My first full day in Paris, I woke up to someone pounding on my door and as I crawled out of bed with one eye open, managed to croak out a raspy, "who is it?" A familiar voice replied, "the girl you were supposed to meet for lunch two hours ago." It was my friend H, who had just arrived that morning. I quickly grabbed a towel to cover myself and flung the door open apologizing profusely and after asking what time it was, explained that I had asked for a wake up call two and a half hours before. "I know," she replied, "the two women at the front desk and I have been taking turns calling you and pounding on your door for the last two and a half hours. You, my friend, clearly sleep the sleep of the just." "I'm so sorry," I explained, "I was giving lesbian lessons until like six o'clock this morning" (when my star pupil had to run to catch her flight). "Of course you were," replied H, who affectionately (I think?) refers to me as "the gateway drug" because of the sheer number of women I have converted in my life.
As I showered and got dressed, I gave H the quick rundown about how I had gone to the girl bar to find the stunning bartender only to find that she was on vacation and how after sitting at the bar lamenting my bad timing for hours with a fellow by the name of Jean Claude, this beautiful woman (whom JC had been obsessing over all night because he thought she was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen) came over and started chatting with us. At first I sort of didn't notice how good looking she was or that she was flirting with me because I was still lamenting my bad timing, but thankfully at some point shortly before 1am, I snapped out of it, bought her a drink, gave her my full attention for ten minutes and then asked her if she wanted to have a drink with me at my hotel.
This invitation prompted her to launch into a flustered explanation (she spoke almost perfect english) about how much she wanted to come home with me, but that even though she was pretty sure she was a lesbian, she hadn't been with a woman before and so she would need me to teach her "everything," concluding, "it's too much, I could not possibly ask this of you." It took me a minute to process this beautiful woman with a flawless body (model thin, but incredibly and naturally well-endowed--so rare) acting like I would be doing her a huge and selfless favor by hooking up with her. "um," I responded a little dumbfounded by the conversation, "it's really no trouble (thinking: we are talking about hooking up right?). I'm happy to teach you whatever you need to be taught. Seriously." "Really?" she asked sheepishly. Cracking a big smile at the sheer ridiculousness of the conversation, I assured her that, "it would be an honor and a privilege." She laughed and said, "okay then" as she slid her hand in mine while we used our free hands to chug the last of our drinks before we trotted off, hand-in-hand, to lesbian school.
An hour later, when I finished up the blow-by-blow of the lessons that had been taught at lesbian school, over lunch at a cafe on the Seine, H started giving me the blow-by-blow on the three person, two and half hour struggle to rouse me from the sleep of the just, which I always seem to sleep in Paris. Immediately the conversation turned to my visit to Paris the summer before (my first in over a decade), when somehow I was so exhausted (I had closed two hugely stressful deals, back-to-back in the two days before I got on the plane and had been sleeping maybe 2-3 hours a night for the two weeks preceding my trip), that I managed to sleep 19 hours straight my first night in the city. This was after I had slept the entire flight and my whole first day in paris, only waking up to meet my friends for dinner for a couple hours then returning to my hotel where I slept for the additional 19 hour stretch. When I finally woke up and looked at my watch to find that it was 5 o'clock, I just assumed it was 5am because it was inconceivable to me that I had slept 19 hours straight and about 37 of the last 41 hours of my life. It didn't help that the sky was so thick with ominous black clouds and rain that it was impossible to tell whether the moon or the sun was hiding up there.
While I had told my friends (who lived in Paris and who had given me one of their cell phones which didn't have a time display because I had forgotten the adaptor I needed to charge my blackberry) that I would call them when I woke up, I thought I should wait until at least 9:30am and so I spent the next 4 and a half hours wandering all over Paris, rationalizing every single thing I saw because it was easier than wrapping my mind around how long I had just slept. When I walked past the gay boys having beers and smoking outside a gay bar, I just assumed they were coming down off their club drugs. While I was a little surprised that the starbucks was open at what I thought was 5:30am, I thought, well, why not? Look at the business they do at 5:30 am (the place was packed). As I made my way toward the Louvre through the throngs of pushy american tourists, I marveled at these gunners who had gotten up at dawn to beat the line. When a french guy approached me and tried to pick me up as I sat on the edge of the fountain outside the Louvre reading my guidebook, I was in awe of his confidence (I don't know anyone who has more luck with the ladies than me and I have never in my life even attempted to pick up a cold-sober stranger on the street at 6am). The couples walking all wrapped around each other at what I thought was 7am didn't phase me either, this was Paris after all, the most romantic city in the world. When I finally wandered into a little bistro around 8:30 and my waiter greeted me with "bonsoir," I made a mental note that people keeping saying bonsoir right up until the next work day officially begins at 9am.
Finally around 9:30, I walked out of the bistro and called my friends (who had completely given up on me having been waiting for my call all day and all night and having called my room about 10 times over the course of the day, while I was sleeping, to no avail). I left them a voicemail and started walking back to my hotel. As I walked, I couldn't help but notice that the sky had somehow gotten even darker than it had been and while only some of the cars had their headlights on before I stopped at the bistro, now all of them did. As my foggy little brain started chugging up to speed, it finally occurred to me that it might be nighttime and that I might have actually slept through an entire day. Knowing it was about a three hour walk back to my hotel, I hailed a cab. We rolled along in the direction of my hotel for a few minutes before I finally asked in my broken french whether it was day or night. Of course, the cab driver thought he wasn't understanding the question because it was such an insane one, but after clarifying for the third time that I was really asking him whether it was day or night, he burst out laughing. "C'est la nuit!" he roared. I immediately dialed my friend's number again for the second time in 15 minutes.
"Hi, it's me again..." I started and proceeded to explain that when I had left the message 15 minutes ago I was under the impression that it was 9:30am and that it had since come to my attention that it was actually 9:30pm, yeah...As I left the message I hoped it would be audible over the roaring laughter of the cab driver who was now crying and slapping the steering wheel repeatedly. As I ended the call and settled back into my seat, with the cab driver's roaring laughter giving way to little fits of wheezing from laughing so hard, I couldn't help but think to myself, laugh all you want, froggie, I sleep the sleep of the just.
While I had told my friends (who lived in Paris and who had given me one of their cell phones which didn't have a time display because I had forgotten the adaptor I needed to charge my blackberry) that I would call them when I woke up, I thought I should wait until at least 9:30am and so I spent the next 4 and a half hours wandering all over Paris, rationalizing every single thing I saw because it was easier than wrapping my mind around how long I had just slept. When I walked past the gay boys having beers and smoking outside a gay bar, I just assumed they were coming down off their club drugs. While I was a little surprised that the starbucks was open at what I thought was 5:30am, I thought, well, why not? Look at the business they do at 5:30 am (the place was packed). As I made my way toward the Louvre through the throngs of pushy american tourists, I marveled at these gunners who had gotten up at dawn to beat the line. When a french guy approached me and tried to pick me up as I sat on the edge of the fountain outside the Louvre reading my guidebook, I was in awe of his confidence (I don't know anyone who has more luck with the ladies than me and I have never in my life even attempted to pick up a cold-sober stranger on the street at 6am). The couples walking all wrapped around each other at what I thought was 7am didn't phase me either, this was Paris after all, the most romantic city in the world. When I finally wandered into a little bistro around 8:30 and my waiter greeted me with "bonsoir," I made a mental note that people keeping saying bonsoir right up until the next work day officially begins at 9am.
Finally around 9:30, I walked out of the bistro and called my friends (who had completely given up on me having been waiting for my call all day and all night and having called my room about 10 times over the course of the day, while I was sleeping, to no avail). I left them a voicemail and started walking back to my hotel. As I walked, I couldn't help but notice that the sky had somehow gotten even darker than it had been and while only some of the cars had their headlights on before I stopped at the bistro, now all of them did. As my foggy little brain started chugging up to speed, it finally occurred to me that it might be nighttime and that I might have actually slept through an entire day. Knowing it was about a three hour walk back to my hotel, I hailed a cab. We rolled along in the direction of my hotel for a few minutes before I finally asked in my broken french whether it was day or night. Of course, the cab driver thought he wasn't understanding the question because it was such an insane one, but after clarifying for the third time that I was really asking him whether it was day or night, he burst out laughing. "C'est la nuit!" he roared. I immediately dialed my friend's number again for the second time in 15 minutes.
"Hi, it's me again..." I started and proceeded to explain that when I had left the message 15 minutes ago I was under the impression that it was 9:30am and that it had since come to my attention that it was actually 9:30pm, yeah...As I left the message I hoped it would be audible over the roaring laughter of the cab driver who was now crying and slapping the steering wheel repeatedly. As I ended the call and settled back into my seat, with the cab driver's roaring laughter giving way to little fits of wheezing from laughing so hard, I couldn't help but think to myself, laugh all you want, froggie, I sleep the sleep of the just.
