Piss Poor In a Puddle of Pee Part 1

I can rant all I want about the conditions of the East Coast public transportation systems but, in truth, the US is a lightweight when it comes to abusing its clientele. For a premium portion of ridicule, abuse and general disrespect, one must venture to the City of Light. Bring a change of shoes.
I was living in Frankfurt, Germany when I'd realized I had been in country for almost six months without venturing on a little getaway.  Given 12 hours you can get just about anywhere in Europe. I thought I'd do the boring traditional American thing of doing capital cities first. To hell with originality, Paris was too close not to do it first.
I thought instead of flying I'd either drive or take a train. It ended up being a train. Just as well, too. In a subsequent trip a few years later I drove. Teasing my groin with a hot curling iron would have been preferable. At least it would have had the virtue of keeping me awake.
The drive from the French border to Paris is so featureless the French government placed scores of multicolored discs at intervals along the freeway in an attempt to keep drivers awake. How is that working for you all over there? I wonder how many hapless drivers have driven on to the multi-colored embankment since then.
I left Germany late in the afternoon after work. The almost as mind-numbingly featureless train ride got into Paris' La Gare Du Nord train station late in the evening, a little before 10 I believe. Take that Grand Central Station! I couldn't see the station for all the bodies.
Twelve different languages assaulted me the minute I got off the train. Odorific doesn't begin to describe the olfactory overload. I knew there was the smell of food somewhere in that miasma that was threatening to make me unconscious. I hadn't felt adventurous in sampling French "train food." I was hungry.

Not Too Busy in This Pic

There was no Euro at this time. Nope. Just an aggravating requirement to change your damn money every time you crossed a border. It's a lesson you learn quickly and there is no finer teacher than the noble French citizen. There is no problem changing dollars, everybody takes them...it's getting your change back that's problematic.
I'm sure I stumbled around the station for a good 20 minutes looking for the currency exchange station. Once I got out of the train platform area the press of humanity really got serious. I couldn't see shit. I could tell the Americans though. They were sporting baseball caps and t-shirts. If there is anything Americans do well in Europe its blend in. But to hell with that, my stomach lining was turning into lunch. Man, what was that smell? Was that…coffee?
Can you smell the coffee? All the time I was walking around I could smell this incredibly rich and “thick” aroma of freshly ground kick-your-ass-in-to-tomorrow coffee. Keep in mind it must have been approaching ten in the evening. Some time later I found that French coffee scares the shit out of Italian espresso. If you’ve ever had Turkish coffee, that is a much better comparison as far as getting juiced on caffeine is concerned.
Finally! I found the money changer under the sign “Service de Change.” I should have known: that’s where all the baseball hats were inline. And par for the course, there must have been 20 people ahead of me. At this time of the evening after a long ride all I wanted to do what change the money and head for the hotel. And the line was certainly moving…nowhere.

Good God...Save Me!

Just when I thought I would rip out the throat of the person(s) in front of me, glory of glories, I could actually see the exchange in front of the person ahead of me. The “attendant,” if you could call her that, was a grizzled old woman whose shoulders barely came up to the counter and looked as thrilled to see us as we were to still be in the station at, oh, must have been pushing 10:30pm. I looked down to collect my wallet and I heard someone scream.  It was the guy ahead of me. He was staring at the shuttered window and a sign that said “FERME” (closed). Well, fuck me in the heart!