When we arrived in London, Kelly asked if I wanted any specific souvenirs from the trip. "I don't have room in my suitcase," I told her, nodding to the small carry-on I was hoping would get me through two weeks. "But I DO need a watch, so maybe if I find one I like, that could be a good keepsake."
A few days later, I'm sure she agreed that it would not only be a good keepsake, but an essential item for the rest of the trip, as I asked her to check her watch for what felt like the fiftieth time.
I didn't buy a watch, however, and instead used my iPhone as my timepiece when I wasn't bugging Kelly for the time.
That was fine until we arrived in Paris, where we entered a bit of a time-warp. We arrived Friday night and made plans to meet the next morning at 9am for breakfast. I woke early the next day (as I tend to do every day) and spent the wee hours reading and planning the agenda for the day.
At about 8:30, I received a text from Kelly. "Have you eaten already?"
"No!" I wrote back. (I'm not sure why I was excited enough to use an exclamation point.)
"Want to meet downstairs in 30 minutes?" She wrote.
"Perfect." I responded, thinking, "Isn't that what we decided last night??"
Half an hour later, I was seated a table enjoying a croissant. "I'm here," I wrote to her. "Got a table for two near the back. No rush."
She wrote back, "I ate already. Want to let me know when you're done?"
Confused, I thought maybe she decided she was tired of me and needed a bit more down-time. I plowed through my meal and met her in the lobby 30 minutes later.
"Sorry for the confusion this morning," I said.
"Yeah, I think I must've been tired when we made plans last night," she offered.
"No biggie!" I dismissed it, excited to get our day started. "I found a walking tour for us over in Montmartre - if we head out now, we should have perfect timing!"
We popped up at the Metro station near the Moulin Rouge about five minutes before the tour was slated to leave. "I don't remember what they said they would be wearing," I told her. "Let's check both sides of the street to see if there is a group forming."
We spent the next ten minutes looking everywhere that seemed plausible for a tour to meet, without any luck. Then Kelly said, "Wait. What time was the tour supposed to leave?"
"Eleven," I told her, pointing to my phone. "Basically, right now. Maybe they're being very French about it and it doesn't start on time?"
"Alison," she said, pointing to her watch, "It's noon."
I looked at my phone again. "No, it's 11."
She shook her head and showed me her watch. "Noon."
Suddenly, our confused dining plans earlier in the morning made perfect sense. The clock on my phone hadn't automatically gained an hour when we arrived in Paris, so I was still operating on London time with an hour delay. No wonder we had missed each other in the dining room. As I paged back through our texts, the mistake was obvious.
Realizing a tour guide was never going to meet us, we started up the hill toward Sacré Coeur on our own. And I never DID find a watch I liked. Next time...
Sacré Coeur, which inexplicably smelled like cheese and manure.
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The other reminder on this trip that we were clearly in another country was the hair dryer provided by the hotel. Look at that thing!
Over night, my throat became much worse. I couldn't swallow without crying. It was so painful I couldn't sleep. I was back at the NHS walk-in clinic as soon as it opened in the morning. This time, I was admitted to chat with a doctor, who took one look at my throat and pronounced it strep. (White spots had appeared over night.) She gave me a prescription for penicillin, which I filled before returning to my hotel room.