I was recently winding up a ten day trip to Ireland, the UK and France with some of my students. We were a group of sixteen and were spending our last evening of the trip in Paris. We had ascended the Eiffel Tower, cruised the river Seine on a tour boat and were dining outside at a wonderful café in the Place de Tertre at Montmartre. We had just finished our crèpes with whipped cream and were sipping on diabolo fraise. It was a glorious night and my students were relishing the experience of the French café and outdoor dining. Our waiter was quite jovial and patient as my students used their broken French to order and to make polite conversation with him. It was indeed pleasant.
Eventually, I signaled to the waiter that we would like to pay the bill. We collected the necessary monies and left the café. As we stood in the square, my dear friend, one of the trip chaperones, said “Isn’t the last train back to the hotel at 12:45?” I looked at my watch which said 12:20 and then in a panicked tone yelled “Run!” Our descent down the hill was at lightning speed. In all my visits to Montmartre, I had never moved on those stairs that quickly. We ran down the street to the metro station. Fortunately, we all had previously purchased our train tickets, so we moved rapidly through the turn stalls. My entire group of sixteen jumped onto the first train to stop at the station. It was not long before we realized that we were heading in the wrong direction. “Off at the next stop,” I bellowed.
The next stop just happened to be the Gare du Nord, but it was already 12:50am, and I knew that we had missed our train. Trying not to let my students see the panic that was running through my brain, I calmly led them to the door of the station and out to a group of gendarmes who had gathered near a van in front of the train station. I explained to them that I had carelessly missed the last RER train to Noisy Le Grand and that I needed to get my students back to our hotel. The policemen conferred and then agreed that our best bet was the bus. They politely pointed me in the direction of the nearest bus stop and off we headed. It was now well after 1 a.m., and I was walking through the streets of Paris, in the dark, with my bewildered group. I played the “I have everything under control” role convincingly well…for awhile.
By the time we made it to the bus stop, our Tour Director had called from the hotel, concerned that we had not returned. He proceeded to tell me that the safest option for our return was to go back to the Gare du Nord and herd together four taxis. He estimated that the cost would be around fifty euros per car. I had not a centime on my person as I had spent the last of my cash at Montmartre. I turned sheepishly to my students and asked if they would be willing to pitch in whatever they had managed not to spend on the last night of our trip and that I would need to find an ATM to get the balance. Fortunately one of the students had plenty of cash remaining, so we rushed back to the train station to search for our cabs.
As luck would have it, there were four cabs parked directly in front of the train station. I proceeded to bargain with the cabbies for a price. We agreed on what I thought was an outrageous price but by this time it was already past 2am, and I was desperate. We piled into the vehicles, one adult and three students in each. And we were off.
The reality of the situation hit me hard once we were en route and I started to cry. The cabbie asked me what was wrong and why was I crying. I told him that I had let my students down and that I had put their safety in jeopardy and that I felt awful. He told me to stop crying, that he could not stand to see a woman cry. Then he proceeded to tell me that we were perfectly safe and on our way back to the hotel. To stress our safety, he continued by telling me not to worry because he had a gun. Now the entire conversation to that point had been in French, except the word “gun.” The students in the back seat of this particular vehicle were not my French students, but government students. And they did completely understand the word “gun.” Their gasps were audible. As the cabbie reached between the two front seats to retrieve said “gun,” I thought to myself, “Can this possibly get any worse?”
Hysterical does not begin to describe my laughter, and that of the students in the rear seat, when our dear French cabbie pulled up a bright yellow and blue “gun.” He showed it to me with a “no worries” grin across his face. Just then, we came to a red light and stopped. The second cab, carrying my dear friend and three other students, pulled up right next to us. With the windows down, the two cabbies began to converse. Then our cabbie raised his weapon and “shot” his colleague. The brightly colored gun was indeed a water gun. The roar of laughter shook both vehicles.
Then the cabbies started a chorus of “course, course.” I insisted that they not. “What are they saying?” my friend asked. “They want to race,” I replied. My friend gave a loud “Whoopee” just as the light changed. We were off! Racing through the streets of Paris at roughly 2:30 in the morning. The students were laughing hysterically. And so were the cabbies, my friend, and much to my surprise, myself. The streets of Paris were deserted. It was the pre-dawn hours of Bastille Day. And two wild cabbies were racing through the streets, making an American teacher and her students feel, well…safe. I had no doubt that these two crazy Frenchmen would deliver us to our hotel, safely…and it record time, I might add.
We were back to the hotel well before three in the morning. Our Tour Director was waiting outside the hotel for us when the mad cabbies turned the corner into the hotel drive. Photos were taken with our new friends and we said our good-byes. I turned to apologize to my students for the disaster I had caused because I had carelessly lost track of time.
“That was the most awesome cab ride,” they exclaimed! “What a great way to end our trip.” And they were off to their rooms, giggling and recounting the event, without hearing my apology. Pam, my dear friend, turned to me and said, “I know you were upset and that you were worried, but that was the best damned cab ride!”
And so, in twenty years, when my students recall with fondness their trip to Europe in 2009 with Mrs. Jarman, my guess is that all they will remember is the cab ride…and all the laughter.
No comments:
Post a Comment