After several days of getting lost in France I finally arrived in Paradise. Nobody told me that some of the trains split, where the front half of the train will detach and go one direction and the back half goes the other. I was on the wrong section and headed back North instead of South. I didn’t know any of this until the conductor asked for my ticket several hours into the trip, and notified me I was going the wrong way. I got off in Lyon, but there weren’t anymore trains departing south that night. According to Rick Steves, the travel writer and host of a travel television show, Europe is “backpacker” friendly and that you can basically sleep anywhere. So I curled up on a bench until a police officer nudged me with his flashlight and told me that the station was closed for the night. I couldn’t justify spending money on a room, so I crashed at the bus stop outside the train station. As the night grew old, the freaks started crawling out their caves. I was woken up by a man in my face asking if I had a cigarette. “No”
He then started pacing and yelling, “Fuck the white people in their assholes, I love to be black.”
For some reason hearing an angry black man yelling with a French accent is less intimidating. I wonder in France is it politically correct use the term “African French”?
I finally made it to Nice, France. I saw an advertisement for a cheap hostel in the area, so I checked in and rode the elevator up to my room where the others were hosting a party. I felt like an intruder and little uncomfortable with the George Bush poster being used as a dartboard. “Hey, I got one of these at my place,” I said. The floor was littered with beer cans and some guy was passed out in my bed. The group was gathered around one guy with a guitar, they were having a sing-a-long to such favorites by Sugar Ray and Smash mouth. I kicked the guy out of my bed and this lippy girl called me rude. Hey last night I slept on a bench with crack heads, I just want to crash in the bed I paid for. Fucking American, she mumbled. As my hostel grew hostile I said in a serious tone, “Is this because I’m black?”
Everyone in the room laughed, the joke being I’m obviously not black, but was being hated on for my existence.
Does anybody wanna smoke this joint I’ve been smuggling around in my vagina for the past week? The easiest way to make friends: offer drugs and try to make them laugh. I won them over and learned that they have all been living there for months, some of them years. They worked under the table doing odd jobs on the cruise ships that would dock in Nice. Travelers would pass through their bedroom as the guys bragged about how many of them they slept with. I was impressed.
The next morning I put on my swim suit and headed for the beach during lock-out which is where you have to leave your room so it can be cleaned from 11am-3pm. I stopped for a shot of espresso. In Europe they don’t have coffee. They will offer you an American Espresso, which is espresso and water but no coffee. A few blocks away I would find the most beautiful ocean I’ve ever seen.
I grew up on the West Coast, besides that the only other piece of ocean I’ve seen was a trip to Hong Kong with my grandmother when I was an adolescent. I started hating myself when I was twelve years old and my parents divorced. I felt emotionally abandoned fantasizing about the end, sooner better than later. I didn’t care anymore nobody else did why should I? But I was wrong, grandma cared, she saw my depression and invited me on a trip with her to Hong Kong. I didn’t know where Hong Kong was, I had never left California, it didn’t matter; it was the escape from my life that I needed. Grandma introduced me to a new world, I didn’t know existed. She believed in me and taught me the law of attraction. My mom on the other hand practiced the law of distraction.
Unlike the West Coast, the Mediterranean is odorless, not a trace of seaweed and crystal clear. Not only are the beaches beautiful but so are the women and they are all topless! I’ve never been nude in public before, I’ve never been nude anywhere but my shower (and the red light district). My ex-husband on the other hand, loved to be nude and we would often go to nude beaches, where he would be naked and I would be fully clothed. One particular afternoon spent picnicking near a section of tall overgrown sea grass where we noticed men just standing randomly in the waist high grass. We couldn’t figure out what they were doing, our best guess was bird watching. They must be bird watching; Jack was curious and walked over then ran back to the blanket, “definitely not bird watching.”
“What are they doing?”
“They’re getting blowjobs, I’m going to need therapy.” he said.
“I thought that only happened at rest stops, and in the future, don’t ever run naked again.”
That feeling of not knowing anyone and not caring what these foreigners thought of me, I let down my fears and my top. I went for a swim and felt like a kid again, the Mediterranean was my fountain of youth, I’d never felt so alive.
I soaked up some French UV Rays while people approached me selling things like sodas, jewelry and massages. An Asian woman asked if I would like a massage.
“How much?”
“10 Euros”
“Sold”
After sleeping on a bench, the 10 Euros was a good investment. At the end of the massage, the woman had me sit up as she shook each arm as fast as she could. Still topless, my boobs flopped around and I knew this wasn’t a pretty scene, I opened my eyes to see if anyone was staring at me…. Just the kids from my hostel standing there laughing. I don’t blame them, I would have laughed too. I thanked the woman and put my top back on, so much for anonymity.
from my book: Scars of Paris available at Borders Barnes & Nobles Amazon
