Finishing the Polish girl adventures and renewing the bleg for a place to sleep on the East coast.

Where did I leave off? Oh right my boss said that i didn't have to stay that evening so I could go get ewa from the airport, but i didn't have directions. Ugh; Thus i called my ever handy jeebs and asked him to print me off a copy from the net. But his printer isn't working, so he actually hand wrote 3 pages of directions for me and I stopped by his house in the centre of Paris before heading out on my long trek up North to Beauvais airstrip.

I got there around 11, supposeddly 15 minutes late for her arrival but ctually I ghad to wait 30 minutes more before she got out of the security section. When she walked through the automatic doors I saw her start scanning the crowd of waiting people expecting to see jb waiting for her with a sign. She actually passed me right up! So i tackled her from behind with a bear hug and she was totally and utterly surprised! It was great.

We started the long drive home at about 11:45pm and talked about jobs and men and our ex's in Ireland and basically all that had happened between now and last june when I had left. Shortly after 12am I looked at my gas meter and realized that I was running on empty so I figured I shoul dexit and refuel. It was only 15 minutes more to my place, but I didn't want to risk it. I exited and started to pump the fuel, when the pump stopped and I looked over at the windo to see what the guy inside was doing, and to see if I could get him to turn my pump back on. he waved for me to come over; I did and he said that after midnight it was a prepay service only, so I said ok and handed him my 10€ and after I finished pumping my gas drove off. Here is the first adventure with Ewa: I turned onto the little road that lead back to the on ramp of the Auto Route home and there were PO-LICE all over the road! ugh! They have quite an infestation here in Paris, but so far have avoided contamination, and or contact with them all. However, not on that night! that night i was signalled to pull over and I started quietly freeking out! i didn't have my drivers license with me!!!!!! it had been stolen from me when shopping about 3 months ago. I never told the family, because I knew they would make me stop driving and I really didn't want that to happen. So, I tell ewa to be really sweet and distracting. The cop asks for my insurence and my driving papers and I hand him over alll the papers I have on hand and play dumb about not handing him my license. I had givenhim all the car papers and i had passed along my visa papers and my passport. I asked him to repeat things a few times when he was asking me questions and I explained that I was a fille au pair and that I didn't speak french very well, so if he could speak a little slower it would be better. He turned to Ewa and asked if she could speak french, ewa was curious at why this cop was pointing at her and speaking in a language that she didn't understand. So she asked me what he had said and I told her in english, she decided that then is a good time to try and distract the guy and i don't know flirt or something and she asks him if he speak English! Oh NOOOO Ewa! NEVER NEVER EVER ASK A PARIS COP TO SPEAK ANYTHING BUT FRENCH!!! It is a major insult to them. They hate it when all these foreigners expect them to cater to their speaking preferences. I start freaking and tell Ewa to be quiet and not ask him that, so she goes. 'Oh, maybe Deutsch! Sprekenzie Deutsch?' (Oh lord have mery on me, I am try ing to get her to shut up, but she just doesnt get it, French people hate German people! Why would they speak German?) "Oh God, oh God, she is gonna get us killed!" Is what is running through my head but I keep smilling at the cop all sweet and innocent like and telling Ewa to be quiet. The cop takes a puzzled glance at these two weird foreign girls in this french licensed car and asks me who Bruno Delile is? Bruno is the father of the kids i take care of and the one the car is licensed to. I tell the cop as much and he decidedes to take a walk around the car and look for things he can write a ticket for. he comes back and tells me that Bruno has to get the front bumper fixed because it was a bit smashed it due to the last nanny. I say 'ok, I'll tell him' and the cop waves us to drive off.

My oppinion is that he just didn't know what to make of all the papers I jammed in his hands at once. Some were in English, some were in French so he figured that it must be ok if I had that many papers and just let me go.

The penalty for driving without your license in France is an immediate fine of at least 45€ and if it can not be proven at the time you are pulled over that you do indeed hold a valid drivers license then you are subject to immediate arrest and your car is towed away. I had no license with me, and besides that I was American, so there was absolutely no way for the cop to be able to check and see if I did indeed hold a valid license in Wisconsin, Etats-Unis. Luck was with me that night, even though Ewa asked if he spoke the two most hated languages. lol


Adventure no. 2: Shopping with Ewa for over 4 hrs straight. UGH!!!! I was dieing by the end of it! Normally I am ok for shopping for up to one hour, but when I don't have any money, and I am tired from being up the night before, I really don't like shopping, and especially not for 4hours with out a break.



Adventure no. 3: Being asked by security guards to put our clothes on and get out of the park. Yes! We were actually kicked out of my own residential area patch of grass, because we were laying in the sun. Ewa was in her bra and panties, they looked like a two piece swim suit to me, and I was in my swimsuit and wearing a skirt. Anyways i guess we were just to hot for the guards or something... they kicked us off the lawn and made us leave the communal area completely. They didn't believe that I lived there when I told them my address. I think that this is due to the fact that I have such a bad American accent! Annoying.



Adventure no. 4: The death of my car. On sat night at 11pm we wanted to go dancing so we got in my little car and drove into the city. However, 5 minutes away from the little dancing place that inew, my car started doing something strange. When I pushe don the gas it didn't go! AAAAHHHH!!!! I was in the middle of fricken Paris and my car was dieing fast. I could get it fast enough to shft into second gear but not fast enough to go the speed limit of 50 K/hr. I parked it and we walked the rst of the way to the bar. The bar closed 35 minutes after we got there and we had the chance to dance to only one song before commenceing the long trek back to my semi broken car to see if she felt better and wanted to take us home or not.
We arrived at my car around 12:45am and started to take as many back roads as I knew to get us home without annoying every single other driver on the road that night. However after driving kinda in a big circle for about 20 minutes I figured that I should jsut admit to my self that I really only knew one way home and that that way was gonna be hell, but we had to take it. Peripherique! Speed limit is 80 inmost places but when you get closer to my place it is 110. Ummm, so here are these two girls dressed to the nines in skirts and heals, driving along the side of the Peripherique at 25 an hour and geting honked at and propositioned fro about 3 hours with out relent. I was so scared that we would get pulled over by another cop and this time have no luck. Anyways to make our long drive a bit shorter to read about. What normally would have taken us 25 minutes to drive took us 3 hours.



Adventure no. 4: I forgot my keys at the families house so after our extremely long drive home arriving at 3:45am We were locked out side of my apartment. That was great. It was way to late for me to go banging on the families door, but we were dead tired and had no other resource. That was until Ewa remembered that she had left my balcony door open a crack because she had been smoking out on it. So we walked around to the outside of my building and looked up at my balcony ledge. A good 12 feet off the ground. hhhhmmmm.... I am about 5ft 7in and Ewa is at least 5' 9.... hhhmmm.... yup you guessed it. I went down on my knees ewa climbed onto my back. I started to stanc up slowly and she lunged for the edge and the railings. She caught it barely and I stood up super quickly. she stood ON my shoulders and got a better grip, but she couldn't swing her leg up high enough to get on the edge and pull herself up. She stood ON MY HEAD and wobbled my poor neck back and forth trying to get up; And then just as my poor, mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted body was about to crumble to its knees, she got her foot up and scrambled onto my balcony. The door was open and she walked through to my front door and let me in.


Adventure no. 5: Wake up Havilah! It was 5:45 am but Ewa thought it was 6:45 am and that Jb was late for collecting her and taking her to her flight. I had forgotten to recharge the battery on my phone and I have no other working clock in my apartment. So, I woke up and walked outside to find a clock to make sure that she wasn't late and if need be call and wake up Jeebs and tell him to move his behind into 5th gear and get here now! But when I went outside the only person I met was a little old man waiting at the bus stop. I asked him what time it was and he said "6am on the pill miss" but in French. At which point I wanted to scream at Ewa that I didn't have to work for another hour and a half and that i wanted to sleep!!!! But I couldn't. She was tired too, after our adventures from the night before, and she also had to work that day when she got back to Dublin, so I said nothing and we waited till Jb arrived at 6:45, on the pill, and took my beloved Polish girl to her flight. Which took her back to Ireland, and a safe distance from me.

I hope you can all understand that it was a very tiring weekend!

Next post might detail last weekend when I climbed Mnts. and Volcanoes in the center of France and the paragliders we saw and how we were practically paragliding with Jeebs giant kite. But maybe I will just leave it at that.... Yeah probably.

Anywho I am glad that I am caught up a bit better now, and all I can say about the future is that I am getting really excited about going to see Angel and Bernadette, and my Uncle Dave and Aunt Bethany, and hopefully ALL of New York City! Woohooooo!!!! Only 8 days left till I am on my home soil!

By the way thanks to everyone who has tried to help us find a place in New York, or on the east coast. We have places to stay for all but the nights of the 20th, 21st, 22nd, 23rd, and 24th. We're hoping someone will host us through the couchsurfing sight, but we have no promises yet... No worries though! It is summer, and heck, we've never tried sleeping like bumms on benches before! Might be fun!? Who knows we might try heading to Canada by thumb. Jb wants to see Montreal, or maybe we could get to Niagra falls. That would be cool, but I am still kind hopeing that someone can just give us a couple of couches and we can stay in one city for the 5 days. In other words: KEEP A LOOK OUT AND IF YOU FIND A PLACE FOR US TO STAY, TELL ME!!!!