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LEWIS LAU TRAVELOGUE - EUROTRIP - November 2003
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| My brother Philip and I went on a 10 day trip in November of 2003. We stopped in London, Amsterdam, and Paris. These are the pictures taken during that trip. |
We decided it would be interesting to take the train to Paris...
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The Amsterdam Central
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Our train
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Philip was pretty cheerful at 7:00am. I was my usual morning self - grumpy and quiet.
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Bye bye Amsterdam!
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Now for the story in Paris... we get in, train arrives in Platform III. We know we're suppose to move down to the subway, and take the train to Monparnasse. We got all that planned out - but, where is the subway? "Excuse me, could you tell me how I can get to the subway?" |
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The lady was not too helpful, so I pulled out my rusty Francais, "pardonez-moi, ou est le subway? Je veux aller Monparnasse" - thinking I was real smart... |
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She responded, "&*^#*&$^#*$^#$*B #&$#*(&#&*(($^#&* *&#( *&#*($^E*(#&$*#(&) &#$^*)$%*%)$& *(_)@(#&$ *#^$*&^ #$*#^($&#($ &&#(*$&#* (^#"&(&@(*#@#*UUD" |
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Huh? |
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So Philip and I walked away in our suitcases, and found the subway transfer... Now I knew where we were, and where we needed to be (in the French subway system). While I was explaining our location to Philip, a helpful man came to explain to me what we already knew - where we were. He then took us to the ticketing machine, and pressed a few buttons. The 3-day ride-all-day pass was 35 Euro's each... |
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So insert my credit card... NADA... tried card 2... ZILCH... He said, "We only take European bank cards..." Not believing him, I insert card #3... ZERO. |
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| He offered to help. He said he would buy the tickets for us. WOW ARE THE FRENCH GENEROUS! I told him he did not have to buy our tickets - and he said, "Non! You have to pay me, of course!" He then pressed a few more buttons real fast... sticks his card in, and TADA! Two tickets pop out. | |
Philip hands me 70 Euros, and hands it to him. He then gave me the tickets. Looking at the ticket, I realize that it says nothing like "three days (trois jour)"... so I asked him. "Non! This is it - come here, I will take you to the entrance"... Hesitating, I saw the information booth in the corner of my eye, and told him to stay in line with me, so we can ask the lady inside the booth. |
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"Come on, I am in a hurry - I will help you to the entrance!" "C'mon - just wait for us a bit - we are next in line!"... |
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He started walking away from us, towards the subway entrance gates, "Come this way!"... I waved for him to come back and wait with us... |
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and suddenly, without warning, he sprinted towards the exit... |
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| ... leaving me and Philip staring at each other. DING DING DING! It's our turn in line. "Excuse-moi, can you tell me what these tickets are? A man sold us these" | |
"Sir - you should not buy tickets from strangers" (where did these people suddenly learn to speak English? Why can't she teach the other lady upstairs to speak English?). |
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"Yes. I understand. But can you tell me what these tickets are? He said it was supposed to be a three-day-pass" |
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"This is not a three day pass." |
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"Okay, then what is it?" |
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"This is not a three day pass." (Suddenly their brain fails to translate what I just asked, so they repeat the same answer" |
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"I know that - what is this then?" |
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"Not a three day pass." |
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"No shit" |
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"What did you say?" (angry face - Yeah - Parlez-Vous English again, eh?) |
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"NOTHING - can you give me two three-day-passes?" |
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That would be 70 Euros, sir (fluent English, better than mine) |
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(Although impossible, why do I have this bad feeling like this lady in the glass box knows the man who had just conned us?) |
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*&*(&*@(#@(# !!!!! (And I am not speaking French) |
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