I studied abroad in Europe during college. After a group trip to Paris, we had a free week, and I chose to stay an extra day and explore the city some more. I booked a hostel based on positive reviews, and a few friends decided to stay in the same place before we went off on our individual travels.

I checked in and was given a bunk in a large, mixed-gender dorm room. Fair enough, it’s a hostel and that’s pretty standard. However, this was my first time sleeping in a larger dorm alone, and the other guests were mostly unfamiliar and older men. More of my friends showed up, and we had enough to book a private room together. 

The new room was just off the hostel’s main courtyard, where all the guests gathered outside the on-site bar. While the atmosphere in reviews had been described as fun and friendly, it was an older clientele than our group of young college kids and already very drunk and rowdy. We settled in but discovered that there was no way to lock the door from the inside; the mechanism on the interior was missing, and the bolt could only be turned using the outside keyhole.

A drunk guest we didn’t know jokingly offered to take our key, lock the door from the outside, and come unlock us in the morning. Shockingly, our group of nineteen-year-old girls declined that offer. 

We were bone tired and lying on our bunks, debating what to do about the door situation, when I noticed a shoelace threaded through the slats of the bunk over mine. We ended up using that shoelace to tie the latching pieces of the interior lock together, keeping the two halves of the swinging door shut. Since it opened inward, we piled our suitcases in front of the door, as well.

We eventually fell asleep while the party in the courtyard raged. Late, late at night, once things had finally quieted down, we heard the door start to swing inward. I was so exhausted that I barely lifted my head when I heard the door lightly thump to a stop. There were no more sounds, so I dropped my head back down and fell back to sleep.

The next morning, we discovered that the old, random shoelace was still tied through the lock but barely hanging by a single thread. One more push and the lace would have snapped, the suitcases pushed aside.

We all checked out with relief, after noting the graffiti in the bathroom stalls (toilets and sinks only, no showers) saying the writer would rather spend a night in the street than another night at that hostel. Where was that warning when I booked the hostel?!

My friends and I set off on our individual adventures. I was supposed to take an extremely budget flight to Ireland, but an air traffic strike meant that no flights would leave that day. I had another day to spend in Paris, all by myself, but I knew there was no way I’d go back to that hostel alone.

I ended up returning to the hotel our group had stayed in during the school excursion, paying six times the hostel rate for a room, locking the door, and taking an hour-long bubble bath to wash off the hostel.

I am the author of this story. As promised, here is another story of working in this American bookstore in Paris thirty years ago.

One day, I notice a client behaving in an odd manner. He is staying around the table where we have the recommended books and picking them up, covering part of the book with his hand, mumbling something while shaking his head, and then putting the book back.

I approach and offer the usual friendly request:

Me: “May I help you with anything?”

The client looks at me and then looks back at the books. He grabs one them.

Client: “It’s unbelievable, isn’t it?”

He puts his hand on the cover, removes it, and puts it back again. I do not remember the book precisely, but I think President Bill Clinton was on the cover.

Client: “They really seem human — until you cover half their face!”

He puts back his hand on the cover and removes it again, and I notice that he is actually covering the bottom part of Clinton’s face.

Client: “It’s only when you do this that you can notice the lizard eyes. They are well camouflaged.”

Me: “…”

He does the same thing with another book while mumbling and shaking his head.

Me: “Ah, I’m sorry, someone is calling for me.”

And yes, I beat a hasty retreat.

The client was not bothering anyone and not doing anything untoward, so I left him on his quest — but I made sure to stay safely away while keeping an eye on him.

Related:
At Least It Isn’t Blue This Time

I was in charge of Public Relations for a large IT company, and as a result, I had to handle an American executive as we did press interviews in six different European countries in five days. The main problem was that I was with an American who hated Europe. He was grumpy because there was no jogging track around the Eiffel Tower and because no UK journalists wanted to meet him for breakfast meetings at 6:00 am. In Paris, he insisted we eat dinner at an Angus Steak House.

At the departure lounge in the Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris, he went into total meltdown.

Client: “I can’t stand all these French people smoking. Make them stop.”

Me: “Yeah, good one.”

Client: “I’m serious. Go over there and tell them to stop smoking. Now.”

I walked over to the group of French students who were chain-smoking Gitanes and asked them if they knew the time. I went back to the client and told him they had said, “Go forth and multiply.”

My young daughter and I were in Paris, France during an unusually hot weekend which, unfortunately, coincided with Paris fashion week. We had taken an open-top bus tour, and we had waited in the sun in line for a boat tour but missed the cut-off for that boat. We didn’t feel like waiting for the next one, so we decided to walk back to the hotel.

It was very hot, so we stopped for a drink, but my credit card was declined (although it worked for the whole rest of the trip). We kept heading toward the hotel, and then heat stroke took over. Really disoriented, I stumbled into, of all places, a totally fancy-schmancy fashion house, complete with a black-suited doorman. During fashion week. It was the kind where the workers are beautiful seven-foot-tall women, and you have to be invited to shop there.

There were twenty gorgeous Amazons working and maybe three customers. And then I, a short, overweight tourist stumbled in, sweaty and suffering from heat stroke. Well, let the stereotypes abound.

Think The Devil Wears Prada all you want, but these ladies could not have been more awesome. They provided me with a cool drink and a fan and let me sit in the coolest part of their shop while I tried to get my wits about me. They brought some apple juice for my daughter and kept checking on me to make sure I was okay. They were gracious, sweet, kind, and completely non-judgmental. When I felt better, they offered to call a cab, and they also provided me with clear directions back to the hotel. They were utterly fantastic.

God bless them for taking care of a complete stranger who couldn’t have afforded to shop there even if I could fit into their clothes. Truly lovely ladies. If you ever read this, thank you so very much.

This is a story that happened to my coworker and flatmate.

My coworker worked as an assistant for out-of-country sales. She was able to land the spot despite not really speaking English thanks to a great temp assignment in accounting at the company.

One Sunday, the C-level head of foreign sales, an Italian living and working in Paris, went running. During that time, his wallet was stolen, along with his passport and VISA for a trip to Russia the next Tuesday.

This being a NAR story, you are probably waiting for this C-level boss to throw a tantrum about how it was unacceptable that he wouldn’t be able to make his flight.

You cannot be more wrong. He made his flight.

Thanks to my flatmate having the right contact in all organisations, and the heavy usage of fast-response delivery courier, my flatmate was not only able to get a temporary passport for her boss but also to regenerate his VISA and update travel information. All in a work day.

She told me it felt like being in a movie.

Unfortunately, this is still a NAR story…

Not only did my flatmate’s direct manager try to take all the credit for it (unfortunately, with partial success among C-level executives), but a few months later, she dared to write up my flatmate for globally not being efficient enough.

Let’s just say she left the company not long after.