Angels In the Metro

I've been to a whole lot of great cities around the world, but ask me which city is my favorite and I will answer without hesitation. . .

Paris

Unbelievably amazing, gorgeous, exciting. . .there are no words to describe my love for this city. And for those of you who think all French people are rude, have I got a story for you. . .

It was 2003 and I was on an art history study abroad tour through Europe with Brigham Young University. We finished our incredible two-week stay in Paris and were all packed up and ready to hop on the train to Belgium, our next destination. We had to navigate our way through multiple stops on the Paris Metro (their subway system) to get to the train station, and lots of the metro lines were on strike and not running reliably. So we got up at the crack of dawn, thinking we'd have enough time, only to find ourselves literally running through the metro station, trying to make our train.

The problem for me with running through the metro station?

My suitcase.

My giant, mammoth, behemoth of a suitcase, dubbed "The Titanic" by the other members of my group. It was holding me back big time.

In the middle of our mad dash between metro stops, we came to a massive flight of stairs. As I struggled with my suitcase, I soon came to realize that my group was gone. Nowhere to be found. Nobody had noticed that "The Titanic" and I had fallen behind. I started stressing out, as I pulled that darn suitcase as hard as I could and tried to get it up the stairs. My mind was spinning as I realized I was almost certainly going to get left behind in Paris, and I had no idea what I was going to do.

Right at that point, two Parisian natives were walking by on the level above me and noticed me struggling my way up the staircase. They stopped, came down the stairs to me and helped me get my suitcase and backpack and other bags up the stairs. I told them my group had left me behind and I was trying to get the train station, and these two kind people (a man and a woman, who didn't even know each other!) walked with me to my next stop and gave me detailed instructions about which metro trains I needed to take to reach the train station. I felt such relief and such immense gratitude towards them. I couldn't believe that they had even noticed my plight in the first place, and then gone so far out of their way to help me. I hope that I would do the same for someone else.

I will certainly never forget that act of kindness from the two French strangers who I will never see again. I wish I could let them know how much that meant to me. I ended up getting on the train. . . barely, by the skin of my teeth! Without their help, I would have been stranded alone in Paris.

Should I write more of my travel experiences on my blog? I realize I hardly ever post about them, and I'm wondering if people are interested in reading about them. I've been having a down kind of day, and I really wanted to write this story about my two "angels in the Metro" to uplift myself and anyone else who is reading this post.