The Paris Surprise

Year 2018, was when Ruby and I decided to take our kids for our first ever European trip together. Among the destinations we planned to visit, Paris was the last. As a sheer coincidence, that was the year of FIFA football world cup and as destiny would have it, France were the champions that year. It just so happened that the final match was two days before our planned date of arrival in Paris.

The city had gone crazy on the day France won. There was chaos and fights everywhere. It was as though Parisians were in a trance from the win. We were obviously a bit worried about reaching the city given this background. A friend of mine who worked in Paris in fact asked us to drop our plan if it was not urgent. Nevertheless, since we planned it long time ago and this being our last leg of the trip, we decided to go ahead. Fortunately, by the time we reached Paris, the commotion had settled down.

We had booked ourselves a hotel at a place called Clamart and reached the place on a taxi from the train station on the first day. The hotel booking was done based on our research looking at the accessibility via train. Little did we realize that this was the suburbs of Paris and though a train station was right next to the hotel where we stayed, it was not the metro railway network connecting the city directly. While it was a late realization for us, we were quite OK with it since all these contributed to our travel experiences.

The next day we decided to explore the city and headed to the train station near our hotel. As we reached the station, we looked for the ticket counter. While there was one, unfortunately no staff was present. The alternate option was to buy the tickets from an automated kiosk. We thought we will give it a try.

The kiosk had a catch. It only accepted coins. We had Euros, but as currency. While we were trying to check the tickets from the machine, a queue started building behind us. With the machine not allowing currency we were stuck.

As we were wondering what to do, I heard a tiny voice from behind us in the queue, asking in a French laced English, if we needed help. It was a petite lady who was patiently waiting for us to finish our turn at the machine. We tried to explain the situation to her. Without even thinking twice, she took out her purse and paid for all our tickets.

Soon we were on our way to the city. At the station where we all got down, we paid her in currency and she promptly returned the change. The train moved on and all our concerns about friendliness and wellbeing in Paris also went along with it.

Santhosh George Kulangara, one of the most widely travelled person in the world had once said, ‘most of the people across the world are good, unfortunately we get influenced by negativity expressed by one person’s experience and make the mistake of generalising that for all.’

Let us remember to have an open mind during our trips, all the while being aware of our surroundings.

Happy travelling!