c'est la vie

We are not sure how to sugarcoat this one, so we will have to come out and say it straight:  Paris sucked.  Oh, of course, it was not Paris’ fault.  Paris was as beautiful as ever with its sandy-white stone buildings, all aligned in medium height, their windows adorned with tidy shutters, fancy wrought iron guards and neat flower boxes full of red and pink flowers.

The simple problem was that I could not walk, and Paris is one huge sprawling city with museums, landmarks, restaurants, cafes and other points of interest spread out across twenty arrondissements (or administrative districts) around the river Seine.  Without two good legs, I stood no chance.

We arrived in Paris three nights behind schedule, thanks to my spectacular bicycle accident in Amsterdam.  When the day came for us to travel from Amsterdam to Paris, Aman asked me whether I could withstand the move to a new city given the circumstances.  There’s only one way to find out, I told him, and with that, we packed our bags and left as scheduled on an early morning train.  My knee injury was only four days old at that point, and the train ride was, let’s say, not the most comfortable.  In fact, towards the end of the journey, I politely asked Aman if he would not mind stretching his legs for five minutes and, when he kindly obliged, I commandeered his seat as a prop for my injured leg.

Physically getting out of the train station was no small task either.  With one medium-sized bag on my back and Aman carrying the bulk of our gear, we slowly, slowly – with several breaks so that I could rest along the way – made it down the platform and out of the station where, with no qualms whatsoever, we skipped to the head of the ridiculously long taxi queue, perhaps the only upside of being on crutches that day. 

We planned to spend our first two nights in town at the Westin – Place Vendome, because we had trouble finding a decent apartment in Paris through www.airbnb.com (note that Paris might be the one European city where it costs as much to rent a decent apartment as it does to stay in a hotel) and we had some extra Starwood points to burn.  I frankly could not do much in those first two days – the highlights (i.e., the only two times I left the hotel premises) included a trip to a nearby pub to watch the daily UEFA football matches, and a trip to a nearby café for dinner.  Both places were within a block or so of the hotel, and yet it took me at least twenty minutes to reach our destination on each occasion with the help of my walking sticks. 

Here I am in action:

Instead of exploring the city together, I mostly stayed in and rested while Aman made short solo missions to see and photograph some of the beautiful sights that make Paris so famous. 

Place Vendôme:

The Arc de Triomphe and Avenue des Champs-Élysées:   

The Louvre at Night:

After two nights at the Westin, we checked out and moved into an apartment that we had found for a few nights on Avenue de Breteuil in the 7th arrondissement.  A classic one-bedroom Parisian apartment, it had a large sitting room with full-length balcony door windows, which opened up right above the treetops of the wide-set avenue below.  With such a lovely view, it was hard not to enjoy this cozy apartment infinitely more than our tiny, overpriced hotel room at the Westin. 

From our new apartment, I tried occasionally to venture out, but ran again into the same problem – my leg was still in a tremendous amount of pain, and I could not walk very far or very fast on my walking sticks.  Naturally, Aman continued to brighten my days with pictures from his solo exploration missions.

The Eiffel Tower:

The Panthéon:

He would sometimes return from these missions and tell me how everything he saw reminded him of me, do not ask me why.

After two days in our new place, it was time for my one-week medical check-up.  Aman and I were both looking forward to it, in a strange way, because we needed a fuller understanding of what exactly was going on with my leg – the doctors in Amsterdam had only done x-rays, which, while helpful in identifying broken bones, can only show you so much with a complex joint such as your knee.  We grabbed a taxi early that morning and took off for the American Hospital of Paris.  Diagnosis after an MRI:  a torn medial ligament, a partially ruptured ACL, as well as the avulsion fracture and multiple contusions to the tibia.  The orthopedic surgeon told me it would be at least six to eight weeks on crutches.  Great.  As if that was not enough, a Doppler exam also revealed that I had developed a small blood clot in my left calf.  My leg was officially a proper mess.  Having consulted numerous doctors and various specialists, we left the hospital eight hours after we had arrived, completely exhausted, with prescriptions for a special knee brace and coagulants (to dissolve the blood clot).

As one might suspect, the next couple of days consisted of many serious discussions between Aman and me about the fate of the rest of our trip.  On the one hand, it was great (to say the least) that I had not completely ruptured my ACL, which would have meant game over, mandatory surgery.  On the other hand, I was unable to walk, cooped up, and unable to enjoy everything that we were supposed to be doing together.  Do we call it off?  Do we go home?  Is it stupid to carry on with such a serious injury in hopes that it heals with time?  What if it doesn’t?  In short, it was a very dark time for Team Nomad.

As we pondered our predicament, the next week involved more running (in my case, hopping) about… from a specialty orthopedics office to get fitted for my knee brace, to pharmacy after pharmacy for various prescriptions, to the hospital again for a five-hour visit regarding the condition of my blood clot and reaction to being on coagulants…  oh, did we mention that Paris sucked?

Aman, patiently watching the local news as we waited for some results from a blood test (and, no, he does not understand French...):

Me, after my second and last trip to the hospital, sporting my new top-of-the-line knee brace:

We tried our best to make the most of it.  For one, there was an awesome street market set up twice a week, not more than fifty meters from the doorstep of our apartment on Avenue de Breteuil.  It could not have been more conveniently located, and gave me a manageable way of getting some fresh air and leisurely exercise, as well as some food for snacks and cooking.

Also, I let Aman convince me that we should visit the world’s most visited museum, the Louvre, before leaving Paris.  Make no mistake; I had my reservations about this idea.  Having been there several years ago, I knew the Louvre is massive; it is one of the world’s largest museums.  But, Aman had checked the museum’s website and confirmed that wheelchairs were available for those who may have difficulty getting around the museum.  I cannot say I was too thrilled about this idea either…  But, after being more or less confined in an apartment for a week, I was desperate to get out.  So, I relented. 

Walking up to the main entrance at the pyramid, we got plenty of curious looks, mostly from little children who, I am pretty sure, thought that my impressive-looking knee brace might have been drilled on and permanently attached to my leg.  But, as soon as the security guard saw us approaching, I received nothing but VIP treatment.  Did you know that the Louvre has a special museum floor plan for handicapped visitors to show where all of the museum’s elevators are located?  (The elevators are not marked on the regular museum floor plans, to keep them from getting overcrowded with people who can alternatively use the stairs.)  We were actually quite impressed with how well the museum tries to accommodate those who have difficulty moving about.

Aman, enjoying our big day out:

Me, less so:

So, for all of the obvious reasons, we will not remember Paris as the greatest highlight of our trip.  Too much time hanging out with doctors, not enough time exploring the streets, and – worst of all – we were falling seriously behind schedule:  although we initially only had planned to spend five nights there, we spent a total of ten in Paris because of follow-up medical appointments. 

At the same time, Aman and I did our best to look at the bright side of things.  For instance, what if something like this had happened elsewhere in a place where modern medicine was not so readily available?  What if I had gotten hurt in some remote place where the doctors did not understand English?  Though we will be more than happy to never see the inside of its walls again, we were incredibly grateful for the solid medical care that I got while at the American Hospital of Paris.  Keeping afloat with the hope that time and some Mediterranean sun would heal my leg, we decided to leave Paris, move on to Italy (as originally intended) and see what happened.