Boulevard Peripherique

Reunited, and it feels so good! I still can't believe how happy I am to be back amongst the members of my family. I was even happier when Shakira and my sister-in-law Nicole approached me with a proposal.

Paris? they asked. FUCK YES! was my reply.

And so off I went to Paris. Ramstein isn't that far from Paris, straight shot, so we decided to rent a car and drive there. I've gotta say, I'm pretty excellent with traveling. Planes? No problem. Trains? A synch. Driving? Well, normally I'm aces at directions. I memorize maps, I can retrace my steps, I've got a perfect record with MapQuest. Paris is the first time in my life where I've ever completely sucked at being the map. And I can tell you why. Boulevard Peripherique. What a shitty, shitty road.

I sat in the front, co-captain of the big metal ship we were driving through Paris, and I think I might be the worst direction giver in history. The directions led us on and off of Boulevard Peripherique a million times. We got lost a million times. We were in traffic that was truly worse than Manhattan traffic, driving in cicles around the city of lights. And none of us knew any French beyond Bonjour. Lets go toward the city center signs, Shakira suggested. But we didn't want to get any more lost. We waved down a bunch of cars, asking them to direct us towards the Eiffel Tower. We had alot of folks roll their windows up at us. We stopped and got directions from a few people. They explained that there wasn't any such thing as The Eiffel Tower. Were we looking for Le Tour Eiffel? Um, yes, we are. So we went in about a hundred differet directions. We saw the city center signs again and Shakira again recommended we take those roads, but felt like we were close. We didn't want to mess anything up. So we wound up staying in that car for about 2 and 1/2 hours more than we needed to be. The kids were pissed off in the back, we were confused and angry in the front. And Shakira kept on telling us to follow the city center signs. When we found ourselves again on Boulevard Peripherique, winding around the outside of the city, we lost it. And we followed Shakira's instructions.

Looming outside out windshield, hours later, was Le Tour Eiffel.

Nicole and I screamed. We were so excited we rolled down the windows and shouted about Le Tour Eiffel. We made it to Paris, Boulevard Peripherique be damned.
Arrivederci, for now.
Love, Gabby