Plucky Survivors See Europe Day 27: Paris

We’re going to start today’s post with a little bit of TMI.  It’s important to the part of the story I want to tell.

In addition to all the other crap that’s wrong with me, I have a pilonidal cyst.  I’m not going to explain what that is but if you want to look it up, have at it.  It’s not a big deal and 99% of the time it doesn’t bother me at all.  When it does flare up, it makes sitting and lying down unpleasant, which if you haven’t looked up what it is should give you a clue.  The thing that often makes it get cranky is when it’s really, really hot and I sweat a lot. 

I think you can see where this is going.

I can usually take care of it at home with warm compresses and various creams, ointments, and potions, but on those rare occasions when it doesn’t resolve, I have to go see my doctor and then he prescribes a course of antibiotics.  That solves things and on with my life I go.

It started bothering me somewhere around Rome and it’s been difficult to find the right combination of European creams, ointments, and potions to do anything about it.

By this morning, I was slipping into miserable territory, so I needed to do something about it.  The question is, what?  Before I left, I made sure my health insurance was valid in all the countries I am visiting.  If I need a doctor or a hospital or whatever, I can show my card and in most instances they will bill it out just like in the US.  I was told that in some cases I may need to pay out of pocket and then submit for reimbursement, but all in all, I was solid.

But this isn’t serious enough to need a hospital or even an urgent care.  I really just needed some antibiotics.

Without explaining exactly what was going on, I talked to the people at the front desk and they told me to go to a nearby pharmacy.  I was convinced that wasn’t going to get me what I needed – I didn’t have a prescription or a doctor’s note or anything – but I went anyway.

I used Google translate to explain to the very nice pharmacist what was going on and five minutes later I had a full course of antibiotics and come creams, lotions, and potions that should take care of it.  It cost me about $25.  No insurance, no prescription, no doctor visit, just a conversation with a friendly and knowledgeable pharmacist and that was that.

I’ve known for a long time that the health care system in America is completely broken, but this experience really brought it home for me. 

By the time I took care of that it was almost lunchtime, so I decided to venture out into the heat to grab a bite and do a few more indoor touristy things.

I took the subway to the Champs Elysses.  I remember walking down it with my mom when I was a teenager.  We stopped at Burger King for lunch.  Le Whopper, si vous plait.

I did some quick Googling and found a Greek restaurant in what is basically a giant department store across the street and headed that way.  It was a very confusing place and I wound up going to the fancy food court in the basement first, before being told that the place I wanted to go was on the second floor.  What that person didn’t tell me is that it was closed. 

Okay, back down to the fancy food court, which had outlets from big foodie names like Alain Ducasse.  Most of them, including Ducasse’s, were more coffee and pastry type places, but there was one place that had lunch type items.

It was closed.

Fine.  I walked out of the store, saw a streetside café called L’Alsace across the way, and went there.

I had another chicken Caesar salad, not because I really wanted it, but because it was one of the few things that didn’t seem like it would leave a giant stone in my stomach.  That seems to be common at restaurants in Europe.  You can either have a salad or an entire side of beef/a giant bowl of pasta/a breaded schnitzel the size of new Jersey/insert whatever other regional food that is way too much for lunch.  There is rarely anything in between unless you go to a grab and go sandwich, donner, or kebab place.

The salad was fine.  The chicken breast was still on the bone, which is weird.  Now I’ve had both pasta and salad with bones in them.  That wasn’t on my gastronomic bingo card.

After lunch I walked a few blocks to the Gallerie Dior, a small museum filled with creations from the legendary designers of the brand.

It was closed.  Well, not exactly closed, but if you hadn’t already bought tickets online, they weren’t letting anyone else in.

Fine, I’ll go to the Versace exhibit at the Musee Maillol, but I’ll buy tickets online first just to make sure.

It was closed.

Fine!!  I looked at some of the smaller offbeat places I wanted to visit and jumped on the nearby subway to go to the La Musee du Fumeur – the Smoking Museum. 

It’s basically a cannabis shop with a couple of rooms in the back with glass cases full of things from the history of smoking – peace pipes, tobacco pipes, lighters, bongs, and much more.  All of the explanatory signs were in French but a combination of the TranslatorGo app, which allows you take a photo and then it’ll translate it for you), and context clues got me through it. 

It was surprisingly fascinating and, even better, it was open.

By then the heat and my general rundown state got to me, so I took an Uber back to the hotel and promptly fell asleep for the vast majority of the afternoon.  God, I love air conditioning.

I woke up and needed food again, so I started doing some research and found an area just across the river called The Latin Quarter.  I’m kind of an idiot and I thought that meant I’d find some really good Latin food there.  Not that kind of Latin.

But my Googling did find a highly rated Cuban restaurant in the area and I love that cuisine so off I went.

The Latin Quarter is another warren of tightly compact streets completely jammed with restaurants, shops, and cafes – very cute.  If it wasn’t so hot – 99 degrees at 7pm – I would’ve explored it more.  But I made my way to the Cuban restaurant and… it was closed.

FINE!!  I decided to wander through the streets anyway and jump into the first place that had an interesting menu and air conditioning.

That’s when I saw it… Rosie’s Authentic Kansas City Style BBQ.  Well, that’s a gauntlet thrown if I’ve ever seen one.

It wasn’t air conditioned but there were fans on the covered outside patio, so it was somewhat tolerable.  I ordered the BBQ chicken with a side of mac and cheese, and it was EXACTLY what you’d expect “Authentic” Kansas City BBQ in Paris to be like.  Sir, I have I had Kansas City BBQ in actual Kansas City and this is not that.

Now, I will admit that chicken is not always the easiest meat in the ‘Q world – it’s easy for it to be too dry – but this was Sahara dry.  The BBQ sauce tasted like they had mixed vinegar and ketchup.  And the mac and cheese was just shy of heresy.  If that dish existed in medieval times and they called what was served mac and cheese, someone would’ve wound up at the business end of a guillotine.

Too add to the weirdness, they were blasting British Invasion punk music through the sound system so at one point I was in Paris eating “Kansas City BBQ,” while listening to “London Calling.” Talk about a culture Clash.

See, what I did there?

I was not too far from the correct end of Pont Neuf to be able to walk through La Caverne, so I strolled that way stopping only to buy some strawberry sorbet to keep me going.  It was perfect.

I got to the bridge and walked through it and it was absolutely incredible, life changing, and something I’ll remember for the rest of my life.

I’m kidding.  It was closed.  According to the young American girl who was working the attraction, they had to call the ambulance for people getting heat stroke about a dozen times early that day, so they shut it down.

There are supposed to be some thunderstorms rolling through over the next few hours and that is going to break the heat.  Tomorrow’s high is forecast to be 89, about 13 degrees cooler than it was today.  Hopefully some things will reopen and I’ll be able to see a little bit more Paris during the day before I head to Moulin Rogue tomorrow night.

Of course that might be closed, too.