penniless in paris

The rest of our trip to Paris was surprisingly uneventful. Even though we had to walk from Gare du Nord because of the transport strike, we made it home. Susan ran off to work, and I geared up for my own Parisian adventure. First thing I needed was some cash.

I found an ATM that Sue directed me to, but the machine kept spitting out my card - why, I'm not sure, as the message was (naturally) in French. Well, I thought, I'd just have to rely on another plastic friend. I browsed around for a grocery store that accepted credit cards (there were none), contemplated writing a check in euros (bad idea), and then found a pizza store that claimed to accept American Express.

Through a combination of hand gestures and broken French (that I tend to mix liberally with Spanish, a language that I've studied just as unsuccessfully in high school), I ordered a pizza plus one slice (to make it over the required minimum). All my linguistic struggles lead to no nutritional outcome, as the credit card machine refused to accept any of my cards. D'oh.

Yes, the thought of panhandling for euros has crossed my mind.

I was able to find food and withdraw cash a little later, but I must say that this battle for necessities definitely put some things in perspective...