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Saturday, July 17, 2010

...And Then I Almost Died (In France)

I just finished an email to an aunt back home and described my trip to France as a "bust". Well, that's putting it lightly. In all honesty, it was a f*cking disaster. It was the 7th circle of hell. It was a near death experience. And it was the most miserable 48 hours of my life.

I woke Sunday feeling a little funny--nothing serious and I chalked it up to nerves. Travelling alone is exciting and exhilarating, but it's also kind of daunting, especially going to a country where I don't speak the language. So I was a little nervous, a little tired, but VERY excited. I had a great schedule lined up and I was ready to explore.
Well I made it to my hotel in Paris (a closet sized room on the 4th floor with no AC and no cold running water--WTH) and decided to take a little nap. The World Cup final was that night, and I had every intention of partaking of the celebration. I may not speak French, but everyone understands the language of soccer. (Gross, I sound like an advertisement)

Anyway, I woke up a couple hours later super sweaty and incredibly nauseous. I started throwing up late afternoon and it went on and on through the night-through Monday and into Tuesday. I had a fever of 102 at one point and I was sweating buckets. No one in my hotel spoke English and it got to the point where I thought, "If I stay here, I'll die" I pulled myself togther enough to make it back out to the airport (sidenote: the Charles de Gaulle airport aka the Paris airport in really almost an hour from Paris-I paid nearly 50Euro [$75] to get there) I practically begged for them to find me a seat on any flight going back to Zurich and I was lucky to snag a seat on the last flight of the day. Andrew picked me up in Zurich and I finally made it to his couch around midnight. I still getting sick through Wednesday afternoon, but at  least he had air conditioning and cold water. And, if my condition got much worse, there were plenty of English speakers around to help me.

The vomitting finally ended late Wednesday and my fever was gone Thursday afternoon when I woke up. I still kind of run down, but considering I threw up nearly every fiber of my being, that's to be expected.
Now that I am feeling better, I'm starting to get seriously pissed at myself. I was able to get my money back for the Thursday/Friday tours, as well as the last 2 nights of my hotel. But I had to buy a last minute plane ticket, which wasn't cheap. All told, I lost between $400-$500 on this fiasco. And that makes me even angrier then not being able to see the Eiffel Tower and Palace of Versailles. Rawr!
I still have a week left of vacation, so I'll probably spend a few days at the pool. It's still around 90 degrees everyday and I need to work on my tan. Andrew has a cousin getting christened next weekend, so we will head down to the Lake Como area for a few days for that. I'll be meeting a lot of his family, which takes "things" to a level of seriousness I don't think is a good idea given my upcoming return to the States. But, the offer of homemade Italian food was just too good to pass up. LoL

It's nearly 2PM here and I feel a nap coming on but I have more to say...probably tomorrow.

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