Warmth on a Cold Paris Morning

December 7, 2010 | Uncategorized

A few weeks ago in London, I decided to test the hype about visiting Paris for a day. The ad and pr guys for Eurostar’s “Chunnel train” are fond of reminding you, after all, that la Tour Eiffel is only a bit more than three hours from the Tower of London.

Planning to arrive in Paris as early as possible, I took a taxi to St. Pancras station to catch the 6:53am. (For many years, I must admit, I thought the name of the station was St. Pancreas and wondered why anyone would name a train station, much less a saint, after a body part).

I hopped aboard the 2^nd Class car and joined the mix of mostly 20- or 30-something-year-olds. There were no children at this hour, a blessing since many of them just wanted to sleep, and as we slipped out of the rail yard into the soft dawn of the British countryside, I decided to map out my strategy for attacking Paris.

Mid-strategy came an announcement that 10-pack carnets — tickets for the Paris Metro — were on sale in the café car. Having been to Paris many times before, I knew they would save me quite a bit of time and a few Euros.

I went back to the café car and asked the French woman there for a carnet for the Metro. It was when I returned to my seat that I realized that instead of giving me 10 tickets, she had mistakenly given me 10 packs of 10 tickets — a total of 100.

I returned to the café car and told her “I think you made a mistake with the tickets,” showed her the packets and gave her back the other nine. She stood there with a shocked look on her face, and then thanked me before I went back to my seat where I dozed off.

A while later I felt someone touch my shoulder. Opening my eyes I saw it was the woman who sold me the carnet. “I owe you a big thank you,” she said. “At the least I’d like to buy you a cup of coffee.”

Having had too much French coffee already I declined, but added that I did need to find a place to have my reading glasses fixed since I had broken them in the station. “Do you know of an optician near the Gare du Nord?” I asked.

“Oh yes,” she said, “wait for me after we arrive and the other passengers have departed – it will take about five minutes.”

Her name was Claudie, she later told me, and after our arrival at Gare du Nord she walked me up the street to an optician and explained to him my predicament. She waited with me as he repaired my glasses for free – a screw had fallen out — and to thank him I bought another pair to use while traveling.

As we walked back to the station I couldn’t help but think how much we travelers complain about the coldness of Parisians…and here I was on Boulevard de Denain on a cold and rainy Saturday experiencing the warmth of two total strangers.

Jim Ferri