I didn’t initially love Paris. There, I said it. As wildly unpopular as this opinion is likely to be, it’s the honest truth. In all fairness to the City of Light, my experiences in the first few days were hampered by enormous jet lag (seriously felt like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man) and a severe case of culture shock. Oddly enough, the culture shock wasn’t so much the foreign location, as it was the lightning fast pace of a big city. We love the energy that cities hold, but in the last year have become accustomed to a slower, quieter lifestyle.

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Paris is about as fast paced as they come. Add to that a labyrinth of streets intersecting, splitting, changing names and courses and our directionally challenged selves (even though Tom won’t admit this😉) and you get two confused visitors. Simple daily tasks that we took for granted had to be re-learned. Here are a few of our blunders during a week in Paris.

Mishaps and Mistakes in Paris

1. Missed a train because we didn’t open the train door. Unlike Portland or airport train doors that have magically parted, some of the older Paris trains must be opened manually. This was one of our ultimate face palm moments!
2. Didn’t know how to correctly buy apples. We found out that we’re supposed to weigh and tag our produce before getting to the check-out counter. This might’ve just been a quirk of that grocery store though because we haven’t encountered it again.
3. Bought expired bread from the grocery store. Lesson learned. We only buy bread from bakeries now.
4. Couldn’t purchase train tickets to a specific location because we misread an I for an L. We bought general tickets instead and once we saw the street sign, realized our error.
5. Discovered that it’s a bad idea to bring Camembert cheese for a picnic lunch if you’re going to be indoors beforehand. Sorry lady sitting next to Tom on the bench at the Louvre. We promise that smell was just our cheese…or was it?
6. Spent an hour wandering around one transit center looking for our bus station. During that time we held up our phones to every single sign in the area to translate it. Now we try to check-out the stations before our departure day so we know exactly where to go.
7. Learned that we need to know the final destination of our bus/train, not just our stop (which is the only thing printed on the ticket). Many display boards will only show the final destination.

What We Learned in Paris

While our mistakes in Paris are rather embarrassing, they’re trivial and we laughed our way through most of them. After a bumbling few days, we did start to get our bearings and learn how some things work. We also became used to the feeling of embarrassment and realized it’s good to be reminded of all there is to learn in life. Once we accepted that it’s okay to not know what the hell we’re doing (as long as we’re trying to learn), we enjoyed ourselves much more.

After all, isn’t travel about learning new things? And boy, we’ve never been aware before of just how much we don’t know. Even things we took for granted (like how to open a freakin’ door) ended up being wrong. This trip has already taught us quite a big lesson—travel humbles you.

I’m not sure I’ll ever say that Paris is my favorite city, but in the end it grew on me. All the organized chaos exudes an electricity that’s infectious and exhilarating. The convergence of history and our technologically driven modern world is visible pretty much everywhere. As are the stories of so many fascinating artists, architects, and revolutionaries that left their mark on the City of Light. I hope to visit again someday as I’m sure Paris will have even more lessons to teach me.

Have you ever made mistakes while traveling? Or had any funny mix-ups? We’d love to hear your stories, so let us know in the comments.

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