tour, we were welcomed at the station and given some advice and a lot of warnings, one of which was about pickpockets.

Bearing in mind the reason why it was my mother going with me, and not my aunt, it is hardly surprising that mother spent a restless night (having all our money), while I slept the sleep of the young and careless.

We arrived in Paris the next morning and directly embarked on a city tour by bus.

Our tour guide pointed out various interesting things, all peppered with severe warnings to keep our money safe because of all the pickpockets . Furthermore, we were warned to never ever accept a beverage that we hadn't ordered ourselves in a café - especially not in any café on the Champs Elysée - because certain things would then be expected of us (this was addressed at the women).

You could think that one half of the Parisians were thieves, while the other half were sex monsters (not that I had even the faintest idea what the Café thing was all about).

Our hotel was located in Clichy, iirc, but I can neither remember the name of the hotel, nor the name of the street or arrondissement it was in. I do remember it was a bit of a walk to the next Métro station, though.

After we had been given our rooms, my mother didn't want to go out and explore the area, so we stayed at the hotel and unpacked. Another warning issued had been not to leave anything of value in the hotel room while you weren't there. You see, all the staff were pickpockets, too.

So my mum started thinking about a safe place for our money. She ended up having it in a plastic bag, fixed to her underwear with a safety pin.

Other people of our group had been more enterprising than us and ventured out. If only they'd have heeded the warnings: an elderly lady came back, having been robbed in the underground.

This did not help to put my mum at ease. If at all possible, she was even more scared to leave the hotel with just a 14-year-old as support. We could have done some guided tours, like going to Fontainebleau or Versailles, but those would have cost extra, and my mum didn't dare to spend much money (these were the 1970s: no debit card, no Euro, no internet, no mobile phones.... you had to go and exchange money before leaving your own country. It would have been nigh on impossible to get money from your account in a foreign country).

The next morning, after breakfast, my mum told me that we wouldn't leave the hotel! She was just too scared of everything. Now, I hadn't come to Paris to be stuck in some hotel, so I got out the map of Paris, and the tube map, and worked out a plan to go the Louvre. I managed to convince my mum that getting there and back would be a piece of cake, and so we set off after all.

Funny, really: a 14 year old girl with basic knowledge of the country's language, who had never been in a town with more than 100,000 inhabitants before, took charge of guiding her mum through a strange, very large city with more than 1,000,000 inhabitants. But it worked! The plan for the Métro is very clearly structured, you can't really go far wrong there.

It all went well. Nobody tried to rob us, we got there and back without any problems. I had to stay very close to my mum all the time, though. She was scared that somebody would come and say 'Comme ci, comme ça! and I'd be gone! It was a small price go pay for getting to see Paris after all, though.

Each day, I'd work out a plan and we'd go sightseeing.
And guess what the most scary experience was that we made?

A seagull got caught in my hair! I was used to seagulls, living (then) near the coast, but ours never came so close! I don't remember why it was there, and why it got caught in my hair, causing me to jump and scream. Maybe it wanted to rob some food I had? I'm sure it wasn't after our money.

Looking back, I think this trip to Paris may have been the reason why, for the rest of my life, I've never been scared to go to large cities and use their public transport system. Not in foreign countries, anyway.

I could cope as a teenager, I'll cope for years to come.

I just want to say, Holzhammer is the best word I've heard today.

Bel, you are the best, most adventurous Researcher I know.

What a great story.

Thank you.

Maybe I should try for a career in fiction writing after all?

Hmmm, sounds like you need to be a little inseine to visit Paris then?






Okay, I'll get me coat now....

That was a really cool adventure, Bel. I think it was to go to a place like Paris without all the preconceived notions and lore and too young to be really interested in the 'romance' of the place.

What a great outlook, and what a neat experience for a 14 year old to have! I think that is why you enjoy the meets so much and are unfazed by all the hassles that international transportation has post 9/11. This also accounts for your patience with people that make you such a good community editor.

To think that you had to plan a journey by reading books, going to the train station to find out the time table etc...

You had to pick up a phone, too, if you didn't want to wait weeks for a letter to arrive.

That's why we need the newhootwo to be a one stop shop where to find all you destination details.

Ooh, I remember all that pre-internet stuff.

In 1974, I was about to move to Germany for 10 months to study. My suitcase was packed, my plane about to depart...

It was a good thing I was only a 15-minute drive from the airport. You see, the consulate in New York had my passport for visa purposes, and they had to mail it back...it arrived an hour before my flight left. Talk about a nail-biter.

I think you were wrong about the seagull. Back in the 70's the pickpockets of Paris were tired of being harassed and abused by tour guides and therefore trained seagulls to pick pockets for them. Unfortunately for you the hair fashion at the time was for neat Parisian bobs and the seagull, trained on les filles de Paris, was obviously discombobulated when confronted with the lengthy lustrous locks of visiting youthful chaperones.

And yet we managed to travel abroad or elsewhere.

Well, you may have a point there, Pheroneous.

It's good to see you managed to transfer your account, btw.

Hey, glad to see you here, Pheroneous!

Pierce...

And I do agree, getting lost in Paris is not possible. There's always a Métro station nearby and thus, a way gome.

Well done and told anyways

I hope you'll all join in and tell us a 'first' story.

Hi Bel! I don't know if I will ... but I did enjoy your story!

Thanks Willem. I always enjoy your journals, so give it a try if you can think of something?

Great story! I read Travels With My Aunt, by Graham Greene a little while back and I thought your aunt was going to be like his. You have great leadership qualities in getting a nervous person to venture out with you!

Hmmm, maybe I only have a vivid imagination?

Wishful thinking and all that.