To Paris, Venice and Rome

By Justene Musin

I had to get out of New Zealand. I had to go somewhere far, far away.

Paris was my first stop. Then Venice. Then Rome. I mostly travelled alone, meeting with old and new friends along the way. I encountered the magnificent sights, observed the French and Italian culture, lived through unexpected moments and tried to figure out my future.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Justene Musin
• Release date: Jan 21, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370347292

Justene Musin

Justene's writing has been published in Snorkel, Quadrant, Landfall, Fifty Word Stories, 101 Words and Colloquy. She lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

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To Paris, Venice and Rome

Justene Musin

Copyright 2017 Justene Musin. All rights reserved.

Cover design by Jennifer Parker

Smashwords Edition

Table of Contents

NEW ZEALAND

DAY 0

PARIS

DAY 1

DAY 2

DAY 3

DAY 4

DAY 5

DAY 6

DAY 7

DAY 8

DAY 9

DAY 10

DAY 11

DAY 12

VENICE

DAY 13

DAY 14

ROME

DAY 15

DAY 16

DAY 17

DAY 18

DAY 19

DAY 20

DAY 21

DAY 22

NEW ZEALAND

DAY 23

New Zealand

DAY 0

I often heard time ticking away. My first instinct was to run.

I had to get out. Any way possible. I had become so used to the anxiety, that I couldn’t remember when it truly started. It was constantly gnawing away. Quietly and cleverly, at most times barely perceptible. But always lingering. At my worst moments, it would make me completely powerless. Reminding me that for all the time that has passed, I had not yet defeated it. There was a chance I never would.

We’ve all had those times where we lose ourselves. Freefalling into the abyss. I was looking for an anchor, a purpose. Something. Frequently I felt like I was floating in space, no gravity. Drifting. I had to change things up. I had to get out.

That’s how I found myself on a plane. Departing from New Zealand and arriving in Paris. Twenty-Six. On my own. People told me I was brave but I knew I had to go. In my mind, there was no choice. To me it required more bravery to stay. Do you ever get that feeling in the pit of your stomach? That feeling followed me everywhere for the last year and a half, an unwanted shadow. To me, it was my mind telling my body I needed a change.

No looking back. Only forward. The thing about fear is that the more time you give it, the bigger it grows. The less power it has, the less it can take you over.          

It was the trip I had waited, dreamed and strived for, for such a long time. One I longed for in the toughest year of my life. And I’ve had a few. My father died when I was thirteen.

But now that it was finally here, my gusto had surreptitiously slipped out the back door. I’ve never been someone who likes flying, the best I can hope for is to tolerate it. I attempted to distract myself with a gossip magazine at the airport. Focussing on the disastrous love lives of celebrities.

When I thought of who I was and who I wanted to be, it was night and day. This was a large step in the right direction, a path to mend the ruins of the past year. A year of failed romance, of thwarted independence, uninspiring work and a soul-crushing person who had tormented me in so many ways.

The anxiety ruled me. Fear was my go-to emotion. My daily companion. I was in constant flight or flight mode, always fearful of a million ways life could go wrong. I just wanted a reset button.

I decided to get away from it all. Far away. This was the ultimate escape. To Paris, Venice and Rome. Never having set foot in Europe, I couldn’t wait to see all the magic, life and history. To leave my world behind. For a month, at least. In less than thirty hours, I would be there.

Paris

DAY 1

Stepping off the plane in Paris was heavenly, like walking on clouds. Something I had imagined for so damn long was real and touchable. And the best part was that it was even better than I imagined. Ever feel like you’re living in a movie? Every breath of Paris is cinematic. From the language to the culinary aromas to the captivating scenery. There truly is no place like Paris. Of course, you’ve probably heard this before, but as you and I know; clichés always materialise from the truth.

I hurried to the baggage claim, amongst repetitive speakerphones warning me not to take taxis from unregistered drivers - only at designed taxi stands. Nearby, Parisian twenty-something hipsters chatted in quick-paced pitter-patter, with those beautiful rhythmic sentences that sound like sonnets. A familiar word here and there jumped out at me, but for the most part it fluttered above my head.

As I entered the main airport, the song A Sky Full Of Stars by Coldplay was playing. I already loved that song, but now it reminds me of Paris and feeling on top of the world. I lingered around an airport patisserie, reluctant to test out French for the first time in France. Listening intuitively, I casually let others go before me in the line before my ravenous stomach got the best of me. The cabinet was stacked with delectable offerings - pain au chocolate, croissants and fresh baguettes. 

Bonjour, je voudrais un croissant, si’l vous plaît.

Alors, the buxom lady gathered a croissant from the cabinet and popped it on the counter.

Trois Euro, madame.

I passed over some coins a friend from work had bestowed me with and glided away. I was a madame now. That was something I enjoyed hearing. 

I hovered around the airport, excited just to be standing in Paris. I checked out the tourist gifts at the stationery store, eavesdropping on the conversations and casual banter. I perused the French confectionary and magazines and all the parts of this antipodean universe.

Things got off to a dodgy start though. I headed towards the doors, labelled as a taxi stand, when an African man cornered me telling me that I would have to wait a long time and that I should come with him because it would be faster. I had a strange feeling, that intuition in your gut.  I wasn’t sure where this was going to go. Before I knew it, he was wheeling my suitcase towards a lift and taking me down to the basement. There was no choice but to follow him, my suitcase had become the hostage or perhaps the bait. Out of the lift, it was disconcertingly quiet in the basement, something was not right. There was hardly anyone in sight, no witnesses. I protested that I needed to go upstairs to call my friend and grasped my suitcase away from the man. He told me I could use his cellphone. This man had an answer for everything. Flustered, I tripped on my way back to the elevator and fell on my suitcase in a crumpled mess. The man was quickly at my side again to grab the suitcase but I flapped him away, telling him no, I didn’t want his help. You know that feeling you get in your gut? Always right.

You can imagine I wasn’t too keen to get into a taxi at that point after that debacle. The only thing pushing me on was my tiredness and eagerness to see Paris. I carefully avoided the taxi exit where I had encountered the predatory man and headed to an alternative exit, praying that the same thing couldn’t happen twice.

A French-Algerian taxi driver offered his services, but not before I quizzed him on whether he knew where I was staying, how much it would cost and how long it would take to get there and was he sure about all these things. He assured me so I held my breath and jumped in.

We had a delightful conversation whilst we sat in traffic, while the windscreen wipers erased the raindrops. Half in French, half in English. His English was passable, though he didn’t always understand what I was saying. He told me he arrived in Paris seven years ago, and three months in he was fluent in French. I gave it a go speaking French, explaining that I was from New Zealand, I worked in television, and I was staying in Paris for 12 days and meeting my friends there. At this point I realised that the phrases I knew were predominantly present tense and not always grammatically correct. It was limiting. But still, I felt French-ish and it was a nice way to pass the time, and keep my mind awake. Although I had to explain that Australia and New Zealand were not the same country and even though their accents can sound similar to some people, they are not the same. Meet any New Zealander and you’ll know what I mean. I reminded him of the most iconic Kiwi items of popular culture, such as Lord of The Rings, The Hobbit and of course, Lorde.

Oddly, when I mentioned I was visiting in July to see Bastille Day, he had no idea what it was. I explained it was when the Bastille was stormed but all I got was a complete blank. It was only later I found out that the French don’t call it Bastille Day, it’s simply their national holiday.

It soon became apparent that this taxi driver was plain lost.  He was relying on his GPS but whenever we got to the spot where my hotel should be, we couldn’t find it. He slammed on the reverse and then back on the accelerator, back and forth, trying to decipher where this hotel was. Then he proceeded to drive around the block three times. If I hadn’t been so completely jetlagged I would have gotten out myself and figured it out.

I had read somewhere that the hotel was down a driveway that was tricky to see from the road. It appeared that number 10 was some sort of phantom address, until I finally twigged it might be down an unlabelled lane off the main street we were on. The driver dismissed my theory and decided to drive around the block another two times, until the fifth time he decided I was right. He waved the fare for the time he took to drive around the block and finally I was on my way. I tugged my suitcase along the glistening cobblestones in the rain. There was my hotel, just as it looked on the website. Those adorable terrace windows with flower boxes look inviting even on a grey morning.

The main receptionist at the front desk was a complete sweetheart, a kind soul. Her French was impeccable, with all those wonderful accents and vowels. Her English was technically perfect, but the way she spoke it had the wrong emphasis on the wrong syllable. I found it curious, how this had come about. Did she know or had no one ever told her?  She always remembered my room once I came in the door, and would repeat it back to me – 512.

There were two other people who worked at the front desk, an African man in his twenties whose average English gave me the opportunity to practice my French and an overly polite man in his early twenties. And then there was the cleaner who proceeded to wake me from a jetlagged nap to tell me she was testing the fire alarm.

Sleep. I don’t travel well; I can never sleep properly on a plane no matter how many ways I try. I was in a zombie state and although all I wanted to do was step out into the city, my body was telling me rest was in premium demand. Jetlag had set in.

The hotel was a gorgeous building with delicate terraces on almost every room. Built in 1810, I had never stayed in such a historical building (most buildings in New Zealand are from the 20th century as Pakeha settlers arrived in the 1840s). Six floors, thirty rooms and one of the tiniest lifts I had seen. Although I had been told about the small rooms and the small showers, they didn’t bother me (although to me they weren’t that small), but this lift was something. It only held one regular size person and a suitcase if you were lucky. It was a comical goldmine to see visitors check into the hotel, see the lift and endeavour to fit into it.

My room was the backside of the building, overlooking a street where young French boys practised their soccer. I watched the boys cuss at each other in French before I unpacked and took a well-needed shower and nap. Later on, I ventured out to a supermarket and stocked up on a few things. I scanned the shelves, fascinated by what products are global (Coke, Snickers) and the European products I had never heard of.

Afterwards I took a stroll down the Grands Boulevards, just a two-minute walk from my hotel. The thing that hit me straight away as I turned onto Boulevard Haussmann was the energy. So much to see! So many people, everyone with their own narrative. The whole time I was walking down the street, all I could think was, I’m in fucking Paris!

If you look above eye level, there are layers and layers of Parisian apartments, with those ornamental terraces. I was sceptical about whether people lived in these apartments because often they seemed empty and lifeless, almost just for show.

I passed Musée Grévin, Paris’ answer to Madame Tussauds, and continued past the touristy shops to the shopping mecca of the Opéra district. Lots of chain stores, and luxury malls like Printemps, patisserie shops, homeless people with animals, it was all there. And this was just the tip of the iceberg.

DAY 2

The next morning, I felt much more explorative with sleep on my side. So far I had only seen the rainy side of Paris, the warm heat rising from the streets. Not that Paris is a bad place to be in the rain, it’s bittersweet and dreamy.

Firstly, I returned to explore the shopping mecca of Boulevard Haussmann, starting with Galleries Lafayette. The glass dome inside is truly amazing. The sunshine lights up the patterned glass with shades of red and blue as you look up from the bottom floor, amongst the makeup and wafting perfumeries. Level after level is as decorative as an opera house, with sculptural balcony after balcony. Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Fendi, Prada, Chanel – every glamorous luxury brand that exists. When you get right to the top you can visit the outside deck, which overlooks the Opéra district with the Eiffel tower in the distance.

Galleries Lafayette also has its own Angelina, which is a staple of the Parisian experience. With watercolour paintings on the walls and gold encrusted chairs and furniture, it’s the perfect spot for a tea, or in my case, hot chocolate. Except the hot chocolate at Angelina is not just any hot chocolate. It is luxurious and delectable and utterly rich. You receive a small jug of African hot chocolate and a side of cream, which you then pour accordingly into your cup and mix to your liking. There are the most intricate pastries at the counter but after a hot chocolate like this, I couldn’t do more sugar. I was there mid-morning, and soon found that Paris doesn’t really wake until midday. There was one man rushed off his feet, going from the counter to the kitchen, clearing the tables and back again to the counter as the cycle repeats. He was flustered in that French way, getting a little angsty but completely harmless. He was like a cartoon character, muttering under his breath in French as he darted back and forth, trying to be everywhere at once in the large café.

The first truly historical building I visited was the Palais Garnier. Palais Garnier is where the novel of the Phantom of the Opera is set. It is incredibly decadent, chandeliers in every direction, painted ceilings, mirrors, not an inch of the room without glamour. As you enter, you walk up the marble staircase and look up at the rooftop above where light streams in. Famous opera costumes were housed in glass cases, worn by invisible mannequins.