Versailles
July 21st, 2009:
Jenny and I woke today and decided to use our independent study time to catch up on our reading and have coffee at a cafe a few blocks from our school. We decided that the Cafe Deux Magots was the best for people watching, and so we both lived like classic Parisians for the moment: we both ordered espresso.
When we arrived in class, Professor Simpson told us that Deux Magots was probably the most famous cafe in all of Paris and that many famous people had dined and people watched there!
After class, we had a lunch break before we were to be back in front of the school to board a bus and head to Versailles. Jenny and I ate a brief lunch and I wanted to get back to the bus early to make the point of me being there on time and ready to go. She and I were the first to arrive at 1:20 and the bus was not yet there. I announced to the others, who slowly started showing up after the bus got there, that I was going to go use the restroom.
I got out of the restroom after literally only taking a 2 minute pee stop, and walked out of the front of the building. I could see the bus across the street from me, but it was a very busy street with lots of traffic driving by, so I had to wait. To my dismay and utter surprise the bus starts up and starts to drive away. I started out into the busy traffic and was yelling and screaming for the bus to stop. I could see my fellow travel mates look at me from within the bus, yet the bus didn't stop: it kept going!
I finally was able to wade through all the busy traffic without ending up road kill and started chasing after the bus, which was now a good two blocks away. I was literally running as fast as I could and kept telling myself: I'm getting on that fucking bus!!! I kept running and thought I had a breakthrough when the bus was stopped at a red light.
But the light turned green and the bus started up again. I was yelling and the Parisians on the street that I was nearly running into must have thought I was crazy, but I didn't care. I was determined. The bus got so many blocks ahead of me that I thought all was lost. I almost stopped running altogether, but then I saw the bus pull over to the curb and stop. All of a sudden, I see Iggi running out of the bus towards me and I could not have been happier to see him! I could hardly catch my breath, nor he his, when we finally caught up to one another.
"You guys left me," I said, gasping for air. "I was waving and you fucking left me!"
"It's ok," Iggi said. "Miranda left her purse in the bathroom so we had to go back, anyways."
Miranda left her purse in the bathroom so we had to go back, anyways.
Great to know the fucking bus stopped for me and not some dumb fucking bag!
I brushed it off and started running back towards the school with Iggi to go get her bag. We tried communicating in English and broken French to the receptionist to no avail. And we could not find Miranda's bag in the bathroom or anywhere. I kept looking, and Iggi went downstairs. He soon came back up and said,
"It's ok. She found her bag, she had it on the bus the whole time. So we can go."
I took a deep breath and looked at myself in the mirror in the hallway. I was dripping in sweat and was very visibly shaken and upset. I trudged down the stairs and out the front door of the building. I literally felt like crying or screaming or just passing out, but I lifted my head and stepped up the 3 stairs onto the bus. There, I was greeted with several members of my classmates and Professor Zusman saluting me with a single simultaneous clap, to which afterwards they all laughed at me. That shit INFURIATED me.
I looked at them all and let them have it!
"You think its fucking funny? YOU FUCKING LEFT ME! I was one of the first ones here and you left me! I was fucking waving my arms and screaming down the street and you left me. I went back and have been trying to find Miranda's bag like a nice guy and you fucking left me! If that happened to you, you wouldn't think it's so goddamned funny!"
Everyone on the bus turned white and were silent. Then the tour guide had to put in her two cents:
"You need to sit down. We are late and there is going to be so much traffic," she said, grabbing my arm and waving her duck head umbrella in my face. To which I jerked my arm out of her hand and screamed at her:
"Don't tell me what to do: You LEFT ME!" I screamed in her face. "How could you just leave me? I almost was killed and you didn't give a fuck about me. Don't fucking touch me!"
I sat down in my seat and didn't even look at her as she backed away in silence. I hadn't yelled at anyone like that in a very long time and I was shaking, I was so upset. I literally just sat there to myself and took my shirt off so I could sweat it out and breathe. No one really talked to me the entire way there, and I was still a little upset by the time we reached the wall surrounding the city of Versailles.
We all filed single file off the bus, and I knew I had one more thing to do before I could go any further with these people on the trip. I walked right up to Professor Zusman and the group that had clapped at me.
"Look, what you guys did was really not fucking cool. That really pissed me off and never would I sit there and clap like that for you had you been through what I went through. It really upset me and hurt me that you guys made fun of me like that. That is all."
And I pretty much walked away. A few of them gave me some lame ass apologies, but I had said my peace. I was kind of over all of them at that point. I went into the palace and stayed behind the group and on my own as much as possible.
I really enjoyed how beautiful the palace was, but there was so many tourists in there that I could hardly breathe, so I went out into the gardens. That and I could hardly hear/ not give a shit about our crazy bitch of a duck head umbrella clutching tour guide!
I met up with Rachel and Ernie and was glad too, because I feel like I hadn't hardly even hung out with Rachel since our first night in London. I love them both.
Andrew was constantly leeching onto her and always by her side, and he annoyed the shit out of me with his know-it-all-edness, so seeing her alone and getting to hang out with her was fun.
Before we knew it, it was time to go back to Paris and back to our hotel.
