I was at the train station at Fontainebleau, taking pictures of the public toilet like the curious tourist I am.
A man used his pass to let me in for free.
It was awkward when I came out later and saw him in other parts of the station.
Haha
This post is part of BootsnAll’s 30 Days of Indie Travel Project: Day 5: Kindness.
Blog title taken from the title of a book that everyone should read: The Gift of Fear.
Travelling as a single woman takes guts.
Despite putting on a brave front telling people about my solo travels, I have to admit here that I feel panicky before every single trip.
“What if something bad happens??!” Worst case scenarios run through my head: my body floating in the Seine, found dead in my hostel room, etc–all sorts of scenarios from bad detective novels.
Despite all my paranoia, nothing really bad happened to me on my trips. *touch wood*
That said, there was a scary incident in Paris. It is scary on hindsight but (fortunately) I wasn’t that afraid then–more annoyed than scared.
Here’s a recount of the event (with edited paragraphing) from my Paris travel blogpost (a copy and paste of my e-mail to my friend):
No need to panic but some random guy threatened to kill me.
Was walking out of train station to where I live. Heard someone calling out from behind. Ignored (bcoz you never know who it is, and quite a few mad men around). Shout got louder as I walked away. I exited, thinking I was safe. At traffic lights, a China man (only reasonable term I can use now) said something loudly to me. I turned to him. He looked red in the face and smelled a bit drunk. He rambled on loudly in his dialect. I never opened my mouth but gave him a look that said: What the f do you want?
He ended his rambling, asking: You are China person (def not “overseas Chinese” in this case), aren’t you? I shook my head and looked away to behind him, holding on to my not-give-a-shit look.
Then he said: Next time you do this, I’LL KILL YOU.
He walked off.
While i feel frightened now, I’m glad I held on to my BITCH PLZ look.
This was where the scary thing happened, in the evening with the sky slightly gray.
Credit: Google Map
Additional information about the incident. It was late in the evening in summer but there was still some light. The tunnels in the Metro were winding. There was a cafe opposite the exit–but no one sitting outside to witness the incident.
As I said I was not afraid when it happened. It was in my instinct that the guy did not have a gun or a knife with him. It was also instinct that told me: Put up a brave front.
Moral of the story: Trust your instinct but bring pepper spray, just in case.
How would you have handled such a scenario?
This post is part of BootsnAll’s 30 Days of Indie Travel Project: Day 6: Fear.
The rest of my posts for the project can be found here.
Before my trip to Paris, I was looking on the Web to see if Mozart l’Opera Rock was on while I was there. Unfortunately, the Paris shows were far from the dates I would visit the City of Lights.
A bit of background about the musical: I accidentally discovered the musical while on Youtube. The music video for L’Assasymphonie had all the mysteries of the sexy French. “Why does the bearded man look so tortured?!” I became obsessed about finding out more about the play.
Turns out, it’s a about Mozart’s life. I watched all the videos I could online and tried to memorize the lyrics.
Imagine my disappointment when I found out that the show would not be in Paris!
I looked through the list again and found that the nearest location that the show would play was in Nantes.
Before that, I never heard of the town. I googled and found out that it was about 2 hours on TGV from the capital. After thinking about it for somedays, I decided to spend two days of my already short week in France in Nantes, just for the musical.
I did not regret it.
The break away from the capital allowed me to see more of beautiful France, not just piss-scented Paris. On the TGV, I sped past field with rolls of hay and grazing fluffy sheeps. It made my heart swell with happiness.
Unlike Paris, Nantes was laid back. I was quite surprised to see people not dressing very fashionable (ie T-shirt and shorts) to a musical. (I thought everyone wore mink to such a show).
In Nantes, I also visited the beautiful Castle of the Dukes of Brittany, previous home to Anne de Bretagne.
During my last few hours, I even illegally rode on the tramway as no one seemed to be checking tickets. ;)
This post is part of bootsnall.com’s 30 Days of Indie Travel project. Day 3: Music
The rest of my posts for the project can be found here.
YQtravelling 