Day 1: Cheesy Flies to Paris

 

    The airport hummed, buzzed and beeped with the sounds of modern travel. The loudspeakers announced one last chance to board flight S7751 to Amsterdam. A TV in the waiting area preached the virtues of Crest toothpaste. A group of bored passengers were placing bets on how many districts there were in Paris. An airport car honked uselessly at the swarms of people stumbling their way down the corridors.

    Cheesy could not hear the song of the airport. She sat thumping her foot and bobbing her head to the reggae music blasting in her earphones. She watched the people around her opening and closing their mouths silently like goldfish in a jar. Here was a nun dressed in pale blue robes, clutching a bible and pressing her eyelids shut. There was a skinny young man with piles of dreadlocks bunched under his hat, as if a giant yellow egg sat on his head. To Cheesy, everyone looked like puppets in a show whose soundtrack only she could hear.

    Cheesy was on her way to Paris. From there, she would backpack across Europe to Istanbul. Most people tackle vacations the way an athlete tackles a fifty-meter dash, but Cheesy was in no rush. Efficiency and speed were overrated. So while everyone crammed up against the gates leading to the airplane, Cheesy remained seated, relaxing to her music and exchanging glances with the skinny egg-head. She finally strolled into the plane once everyone else had settled in.

    Only later would Cheesy appreciate how smart it had been to board as late as possible. The plane was a torture chamber. When Cheesy entered, hundreds of faces stared at her, blinking, indifferent. Legs and arms stuck out everywhere like twigs. Luggage poked out from under the seats and loomed in the rafters above. A baby was wailing from somewhere in the depths of the cabin. Cheesy squeezed into her window seat, joining the mass of staring faces. Cheesy managed to fall asleep eventually, but she awoke with her mouth feeling like sandpaper and tasting like horse. She could not breathe through her nose. She could not shift her legs. It felt like someone had hammered a rusty nail into the back of her neck. A pang of ecstasy ran through her when she found out they were only an hour from Paris.

    Although Cheesy's body insisted that it was 2 a.m., the sun came hurdling across the horizon and suddenly it was day again. The plane descended into the clouds, but never came out. Paris was covered in thick, rolling fog. There was no Eiffel Tower to be seen, no Tower of Bastille. All was gray.

    Cheesy only had to change metros and trains about five thousand times before arriving at her destination. She was staying in the apartment of an artist in the 12^th arrondissement. He was an interesting-looking fellow, with big blue eyes and long blonde dreads. A constellation of piercings dotted his face. He was business-like but helpful.

    Cheesy walked to the Bastille. It turned out to be just a big green spire, upon which was perched a gold figure so high up that Cheesy could not even appreciate its details. Contemplating the banality of travel, Cheesy decided she should look into the history of Bastille before concluding her judgment. So she set off to find a café. There seemed to be an endless supply of exactly two types of cafes: brasseries filled with middle-aged men guzzling espressos and brandies, and Greek kabab houses. Cheesy tried walking into a brasserie and was stared down so hard that she fell right back into the door that had just closed behind her. She backed out, feeling awkward about how awkward she felt as a woman there.

    So she went into a greasy-looking kabab house instead. She was greeted by another room full of males, but no one stared this time. She ordered a "Greek sandwich and salad" and was brought a bun filled with two pounds of meat and one leaf of lettuce. Cheesy shrugged and gobbled it down with great satisfaction. The owner approached her curiously and asked her where she was from. When she replied that she was Canadian, his eyes grew wide and he exclaimed, "Ah! So cold!" Then, as if to compensate for her answer, he brought her a steaming red drink in a shot glass, which he claimed to be mint green tea. Cheesy had her doubts, but the Greek man's tea and generosity had made her first day in Paris.