Paris, night one

One little story I forgot to tell...

On the first night in Paris, exhausted as we were, we had some trouble sleeping at first.

On the floor above ours, a school group, or team or soemthing of teenage girls was staying. They were, unsurprisingly, really, really noisy. As we were trying to fall asleep, they were giggling, running around and banging doors. At one point I said: "If I hear one more slamming door, I'm gonna go break someone's neck." At that point, a door slammed.

So, I leaped out of bed, swung our door open and marched into the hall. At that point, some other woman across the hall from us had clearly done the same thing, and tho she didn't speak english, she clearly thought I was the one responsible for all the noise. I set her right, and then stomped angrily up the stairs to go yell at the noisy ones to shut up.

At the top of that flight of stairs was standing a tiny little redheaded woman, clearly one of the chaperones for the trip. I looked at her and said, very politely: "We're trying to sleep, would you mind keeping it down a bit?" She also didn't speak english, so I made some motions and hand gestures, and very apologetically asked them if they wouldn't mind being a bit quieter. She turned around and started yelling at the girls, and I turned and left.

As I was walking back to my room, I passed the first lady and the front desk guy, and told them it was all taken care of, and marched back into our room. Nat and Daorcey and Anne were like: You actually went and told them off?

Well, in my own polite Canadian way, yes. Angrily run upstairs, but rather than yelling, or making orders, justed ask them: if they, y'know, wouldnt' mind being a wee bit quieter, and then apologized for the intrusion.

We decided that was very Canadian of me. But, it did work.