How to travel in France (without a computer)

Your obvious response, it seems to me, should be, "Why would you travel with a computer?"

Well, perhaps you're a person who stores your travel itinerary on your computer, including your flight information from Paris to home. Perhaps you saved the location of the studio apartment where you would be staying in Paris. On your computer. Including the phone number of the people you were renting from. Speaking hypothetically, let's say you're the kind of person who relies on your computer as a storage device for every piece of information you will ever need. And let’s say that you didn't print any of that information out. Or write any of it down. In a situation like that, it might be nice to have your computer with you when you're traveling.

Now let's just say for the sake of argument that you're at the Nice airport on your way to Paris and your computer crashes. And suddenly all of that information -- itinerary, addresses, phone numbers -- gone.

You might be thinking (calmly) to yourself, "I'm going to land in Paris in an hour and a half, and I haven't got a clue where I'm supposed to go, how to get from the airport to the apartment, or even how to get hold of the people who have the keys to the place I'm supposed to sleep at that night, or the next three nights. And I'm in a country where I don't speak more than three words of the language. That's an interesting challenge."

Or you might be thinking (as I was at that particular moment), "HOLY SHIT!"

All I did know, in fact, was that I was about to board a plane from Nice to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, that it was then Friday morning, and that at some point on Monday I was supposed to be back at CDG airport to board a plane for San Francisco. What time was the flight on Monday? More to the point, where was I supposed to stay between the time I arrived in Paris on Friday and the time I was supposed to be back at the airport on Monday? Where was I supposed to stay -- and how was I supposed to get there? All of that information was locked safely inside my laptop. Which was safely dead.

As you know by now, I did survive. I was able to find the people whom I had rented the studio apartment from in Montmartre. I stayed there and had a lovely time in Paris. It was technology that nearly sunk me, but it was technology that saved me.

By a miracle of divine intervention, I had just that week invited my friends Ann and Benny to stay with me. They live in Ireland, and it's a relatively cheap flight from Shannon to Paris for a weekend away, especially when accommodations are free. Tight, but free. Benny couldn't get away, but Ann took me up on the offer. Because she was coming I had sent her all the information, including the location and phone number for the people whom I had rented the apartment from. More fortunate, I had a cell phone and I had Ann and Benny’s number programmed in it. So I called Ann. Ann dictated. I wrote. And then I called the Marlys and Michael, the owners of the studio. They turned out to be very nice people, btw. Between Ann's directions and theirs, I found my way to Montmartre from CDG airport (with a short detour to Stassburg, but that's a story for another day).

With cell phone in hand, I was also able to call back to the States, talk to one of my colleagues, get the number for AmEx Travel, and talk to a travel agent who gave me my flight itinerary.

There's a lesson in here, though to be honest I can't quite put my finger on it. It would be easy to say that relying too heavily on technology leaves you vulnerable when the technology you rely upon fails. But in the end, it was also technology that saved me. Were it not for cell phones and e-mail, I would never have been able to track down the information I hadn't bothered to print or memorize.

And here's an amusing little twist on that whole topic. I got the phone number for my company's IT department (help desk) by calling another one of my colleagues. I called IT to explain that I was in France, that my laptop had crashed, and that I was not able to boot it up. Could they help me? Yes, they could. All I had to do was go online and fill out a help desk ticket.