At La Défense in Paris, my three girlfriends and I were approached by an old gentleman with an umbrella. His first phrase to us in French contained the word underwear, and he called himself Rumplestilskin. He led us around the New City for three hours, explaining the history and backdrops for every modern- and fine-art exhibit there in le Musée de Plein Ciel (the open-sky museum). At the end of the day, he tipped his umbrella to us and calmly exited our lives via escalator--we still had no idea if he was a real Parisian, what he did for a living, why he targeted us for his whirlwind and fascinating tour, if he expected payment or anything. Bizarre.
On my way to the gym one day with a friend we saw a little boy (about 10) and his older friends chasing a rabbit in a field with sticks. As we got closer, they chased the rabbit straight into traffic, and it got hit broadside by a van. I have never seen anything die, much less in traffic with little boys and sticks and tufts of fur everywhere. I kept walking, shocked, and when I came back in half an hour the little boy had pushed the rabbit onto a piece of fluorescent yellow posterboard that had been stapled to a telephone pole. He came up to me, begging "Excusez-moi, s'il vous plaît, avez-vous quelque chose pour mon lapin reallyfastFrench." I thought he was asking for money to, I dunno, bury "his" rabbit, so we told him we watched him chase it into traffic, and he looked slightly deflated. Turns out he really just wanted us to get our hands dirty pushing this dead rabbit onto the posterboard for him. Bizarre.
In a taxi on the way home from my cooking class downtown one night I got sexually harassed by an old man. There were four of us in the taxi, so I had to sit up front. I live really close to downtown, so it would have made far more sense for him to take me home first, but he dropped the others at the université, then drove around in circles for awhile, racked the cost up to 30euro, and when I told him I didn't have that kind of money, he stopped the taxi, put his hand on my knee and told me I could pay in other ways. He kept begging me for a kiss, but I got out, slammed the door, and walked the rest of the way home. That was the night my key wouldn't unlock the door (apparently, you have to turn and push, but the push has to be one fluid movement, so if you let up at all, you have to start over :\ ) That was the night I slept in the garage. The next day, though, I wrote a letter to the taxi company and he has since been fired. Bizarre.
The following week I was at karaoke with some friends of mine. One of my friends knocked over a beer and a vodka tonic, spilling it all over my skirt. I wasn't too hung up about it, it would dry, but the old man sitting in front of me thought it was his duty to hold up my skirt and mop my upper thigh with his hand. Bizarre.
Before leaving for San Sebastián I spent the night in a friend's dorm room so that my commute to campus would be drastically shorter and, thus, I could sleep a little longer. She left in the wee hours of the morning to Skype with her boyfriend and left me there to sleep, but she took the key--normally not a big deal. However, the dorm rooms lock both from the inside and from the outside, and there is no deadbolt--just a keyhole. I was, by all accounts, locked IN a room. I finally got out half an hour later and they hadn't left for Spain without me--had they, it would have been the longest weekend of my life. Bizarre.
In San Sebastián, on the way back home from an open mic night at an underground bar I played at, I encountered a really drunk old man who berated me for not wearing shoes. I pretended I only spoke French, and started lecturing him about how none of the French wear shoes. He got really flustered, especially after trying to pronounce "chaussures" and invited me back to his apartment, but I just walked briskly, shoeless, in the other direction. Bizarre.
Shockingly enough, I think that's all. I'll be posting more as they happen to me. Sean, I hope your dad enjoys this dedication :)
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