Back to Paris… – beginning of February 2004

“Back to Paris…” – February 2004

This was an unplanned chapter in our story, my taking the bus back to Paris for a short interlude. We had decided that it would be better for me to have a French passport over the course of our voyage, and since the French government had decided to no longer issue passports in foreign embassies, I was obliged to travel back to France to obtain one (We had not taken into account the possibility that the law would be changed during the course of our trip. The new law was in fact passed one week before I had been issued my citizenship papers).

We decided that while I traveled back to France to apply for my passport, Stephane would wait for me in Belgrade. Because we didn’t know how long it would take me to get my passport (it could take anywhere between 1 day and 2 weeks), we decided it would be best to look for an apartment for the month. Even if we stayed for less than a month, it would still be cheaper than paying on a nightly basis for a hotel.

We got lucky – we were in town for only two minutes when we were approached by a tall man in black who stopped to talk to us. We asked him how to search for an apartment in town, and he invited us to stay at his house. Usually his father rented the apartment in the basement of the house, but since no one was there at the moment, he said we could stay as long as we wanted until the end of March, when friends from Finland would be coming. So we biked through town, up to his neighborhood on the top of one of Belgrade’s many hills. The apartment was perfect – had a wood-burning stove, a toilet, and a shower. We bought wood, chopped it up, and stored it in the shed out back behind the house. I felt reassured when I left that Stephane would have a warm place to sleep, and a man speaking English who seemed friendly and willing to help out if need be.

I was praying that by some miracle maybe a plane ticket would be cheaper than the train or the bus, but I guess I didn’t pray hard enough. The bus ticket was the cheapest. So I boarded a two-story bus with a heavy heart, waved good-bye to Stephane, and settled in for the long 25-hour bus ride back to Paris. The bus was filled with retired Serbian folks who had worked in France and who regularly made the trip back to Paris every three months to collect their retirement benefits. I don’t know how anyone over 45 could make the trip – it was painful being squashed into a tiny seat for such a long time, even for someone as small as me. I guess the old folks could deal with it for the paycheck they were getting, which was many, many times better than they could expect to get in Serbia.

I got lucky and was sitting next to perhaps the only dark-haired man in the bus out of a sea of white heads. He was a young man who spoke French and who apologized to me for his “ugly” country, and explained to me how the system operated. Like, for example, the necessity for each passenger to pay 3 Euros to the Hungarian border authorities so that they would let us pass more quickly without opening every single bag on the entire bus. That is, they would collect the money, and then decide if they would let us pass quickly. Depending on how they felt. It was completely illegal, of course. They didn’t tell us things like that when we bought the bus ticket.

I finally arrived in Paris after an interminably long trip, in which they played horribly violent B-rated American movies with lots of screaming, lots of blood, and lots of bad dialogue. Everyone else seemed to have someone waiting for them when we arrived at the Place de la Republique, and I was sad that Stephane wasn’t there to welcome me like he usually did when I arrived in Paris. It was nice to be back in town, though. Nice to see all the familiar streets and stores, and people bustling about. Like going home. Even though I hadn’t been looking forward to the trip, I was very glad to visit with Stephane’s grandmom, his cousins, and aunts and uncles. I caught up with friends. That made the time go by quickly. I got lucky, too. Arrived the week of Jean’s 24th birthday, and there was a big family get-together that weekend to celebrate. Got to see everyone. And since I was going to help Stephane’s grandmother make the dinner, she let me choose the menu. I chose a baked salmon and potato dish, a fabulous dish that she had made for me before. And Aunt Annie came with her famous chocolate cake. I got myself invited to another family celebration the following day. If I had to choose a time to come back, I sure came the right weekend.

I got lucky – my passport was issued without delay. First time I ever saw the French administration function efficiently and without hitch – woohoo!! Aside from visiting with family and friends, I spent the rest of my time doing errands, such as buying bicycle parts, and dealing with various administrative tasks that I could deal with now that I was in town, instead of leaving it to our friend who is taking care of things for us while we are away. It was hard being away from Stephane – we had gotten used to seeing each other every day – so I was ready to take the bus back to Belgrade. During the bus ride, I was looking at some photos of him and the woman next to me asked me who it was. I explained that it was my husband and that I missed him because we hadn’t seen each other for ten days. Then I find out that she is making the trip back to Serbia to bury her 40-year old husband, who had just died from lung cancer. I felt terrible for talking about how it had been hard to be without Stephane for only a couple of days, only to realize that she would never see her husband alive again. I put the photos away.

I was happy to see Stephane again when I finally arrived back in Belgrade. I think he was happy to see me, too – he had cut his hair the day before and had actually cleaned the apartment!