What can I say about  10 wonderful days in Paris? I know, I can say I want to go back and see my new friends there. I went there alone but I never felt alone. I found my way around, I made some wonderful connections with people I had never met before and I want them to continue. People went out of their way to help me.

The weather was perfect. I had watched it before I left and it was just like San Francisco, hovering between mid 50’s and mid 60’s. So I packed sweaters and also a couple of sleeveless blouses. And I took my black raincoat and an umbrella of course.

Well the weather was cold only one day when we were standing outside for the Paris Fashion walk tour hearing all about the history of fashion in Paris. It was very interesting. We were freezing. I was dressed pretty warmly but it was very chilly and windy. The rest of the days the weather hovered into the low to mid 70’s and was sunny without a cloud in the sky.

Upon leaving I had received the names of two people who are friends of friends of mine in San Francisco. We sent some emails agreeing to meet and I didn’t know where or when but at least I thought I might be able to have a couple of lunches or something and meet them. The one other connection was to Ann, a woman who is an acquaintance from my work who ended up moving to Paris to be with her significant other.

With those connections, I set out, realizing that at least I would sort of know some other Americans there, even though vaguely. And I had my laptop and was very looking forward to being able to send emails in the evening. My idea was that I would be out and about all during the day and then be in my apartment in the evening and email and blog and connect with people. I even bought a 25-foot long Ethernet cable so that hooking up to the internet would not be a problem at all if the wireless didn’t work for some reason.

Little did I know on all counts.

The wireless never did work for me and finally we determined that it was my computer. Isabelle, from whom I was renting the apartment and I tried everything over 2 days time, in between tours and plans I had made in advance, even engaging some other tenants of Isabelle’s upstairs to do a test. I also phoned the Best Buy geek squad because Isabelle was so kind to loan me her petite ordinature (computer) with the French keyboard that I stumbled over the whole time, however very gratefully because it is by email that we made all the arrangements for social get-togethers. Isabelle was so accommodating about the petite ordinateur, she couldn’t have been better, even spending an evening with me and also her husband on the phone trying to figure this out. And now, we have done what we can do and we will have our dinner,” she said finally. It was about 8:30 by that time.

Well the geek squad even gave me a number and said if I got my computer repaired in Paris they would pay for it. But little good that did me. I wasn’t going to take it in even though I liked the people at the FNAC store, their equivalent of Best Buy. They mostly spoke French and I just didn’t want to put any stress on my relaxed trip. Plus I had the petite ordinateur so I was OK, not great, but OK.

Little did I know that these Americans I hardly knew in Paris would welcome me with open arms inviting me to dinners and to a picnic and help me with any question that I had about the metro and anything else I needed to understand, such as printing out my ticket to go to Versailles after our picnic. And also, since I was going out to dinners in the evening there wasn’t time for blogging and hooking up on the internet anyway. This is just as well, it was Paris after all.

More to come.