To Paris and back

some notes on a recent trip to Paris

A few days before my trip to Paris last month, I woke up one night panicking about transit Visa requirements for going through post-Brexit Heathrow to Schengen Visa Paris. As South Africans, it turns out we need a transit visa, but thankfully my valid US visa from visiting my sister in Florida in 2017 sufficed. Whew.

View from my friends’ apartment in Vincennes

I got home from Paris on Monday at about 2. So good to be home. I fell in love again with my cosy, familiar home, the animals, my daughter.

Air travel isn’t for me. Perhaps I’m too set in my ways. Travelling by plane is so arduous, because of coccyx pain, sitting for 11.5 hours is an ordeal.

I’m not a good traveller. But being somewhere else is refreshing, all the new things to appreciate and navigate. I had a long walk in Paris on Sunday trying to get to the Seine, but in fact walked in the opposite direction. I carried my laptop in my backpack because the hotel didn’t have a ‘big enough for laptops’ safe. But was it safer on my back, walking through unknown neighbourhoods in Paris? As it turns out, it was safe. But I don’t know about safer.

Friends from school days read my previous blog, pooled resources and generously arranged for a driver, Monta to pick me up at Charles de Gaulle airport in his newish Audi. He swept me off and delivered me to my hotel, the Alhambra close to the Oberkampf metro station and a short walk to Place de la Republique. Charming Monta and I mostly communicated by smiling, he didn’t understand my English and I have barely any French, apart from croissant, fromage, and other food-related words and some greetings. I always feel embarrassed that I do not speak French and if the opportunity arises I mention that I am from “Afrique d’ Sud” – which lets me off the hook a bit. English people, being so close to France should have more than a handful of words.

The trip to Paris offered many delights and pleasures. Seeing my publishing friends, my colleagues, my comrades in arms, from Syria, Togo, Madagascar, Brazil, Portugal, Indonesia, France, London in exile from Iran, Chile, Haiti, and Algeria. We share our news and engage with the issues of governance that we were there to do, for those days we think about publishing from a global, more objective point of view. Hearing about the problems and issues that they are dealing with, puts things into perspective. We laugh a lot, we hug. We acknowledge the unspeakable horror of Gaza, the upcoming US election.

I enjoyed some other lovely things, staying with dear friends in their walk-up 4th-floor apartment in Vincennes, for the last weekend. Delicious food, conversation, and picking up from where we left off last time easily. Denis Hirson took me out for delicious dinner on the first Sunday evening, as I had been a book mule from a mutual friend in South Africa.

On my return journey, Monta picked me up on Saturday late afternoon and whisked me back to the airport. The flight was delayed by over an hour. I was slightly anxious about missing my connecting flight to Cape Town. On the plane I sat next to a glamorous couple, not sure what they were doing in Economy. They were well groomed, expensive clothes and hand luggage and seemed to be making a reel about their weekend in Paris, I could see part of it by glancing to my left. There were oysters, fresh fish laid out on ice, a market, lots of food, restaurants, champagne, and the Seine. They were in their 40s (her) and late 50s – maybe 60s – him. Quite a sexy vibe, when the lights were off during take-off, there was definitely smooching. I felt distinctly unglamorous in my knock-off German green parka coat and jeans I’d been wearing for a few days. My fantasy about them was that they were movie producers, they were also concerned about missing their flight. Their relationship was relatively new and had started as an affair, he’d left his wife of 30 years. (All pure fantasy.)

I asked one of the crew about missing my flight, he came back after doing his duties and knelt next to my seat (aisle) to look at his phone with me to check and reassure me that I would make it. He explained to me we’d be arriving at Terminal A, and I would need to get to Terminal C. He showed me on a tiny map on his phone how I would do this. (Was it A and C or some other letters of the alphabet?) Despite my anxiety, I enjoyed the lovely moment of being attended upon in such a fashion by a gorgeous kind young man.

Brush with mortality in one of Heathrow’s circles of Hell

When we got to Heathrow, I had to hand over my bottle of water at the security checkpoint. And on the way to the train station between one terminal and another, I started coughing. I have asthma, mostly dormant, but the flu I picked up while in Paris, activated it. I was too worried about getting to the flight on time, I didn’t try to find a place to buy another bottle of water, the food court was quiet, as it was after 10.30 on Sunday night. As I stood waiting for the train I had an asthma attack, I couldn’t stop coughing. And struggled to breathe. My arms tingled painfully, and I was gasping and coughing. I didn’t have an inhaler because I forget I have asthma until I have an attack. Very irresponsible, yes. All I could think was, I don’t want to die here at Heathrow on this empty platform late at night.

I coughed my way onto the train, and off again. Another young man, ground crew this time met me, “Are you for Flight BA 123?”

I nodded.

“Hurry up then. You don’t want to miss your flight.”

“I can’t,” I wheezed, “please get me some water, I’m having an asthma attack.” And no, I don’t I thought.

I staggered to the plane, he came back holding a half-full stemmed glass of water, must have been from Business Class. “They don’t have bottles,” he said.

When I got to the plane, I gave up the glass of water and asked if I could have a bottle.

“I will give you a crew bottle, we don’t have bottles of water on this flight.”

“Thank you.”

“You know we are boarding and settling 250 passengers,” she said.

I nodded. My daughter later told me to say next time, “I’m having a medical emergency.” (Please don’t let there be a next time.)

I crashed into my seat, the young man I shared the row with was at the window, (and the seat between us remained empty.) He didn’t get up for the next 10 hours. I took a sleeping tablet, had some supper when they came around, kept sipping water and then slept for 5 hours.

I got home. I could write about the Uber driver and all the minute details, but I won’t. I got home, I’ve been sick for nearly a month, bronchitis, maybe pneumonia. I’m taking the asthma seriously now. And slowly I’m starting to feel better. I might not travel to Europe for a short trip again.