I want to hit short, panhandling women

-Taken directly from my notes, drafted upon arrival at Charles de Gaulle RER station B;

"F*** LOT Polish Airlines."

A couple of weekends ago, before I went back to the states for the funeral, I took my first solo international sojourn, hitting up the cities of Warszawa to do what I came to Poland to do, Paris (the one in France) to hear my sister sing wondrous melodies with the Capital City Girls Choir, and then Cracow to sit on the bank of the river and snack on frozen plums while I got a forehead tan. For every step of the journey, save the first since JP and Jonathan spent the weekend in Warszawa with one of JPs Polish girlfriends (He met her at a birthday party that he, Jonathan, and Dustin crashed), I was getting by through my own volition and blind luck, and I figured that, if I could get through this, somehow getting to France from Poland without being fluent in either French or Polish, without knowing the bus routes, without knowing how to get to my hotel, and with flights timed ever so perfectly to put me in terrible situations, as you shall read later, then I would be uberman, able to do anything. It would be by God's will that I made it back to Poland in one piece, and the whole trip was like one long chain of close calls, conspiring to have me stuck in a country where you can be stuck at an intersection for three hours while a gay pride parade files past (Nothing on gays, but Man! was that parade long. Quite entertaining though. I did the YMCA)

We got into Warszawa after a fairly uneventful train ride; I've gotten in the habit of trying to exersize whenever I travel, so I don't feel like crap, and on this ride I stood out in the hall and was doing a pretty strenuous ab workout when a guy came out of the coach next to me, took one look at my screwed up face muscles, and then retreated back into his little space with a startled look on his face. After picking up my first batch of Apples and meeting Claudia at the mall, she took me to the bus stop where I would need to board in order to leave my walking directions to the airport in my backpack; I really didn't want to be that guy that walks to the terminal. And then, a quick hug form JP and Jonathan, and I was on my own. I knew what I had to do. I was going to the Archeological Museum even if it meant missing my flight (At least this is wht I eventually decided. I fought with myself for about 20 minutes; there was a part of my brain that just wanted to give up, play it safe, and get to the airport 3 hours beforehand. Another part told me I was nuts to give up now. Guess which side won?). But the ancient slavic gods and tutelary spirits in whom my quest is borne must be conspiring against me, for the museum is closed on Fridays. If I had but looked at the picture I took earlier of my exasperation over the closing hours, I would have seen that my excitement upon arriving in Warszawa was in vain. But sometimes, it is the wish unfulfilled that brews the most heady mead, and this one has stirred up a doozie of longing. I will return. And when I do, I shall storm the stronghold with my anticipation.

I arrived at the airport with plenty of time, and then found out that even more time still, as LOT had delayed my flight for two more hours so they could do a series of tests that never really seemed to end. A good example to the Polish mindset; planes will take off when they take off. At least trains leave on time. Dramatic pause for forshadowing. What didn't occur to me when I was stuck twiddling thumbs and eating 7 apples was that a two hour delay would put my flight at CDG airport around 12:15, 15 minutes after the last RER B line train left for the night, the train I needed to catch to put me within 2 hours of my hotel. I was pissed like a brooding viper. I spent the first hour waiting for the trains in the station next to some Hungarians and Japaneese tourists, fuming and ready to curb stomp anyone who disturbed me. The second hour I realized that at two in the morning, CDG was practically empty, and why did I have to be confined to the station? I could explore to my heart's content! So I went free running for about an hour in a business park adjcent to the station. During my explorations, I found a four star Hilton that was being cleaned by a skeleton crew that wasn't paying attention to the door, so for the last two hours, until 4:30 when the trains started running, I slept in a very nice armchair in a corner behind the bar and they never found me. Then, as I was getting off the train a young Arab guy grabbed my arm and tried to pickpocket me. He wasn't very good, and he was blazed out of his mind; I was able to slam his hand in the door of the train and he got away empty handed. As I walked away from the train, a guy who had seen what happened launched into a violent tirade about Arabs coming to France and doing nothing but stealing from society, voicing all of the concerns that I had heard from my friends at the Jowita. That gave me a little smile, but I felt so naive; next time, I'll be more quick to punch the guy in the face. Two more hours of walking in the French twilight, and I was able to collapse into my bed at 6 in the morning.

At 11, I woke up and started out for the City Hall, where my sister would be singing early in the afternoon. On the way, I exchanged 8 euro for 13 apples and some chicken at a Chinese market; they told me I had to spend at least 8 euro. By the time I reached the venue, all but 3 of the apples had disappeared. Don't judge me; I hadn't eaten in a long time. The guard outside the town hall didn't speak English, so I tried to explain in Espanol that I was there to see a concert, which he told me was happening on Monday and that I needed to leave. Perplexed, I wandered for the next 3 hours through the streets of Paris, past Notre Dame, back through the Gay pride parade, among several enormous buildings of state, and all along the Siene, in the direction of the gril's hotel, where I waited for another hour an a half, reading French graphic novels in the lobby and sprinting into the keycoded bathroom whenever someone was leaving. Convinced that the girls had, in my absence at the concert, given up on me and gone to do some shopping and dining, I decided to set out on my own for Les Champs Elysees, to see the familiar landmark from the many hours I have spent playing Deus Ex. I can't remember if I've talked about this before now, but there was a computer game called Deus Ex that was the catylyst for one of the four true turning points in my life; I study nanoscience and biomaterials now because of my experience with this game. The globe hopping adventure led me to CG haunts all over the world, one of them being the streets of Les Champs Elysses in a Paris under martial law, and it became my quest to find and photograph the real world inspiration for the allyways I spent so much time wandering at my console.

On the way I passed back through the Gay pride parade for now the third time since waking up that morning (I later discovered that it was this parade that had held up the girl's bus in traffic for 3 hours), stopped off at the doggy park behind the Notre Dame and got some amazing pictures, bought more apples, saw the outside of the Louvre, stood in the exact spot that Chris Cooper stood in the Bourne Identity on Pont Neuf (And then proceeded to the corner where Matt Damon placed the tracking device on the white van), marveled at the glass pyramid that I think was somehow significant in the Da Vinci code, trapsed through the Garden of Tulips, and was accosted by a guy who wanted to do a characture of me.

This was probably my most interesting encounter of the day, other than being pickpocketed. I used the phrase "Nie razumiem po Angrosku" throughout the day (I don't understand English, in Polish) as a means of avoiding those that wanted to take my money, and it always worked because, really, no one speaks Polish outside of Poland. But for some reason, when this guy came up to me and said that he wanted to paint me because I had great hair, I started speaking in Russian. First he asked me where I was from, (in English, so I could have stopped him right there, but I'm not that fast) and I replied "Ya Ruskie". He then gave me a cheerful "Dobre Dien! A kak ble?" and I panicked, stammering "Ya Polskie, Ya Polskie". It is likely that he caught on to my ruse then because he greeted me in Polish and then started speaking in French and English, attempting to cooerce some euros out of my pocket. By that point I realized that he only knew how to greet people in all of these languages and that he couldn't really speak any of them, so I continued denying him in Polish, and wandered away, leaving him a bit angry.

Back through the ponds by the tulips, across Le Plac du Conchordes, where I did my obligatory dance as the FOTC song "Fou du Fa Fah" played over my iPod, and then the long walk down the Champs, stopping in several stores including the Louis Vuitton store and the Virgin megashop, until I reached Le Arc de Triomphe just as the moon was coming up behind it. The 2 minute photo shoot was over soon enough, and I realized that I would now have to repeat the three hour walk back to the girl's hotel and then walk another two hours to get to my hotel; it was already 9. I got back to where the girls were staying just in time to catch their director in a quick phone call from the lobby, who confirmed both the place they were singing the next day and that I definitely couldn't see my sister at midnight.

Walking through Paris at midnight through neighborhoods that were not on the tourist bill had me a bit worried at first, but I soon discovered that my fears lay unfounded. I was not stopped once, though I changed sides of the road several times to avoid figures that seemed a wee bit suspicious. The highlight of this trek came when I saw a guy a little ways ahead of me appear out of the darkness and run up to a kebab stand, frantically grabbing napkins. As I got closer, I saw that his entire right arm was shredded and that blood was pouring from the wounds now bound by tissue. The women sitting outside enjoying the all to familiar midnight kebab stood up repulsed, and quickly backed off to a resturant across the road. This guy was moving incredibly fast for someone who had lost so much blood, and as I came upon him nearly sprinting away from the stand, he started yelling something into his phone. I certainly hope he was calling for an ambulance. I got worried that the same fate would befall me, but I realized that I could tell where he had come from by watching the road to the reflective drips of blood that marked his trail like breadcrumbs. I was not at all pleased to find that he had been following the exact path that I now had to take to my hotel, but just as I went under a bridge, I lost the trail and felt more comfortable. Never once did I see the huge splatter that I imagine would have marked the place where he ran into trouble. By the time I got to my room, I had been walking for 8 hours without sitting once, and I gladly passed out on top of the sheets.

After picking up another peck of apples the next morning, I easily found my way to the American Church, a beautiful venue that made me wonder if there was such a thing in Poznan. This is unlikely; all churches are Catholic and very conservative, not exactly the combination that would suit the more contemporary leanings of American Catholisism. I greeted my sister with the standard Polish fare, three kisses on the cheek and met everyone I would be travelling with for the day. I was warned by my sister's friend that the thirty or so girls had not been let out much and had not seen a teenage boy for nearly a week, so I should prepare myself for what was sure to come.

The day passed quite well and I managed to fulfill my little dream of having lunch in a small French Caf on the banks of the Siene, though I did not get my chance to have my glass of French wine until midnight; two things that I would dispise myself for if I missed the opportunity to sample. My sister and I talked pretty much all day, trading stories from the land of bree and the home of bad rave (Happened in Warszawa; I thought it was going to be a live concert, but it turned into a night with a mediocre DJ. Still can't believe they kicked me off the stage). We forwent the Louvre and instead wandered through the street shops until our date at the Notre Dame. The inside of the cathedral was spectacular and the outside was crawling with women who had learned how to say "Do you speak English" and how to hold up a card with a sob story written by their panhandling bossman. Honestly, I just wanted to hit them; it sounds terrible, but you would too. If you want my money, you have to learn more than four words; they should all take a leaf from the guy who tried to make me a hair model.

Dinner was, well, pork, but it was free and the ratatoullie tasted heavenly. I also managed to steal several apples from the hotel resturant, but when I broke them out during our spectacular river cruise that night, they were revealed to have a crispiness that was subpar to everything else I bought. My sis and I did the Zissou pose on the bow of the ship as the sun faded into a horizon of archaic towers, the skyline of Grand Old Europe. One day I'll return here, but when I do, I must return with a lover, for Paris truly is a city for lovers. Just like Wroclaw.

Then everything went nuts. Got back to the hotel at midnight and asked for a wakeup call at 3. The wakeup call at 3 never came. I slept until 6 when my consciousness fell subject to the deus ex machina of my sleeping irregularities and awoke me naturally. I saw sunlight in the windows, yelled out a bunch of stuff that I won't repeat, threw a towel around my waist (I had fallen into bed straight from the shower that morning), and started frantically searching for someone at the front desk. Crazy-eye set in, with good reason; my flight left in an hour. The drive to the airport was nearly 40 minutes. I had to hire a cab (the price of that cab was more expensive than my total purchases in Poland for the first three weeks), and on the way over, a sudden calm hit me. I was feeling down about my rapidly depleating funds, but I realized that I had spent in two days what I was expecting to spend in Poland over 10 weeks to see family, and that revelation made me realize just how far you will go to find your blood ties. Everything felt like it was rushing by me as I maintained a steady hand and a relaxed and happy mood; just barely making it on the plane, having to deal with the screaming child, a train ride out of a blistering heat in Cracow that got back to Poznan at 3. Family took me to do it all, and I wrote something in my journal on the ride back that captures the feeling in a sense. All I know is that I'm lucky to feel that way about kin.

Ironic that I had such a startling acceptance of this, and then I come back to find that my Granddad died.