Many months ago, when I first realized that I would be away from home for Christmas for the first time ever, I began trying to convince everyone I knew and loved who might be able to spring for a plane ticket to spend Christmas in Paris with me. How glamorous right?
Obviously, nobody took me up on that.
Except my cousin Christopher that is. Christopher gave me a maybe, because he was actually going to be in Spain for a while in December, visiting some friends. It occurred to me to wonder who the hell he knew in Spain, and why it was cool with both these friends and his boss that he spend an entire month there. But then, my mysterious cousin Christopher from Hawaii is an enigma. I wouldn't be surprised if he told me his dear friend Oprah Winfrey was coming over for lunch and then they were both going on vacation in Iceland for a week.
Anyway, Christopher did go to Spain, but rather than come to Paris he asked if I'd like to spend the weekend with him in Malaga instead. I had no idea where Malaga was but there had to be sun there right? I hadn't seen the sun in a month. Next thing you know my plane tickets are purchased and I'm frantically trying to google a way to get to Charles De Gaulle airport in time to catch a 6 am flight, when all forms of public transportation in Paris are closed.
God. Paris.
Dear Christopher came through with a solution again, and sent me a link to Super Shuttles. Super Shuttles is a service that picks you up at your apartment and drives you to the airport in time to catch your flight. Even if it means picking you up at 3 in the morning, unheard of in the so-called City of Light. So I booked the shuttle for between 2:40-2:55 AM, amazed at such convenience. It was positively American in conception. (Can you tell I'm feeling homesick this week?)
The website asked for a phone number, which I gave, and urged passengers to be ready to go at the beginning of their fifteen minute window. Well, I assumed that since I gave them my phone number, they'd call when the shuttle was ready. Seems logical, no? But 2:55 AM came and went without so much as a peep from my phone. Oh Christ. What if they don't call and I was actually supposed to be standing outside at 2:40 but I wasn't so they just left me? I tried to call the number on the website but it didn't even ring. Was there something wrong with my phone? Did they try to call but I couldn't get it because my phone wasn't working? Was this all just a scam? They just charge my credit card and never show up? I checked my phone. 3:10 and no missed calls or messages. Now what! No metro, no RER, and no AirFrance Bus. I could theoretically call a taxi but that costs an average of 100 euros, which I definitely did not have. What to do now?
At 3:20 my phone rang. My shuttle would be there in four minutes.
But as soon as the driver had put my suitcase in the trunk and shut the car door behind me, my newfound peace of mind vanished. I mean, come on, trusting a complete stranger in the middle of the night in a still very foreign city to drive you to the airport and not to an abandoned warehouse to be sold into sex slavery is a lot of trust. I tried to talk myself out of it, but why were we still not leaving Paris? Shouldn't we be leaving the city by now? And I thought there would be others, why was I all alone here? It certainly didn't help that we then we rolled down the street with the most strip clubs and sex shops I have ever seen on a single block. Strip clubs and excessive graffitti are the two unmistakeable signs that you have now reached the Bad Part of Town. God, this is it. The end of my life. I absurdly wondered what kind of underwear I was wearing, because it would be embarrassing if I was raped while wearing granny panties.
But as it turns out, at the end of Porn Hut Alley we picked up a rather friendly Russian lady, and I was not taken to a makeshift brothel after all. It's amazing how ridiculous your fears seem the moment you realize there's nothing to be afraid of.
So I made it to Spain. Christopher picked me up at the Madrid airport, and we drove five hours down to Malaga. The sun was bright. It was around 72 degrees. The sky was clear. I walked out onto the back porch to soak in the view. Christopher's friends Janet and Darryl live on a hill, and the back of their house looks down onto pretty little nearby villages, trees, an olive orchard, and the gorgeous blue Mediterranean. On clear days you can see the Rock of Gibraltar.
"Would you like some Cava?" Darryl asked me.
Ah. Vacation.
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