Paris encore

We're back in Paris which, after a week of traveling throughout France, feels like a sort-of home. As we drove in on the freeway, it felt just like Seattle--except that the landmark that rose to greet us was not the Space Needle, but the Eiffel Tower. 


Again, we spent most of the day in the car, driving the main auto-routes north as we made our way back to Paris. One thing that I failed to mention earlier about driving in France is the inevitable and completely obnoxious toll booths that litter the main autoroutes crisscrossing the country. 


Earlier I wrote that the roads of France are pristine--no trash, smooth, perfectly white-striped roads and a rest station nearly every 10 kilometers. How the French government pays for such pleasant road ways is by tolling all the vehicles that take any of the major freeways, labeled by A and followed by a number. 


Our first experience with the toll both was fine. We were buzzing along when the navigation system chirped in her British tone: "Caution: Toll booth." My mom and I looked at each other and scrambled to find any money. However, the tolls work different. Rather, you take a ticket from the tolls on the entrance of the autoroute and upon exiting, you return your ticket and it fines you depending on how long you've driven on that road. 


At first it was fine, a few Euro here, a few there. As we drove into the Loire Valley and then down through the Dordogne region, we took back roads occupied by tourists and farm vehicles. However, driving north, we found ourselves following mostly autoroutes--A75, A71, A10, etc. This adds up.


At one of our transfers, from one freeway to another, we stuck our ticket in to find that we owed 13.20 Euros. Scrambling through our wallets we then realized we had exactly...12.70 Euros. Lovely.


So we then tried our credit cards. Our debit cards. But each time we entered the card, the machine told us that it didn't recognize our method of payment (we had the same problem trying to buy Metro tickets on a machine). After awhile, the machine would spit our paper ticket and card back into our faces. My mom would have to put the car in park and scramble to grab the card and fly-away toll ticket. 


After attempting each of our cards--two credit, two debit, we then realized that we had no other option but to back up and drive to the other toll lane which housed a tolling official. We slid the car into reverse and began backing up, forcing a Frenchman in a small white Peugot to back up as well. Pulling into the other lane, I explained to the woman at the toll office that "la machine n'aime pas notre cartes." She then, like us, attempted to use all four of our cards, without success. She then opened her hand for Euros. But even after digging between the seats we could not find any more loose coins. I halfway hoped that she would take pity on us and let us through after only paying 12.70 but instead she ripped a piece of paper off an official pad and wrote me a bill. I have ten days to mail it in.


Part of me wanted to write a fake address, a fake name, something because she didn't even ask to see any identification. But the other part of me, the goody-goody part of me that crosses at crosswalks and doesn't run red lights, even if there is no one around, obediently wrote down my address in Seattle so they could bill me if I decided to skip town.


My mom and I decided that after that humiliating and frustrating experience, we were going to take all back roads to Paris. Yes, it took longer, but it was cheaper. And that, to me, is worth it.


I think one of the best things about going home will be realizing that everything will be priced in dollars. I won't have to mentally calculate an exchange rate to see how much something really is and if I do choose to drive on I-5, I won't have to dig around for $10 so I can exit to I-405.


Tomorrow is our last official day in France, in Paris. It's already 11 p.m. and my mom has warned me that we're getting up early. She's already asleep in the twin bed next to me. We're back in our original hotel in Paris and strangely enough in the same room. Another full circle: two weeks and back in Paris, thirty years ago, and back in Europe.