Day 200: Today, Tuscany Vista Crescent

Dudes! Happy Day 200! I'm home!

Epic, EPIC travel day beginning with an accident on the Metro, forcing me to brave Parisian cabbies and Parisian TRAFFIC. Oh my God. Twenty minutes, two blocks. Are you kidding me? It took 40 minutes to get back to where I came from in the first place, which is at the edge of the city.

I don't deal well with gridlock. Especially gridlock that's seven cars thick and is all about HONKING every seven seconds. I briefly considered leaving my bags and running fast and far and free.

Finally we're ripping along the highway and I begin to have hope that I'm not, in fact, going to miss my flight. Then I see the exit to the airport flash by in a blur. Because the cabbie decides to take the "back way." (WHY do they do this? It never, ever works.)

We drive ten more minutes PAST the airport. He throws 0,80E in a toll booth only to find out the sneaky back road is closed to traffic. Of course. He swears, turns the car around, puts ANOTHER 0,80E in the toll basket and drives ten more minutes back to the right exit.

Meanwhile, I'm watching the meter wind itself up past 40 Euros (60 bucks), past 50 Euros (75-80 bucks) and into the 60s. I have an internal debate about how to handle this given my limited cash supply and my limited French insult supply and at one point the ever-climbing meter became like a thermostat for my inner rage. We pull into the terminal and I'm looking at a hundred dollars.

"I'm not paying 70 Euros," I tell him.
No, no, he says in French, it's only 68.
Thanks, buddy.
"But you went the wrong way," I whine, all the steam gone out of my argument at the slightest whisper of resistance on the cabbie's part.
He shakes his head.
"Je ne comprend pas," he says. I don't understand English.
"Ah," I say. "How convenient for you."

I sigh. I begin to weep softly and bitchily pay the full amount because I'm a Grade-A passive aggressive SUCKER. Gaa! The rest of my trip went super smoothly, though. All 20 hours of it.

I got home to a dozen roses, a bunch of bright yellow tulips, 64 brand-new Crayola markers (SIXTY FOUR!) and a giant sketchbook. Oh, and wine and hugs and a fire.

Somebody? Loves me.