The underground metro system whizzed by at a heart-stopping rate as I settled into the 1980’s sea foam green seats. The weight pressing down on my ruined feet was lifted, something that hadn’t happened since 8 am on July 8th. It was now 10:16 pm on July 9th. Through the broken time changes, I hadn’t slept for 31 hours. I was in the middle of Paris, France, on the AP-Art Europe trip with my younger brother, James McMasters, a group of art students, and Mrs. Dietrich. Already two times that day I’d fallen asleep: Once, during dinner, and second, on the way to the hotel. As I settled my head against the glass window of the dark subway, I worked on my third ephemeral sleep.

Don’t tell my parent’s bank account this, but my first reaction of Paris, y’know, the home of elegance and beauty, was actually hot, sweaty, and dreadful. Maybe it was a combination of my foggy mindset, a belly full of airplane TV dinners, and the feeling of displacement from hopping between three countries in a 24 hour period. Maybe it was because for once in my life, I was the minority instead of the majority. Maybe it was because I missed US currency, I missed the English language, I missed my McDonalds, Nickelodeon, and Walmart. Maybe it was because I forgot my toothbrush and tooth paste back at home.

Whatever it was, the time-traveling sick feeling wore off soon enough, which left me with the rosy realization that I had been set wild to tramp where I liked in a foreign country. Not only that, but I was an art fanatic who’d been thrown into one of the most beautifully structured cities in the world. The only comparable feeling is that to a four year old tearing open the wrapping paper to a Tickle-Me-Elmo on a warm Christmas morning, except instead, Santa’s elfs had fashioned me a high resolution camera to photograph every detail.

I visited various parts of Paris during my stay: The Louvre (bigger than you’re neighborhood), Notre Dame (sadly, no hunchback, gypsy, and/or goat included), The Centre Pompidou (where the architects were so innovative and choked for space, they put everything that’s essential to a building – ac, sewage, electric – in pipes wrapped around the building) and the Palace of Versailles, where I found out why in the world of bed sizes, the queen size is bigger than the king’s (in ye olden day, the king spent more time heir-making in the queen’s bed, than sleeping in his own alone). James and I also planned out our own additional day trips to places. We mastered the subway system and made our way to Hamley’s Toy Store (it’s been around since the 1700s), the French Museum of Science (there was an entire wing donated to the pattern of chaos), and La Sorbonne (a very prestigious art college).

Amidst the sight-seeing, I was exposed not only to a hodge-podge of culture, but also to the terrors of tourist life. Besides the hordes of homeless, whom hounded you for your last euro at every chance, the worst part of my stay was the horrible, one-man-for-himself flow of traffic. In Paris, the Vespas would drive between lanes while smart cars wove in and out, all at different speeds. Watch tourist dodge. In some parts of the Paris roadways, insurance wouldn’t even bother getting involved if you wound up in a wreck, because the blame was too hard to place. While on the tour bus, I’m pretty sure we bumped into a car. Let’s just hypothesis that it might have possibly been when we were thrown onto the highway that went in a circle with no defined speed limit or lanes to separate the bikes, scooters, cars, buses, and delivery trucks exiting and entering at will. But that’s only a hunkering. Blinkers aren’t very useful on European cars.

Second place went to the challenge of currency conversion. The Euro to the US dollar was about 1:1.6. Displayed every where were stores on clearance. The only French word I learned was “soldes,” which meant sales. Advertised everywhere was 30%, 40%, 50% off! James and I soon found out though, that 30%, 40%, 50% off was actually 0% bargain. We pinched our pennies, or rather, Euros, and chose to rifle through the foreign toys and fun memorabilia than indulge in the designer Paris brands and other expenses.

My main goal when arriving over seas was to obtain a number of postcards to send to good friends, Hayley Mumaw, Julie Crisafulli, Megan Ortiz, and Gregory Uribe, as well as a chocolate box assortment of family members. I’d pre-bought the correct stamps with the right amount of postage due before leaving the States. I had all the snail mail addresses tucked away. I was ready to test the postal service’s accuracy. Finding the post card was easy. They were located in every single sovenior shop that bombarded and disrupted the historic Parisian architecture. I slipped in and dished out my Euros, choosing a card with the royal lineage mapped out on front. Yes! Finally! Postage achieved! Now I had to complete the thought to be friendly task of finding a mail box. To my dismay, it wasn’t that simple.

Upon returning to the hotel from our excursion that day, I set out to find a mail box, but my little group was delivered the news that the elevator broke down while we were out.

My room was on the 9th floor. James’ was on the 10th.

Guess who had my Grapes of Wrath novel in which wedged between the pages was my blessed postcard?

I took the concrete steps two at a time, which since the Europeans squash everything into tiny spaces, were the kind that went up in a swivel-circle style instead of straight-up-turn-straight style, which made this process difficult, because not only did I not have the leg length to really be jumping around like a preyed on gazelle, but I also didn’t have the gravitational balance to do it in a circle. But alas, my determination would not be stunted.

That was, until I hit the 4th floor, and had to drag my lion grazed carcass up slowly stair by stair. Finally, three heart give outs later, I made it to James’ room, retrieved the prized postcard, and hiked down to my room and slapped on a stamp. Then I gracefully glided down the stairs on my wing-like feet. I approached the concierge, looked straight into her painted on eyes, and with all the command I could muster said, “Since you were sneezed out of the womb, you have had one destiny, and since God has pulled all the rights strings to get you here, I see it fit that the least you can do is fufill it.” I frizbeed the postcard to her, said, “Get that postcard to Gregory Uribe,” turned on my heel, whipped out a sword and sliced a Z for ZORRO into the French curtains, then whistled for my trusty magic carpet to whisk me back upstairs.

That was, until reality caught up with my fantasy, and I instead tripped down the spiral stairs, nearly set off the emergency exit alarm, approached the concierge to ask about a mail box, and our conversation went something like this:

“Bonjour.”

“Ahhuh Hi…uh, post box?”

“Uhhum hm, no, garble, garble, foreign tongue speech, yadda, yadda.”

“Oh yeah, yeah, I know what you mean, thanks.”

Through the art of body language and hand signals, the concierge was able to tell me that the local mail box was located in the metro station, a place I neither had the free time or lacking of common sense to roam about.

Did I mention that I got no helpful information out of this rendezvous?

Did I mention that the elevator was broken?

Did I mention that each level had 16 stairs?

All in all, my trip to Europe may have shown me the identity of another portion of the world, but it mainly reinforced my position on this side of the Atlantic. I found that the option to pee without paying is not a given, but a luxury, that the ugly slur of American pronunciations is actually a symphony of poetry caressing your ear drum, and that the 24/7 grocery stores with cheap prices and cranky cashiers aren’t as tacky as they seem. The most important though, is the promise that everything’s bigger and better in Texas. You can’t truly appreciate that statement until you’ve been crammed into a hotel room divided by three people for nine days. Only when the saying “bigger and better” becomes half part slogan, half part mantra, will you know what I mean.