Travels with my poncho

On the day of my departure to France, I woke up to the sound of Hong Kong serenading me lest I forget its beautiful voice on my travels. The song went a little like this: "And then I go and spoil it all, by saying something stupid like BANG BANG BANG."

Thus I willingly made my way to the airport, wrapped in my wonderful cashmere poncho, bought in Beijing for the occasion. But despite my best limping efforts, I didn't get upgraded, and in fact I was punished for even thinking I could be...

First the plane was delayed by two hours because of a technical problem. I don't really like getting on planes at the best of times, but when I know it has a fault that might kill me, well... We got on to find that the ventilation was broken, so it was boiling hot and almost impossible to breathe. The cashmere poncho quickly came off to make room for air...

Then, when the plane (which must have been 40 years old) rattled off, we were told that the lights were broken, and that therefore there would be no hot service for health and safety reasons.

And so I spent the flight in the dark, at the back of the plane (because when a person asks for a upgrade because two of their toes are broken, that's where you put them - right at the back, so that they have to hobble all the way down the aisle...) wrapped in a Z shape around an armrest that wouldn't go up.

We arrived two hours late in Paris, where the walkway was broken, and we waited in the dark while they fixed it. The flight attendants, meanwhile, thought it might be a good idea to flash pocketlights in our face to complete the feeling of a terrorist hijack.

The queue to get out of the plane lasted a long while too, as just one woman was checking everyone's passport. A long hobble later I grabbed my bag, made my way to the taxi queue, where I was told the traffic was too bad to get me to the train on time, so I jumped in the metro, which slowly filled up until I was told I was being very inconsiderate bringing a suitcase into rush hour pandemonium. As a woman pushed my case onto my broken toes, I couldn't have agreed more.

I bumped past another hundred people on their way to work, got to Montparnasse, dragged my case into the lift, where I managed to have a big argument with a guy in a wheelchair who after tutting, I couldn't resist asking what his problem was. He told me I had no right to use the lift and that my silly invalid boot didn't mean I was handicapped...

I limped down the platform, where I saw the train master smile at me as the door closed and he sarcastically said "Oh it's closed, what a shame". I had to buy another ticket for 100 euros, because of course that's the price for last minute bookings. Right then, I HATED Paris.

Desperate, I ran to the toilet only to find it was exceptionally closed that day for renovation, and desperate for a cheer up, I called my parents. My dad's reply to the situation: "you should have planned better."

I burst out in tears, and as I cried by the phone, a homeless man came up to me, said "Don't cry miss" and hugged me as I worried about the hundreds of diseases he was passing on to me.

I kindly dismissed him, got called a liar by a beggar who I'd told I had no money after she asked me for change three times (each time as she saw me buy a magazine, a hot chocolate, and a croissant), and then got told off by a waiter who said that the table I had chosen to wait at for the next train incovenienced him.

I have no idea how I could have lived in Paris and not gone crazy. It's true what they say - Paris is the best city in the world, it's just a shame it contains so many Parisians...