Terrible Terrible Paris.....

This is a picture I took on a trip to Paris a few years back. I ended up going on this particular trip with two girls. Someone I didn't know so well, and someone I worked with and knew pretty good. In my mind the trip was going to turn out like this picture did, amazing, full of energy, light and possibility. And you can't see all of Paris in 8 days, right? In my case I saw very little... it was 20 degrees on warm days and the company I chose to go on the trip was let's just say "unsavory". One of the girls decided to revisit her past and delve back into being a heroin junkie while we were on this trip. Now you can understand what I mean when I say "unsavory" right? I was a mother who had saved up for this  8 day"trip of a lifetime" who somehow finds herself on this suicidal journey with a girl who has recently broken up with her boyfriend (or maybe the opposite?) and now thinks that somehow it would be "romantic" like in a novel that she read, to OD in a Parisian hotel.  I had absolutely no idea that this idiot of a girl would ruin my trip , nor did I have any idea that my other friend would be on the other side of town (in another errondissimonte Sp?) living it up with a friend we were all supposed to be meeting who would have been our Parisian guide. So left to my devices I stayed close to home and went to the local shops and cafes alone... while the junkie slept. We were on opposite schedules for a few days after I had confronted her, me going out to explore a little here and there during the day to see Notre Dame and places close by, then coming back to the two tiny twin bed room to share with suicide girl. At night I would pop a Tylenol PM so I could get some sleep and that was when she would bathe for sometimes up to 3 hours, I would imagine her falling asleep in the bathtub ( kind of hopefully) but then I also thought about the possibilities of if something did really happen to her. Would they arrest me? Would the police take me into questioning and strip search me? What would happen? So I freaked out! I HAD TO GO HOME NOW! I tried to call home downstairs in the hotel lobby phone booth, which was a feat in itself to get into and to use. Once I closed the tiny doors to call my husband I pulled out my calling card  the whole time frantically sobbing after entering in all of the 500 plus numbers you have to enter just to get an operator whenever someone would get on the line I couldn't understand them! DAMMIT! I wanted to slam the phone again and again against the window! Sobbing I exited the phone booth and stood there in the empty lobby. The front desk man look at me and could see that I was at my wits end, he walked over and gently put his hand on my shoulder and said "Madame I can help you", THANK GOD! There really are nice people in Paris no matter what anyone says! He helped me call home so that I could cry on the 3 minute phone call to my husband and quickly explain the goings on, only to have him tell me to stay and try and enjoy myself. Which at this point was a lost cause, but I tried. First I switched rooms then I decided I was going to see a museum and the Eiffel Tower. The museum was the day before my trip home and it was great!  Lot's of abstract and modern art, stuff I had never seen before! And The Eiffel Tower I got to see in a cab at night lit up in all it's glory on the way back to my hotel, it was spectacular! It was actually way too cold to even get out of the cab, like I said it was around 20 degrees and let's face it, I am a San Diegan if it's 70 I am cold.  I would like to visit Paris again some day with  with my husband, I guess these things that happen to us make us learn about people and about life. I know for damn sure I won't ever sign up to go to Paris with a Junkie again....LOL!