Part Trois

How to sum up the last few weeks? Glamorous adventure? War-torn Hell? A true test of character?

We shall begin with our cabin: We have been moved into our assigned cabin, our very tiny cabin. Here is a few examples of the size, if Jeff wants to cross from his bed to the door, I must sit on my bed to give him room to walk. I can’t blow-dry my hair in front of a mirror unless he goes into the bathroom. We have a desk attached to the wall, We have to put the desk stool up on it when it isn’t being used, so we may get into the room. Yeah, it’s real small.

There is a shelving column dividing our beds. So we are sleeping apart. We have been told for weeks that this will be removed. Still not moved.

The bathroom: It is a shower with a toilet in it, and a tiny sink attached to the wall. The sink is about the size of the porcelain dentist bowl you use to rinse and spit when during a teeth-cleaning. I can sit on the toilet, with the shower water hitting me, while I wash my hands. I could conceivably shampoo, brush my teeth in the mirror, and pee at the same time! Unusual.

And as they say in real estate, “location, location, location”, we are at the end of a hallway that lets out into an uncarpeted stairwell. So all day and night, we hear the clumping and thumping of work boots up and down metal stairs. We are also at the fire exit door, so we enjoy the SLAM of that heavy and fireproof door all day and night. The echoing of metal on metal is torture! We are located above the carpentry shop and crew gym, and below the stage of the main theater. So between the carpenter’s buzzing/ sawing, the door’s slamming/ banging and the disco Pilipino beats below us, and the changing over the rotating stage above us, we are in a chamber of HELL!

We pray for one night of rest. Ugh.

PARIS:

We were lucky enough to have a day off and took full advantage of it. We hopped on a train after rehearsal and got to Paris around 11PM. We headed straight for the Eiffel Tower. It is more magnificent than I was prepared for. There was hardly anyone there because it was so windy. We loved it! It felt so spontaneous and fun, until we realized... we did not book a hotel room in advance, which normally would not be such an issue. But apparently there was a big football match in town and the entire city was booked. We walked from hotel to hotel for hours searching for a room. I felt like Mary and Joseph getting rejected from all those Inns. We walked the windy and desolate streets of the most romantic city in the world for most of the night. There are worse ways to spend your evening.

Around 3:30AM we found an open café near the train station. It was full of fellow stranded travelers, misfits, and vagabonds who, like us, had no bed to rest their weary heads. By 4:30AM with the help of Skype found a room. Despite the fact that is was wildly over-priced, it had everything we’d dreamed of: hot water, a soft clean Queen bed, and quiet. We just wanted one good night of sleep considering our cabin back on board was as comfortable as a WWII foxhole.

The next morning we hit the street. The moment we walked out of our hotel, we bumped into this sweet looking man. He smiled at us politely, and suddenly looked down towards a glistening copper ring on the ground. He picked it up and showed it to us. And then he reached for Jeff and placed it in his hand and said, “I find. For you.” in a thick French accent. It was this lovely and generous gesture. Then he shook both our hands and kept saying, “This good luck. Bon Chance. For love.” We were so touched that this man had offered us this treasure he found on the ground. UNTIL... he started saying, “Now you give me money for a coffee...” He kept saying “2-0, American dollars.”, meaning he wanted $20 for the ring that we quickly decided he’d dropped out of his pocket to perform his usual scam! It was a set-up, a swindle, a hoax! We scurried away scared he would follow us. We’d been duped by a master! It was so French!

The rest of the day was lovely: we visited Notre Dame, which was a wonder. We walked along the visual delicacies of the Parisian streets. By recommendation we ate at a wonderful café/ bistro and I had some of the best spinach and chevre salad known to the human palate, and we took a river-boat tour on the Seine. It was an exhausting, terrifying, magical, and perfect 24 hours in Paris. We will be sure to have more adventures: England, NY, Miami, St Marten, St Thomas, Mexico, Honduras.