First they were tears of sadness and then they were tears of joy.
It was my first time to travel to Europe. I went with a friend I have known for a long time and had not seen in a long time. We were both 40 years old, single and finally had jobs that allowed for us to travel internationally. She makes twice as much money as I do but that really doesn’t matter.
We started our travels in Amsterdam. We only stayed for a night since that is where we landed. Our plans were to see France for a week followed by a week in Italy.
After one crazy night in Amsterdam, we took a high speed train in the morning to Paris.
The train was a 3 1/2 hour ride. My friend is the one who wanted to go to France so I let her plan our week there. I would have done anything and if there was something I really wanted to do, we put it on the list. The same for her. I wanted to go to Italy so I planned all of our Italy adventures.
One of our days in Paris was a rainy day which made it the perfect day to check out some museums. In addition to the Louvre, we would go to the Musee d’Orsay.
We started our museum day when the Louvre opened. We knew it would be busy.
If you have not been, this museum is the largest museum in the world. We were making our way through the museum when at some point it was time to use the restroom. As we continued on, a piece of art caught my eye therefore I reached for my cell phone to take a picture and couldn’t find it anywhere. As the reality of the situation descended upon me, I raced back to the last place I knew I had it. It had only been an hour since we arrived and yet the museum was filling up quickly. Tears started to fall down my face as I moved through a sea of people going the opposite direction saying ” excuse me please, pardon me”. I made it to the ottoman where I last had my phone and sat down for a full on cry since my cell phone was no where to be found. Suddenly my friend, whom you would think would have been supportive, is giving me a hard time for crying in public and is accusing me of not being able to control my emotions. This makes the stressful situation worse. We start to get into a bit. How dare she criticize me?! It makes no difference to me what other people think. I am not afraid to show emotion in front of others. I did not involve other people in my situation. We just got to Europe. We aren’t traveling home together. How am I going to get another cell phone right away > set up in the way I needed? Besides, all the photos and contacts gone-
This woman working at the Louvre, in the Red Room, we were sitting/arguing in- approached us. She only spoke French. I only speak English and some Spanish. Our conversation was non verbal and you could tell she was telling me not to cry and not to worry. She pointed to a sign in the room that provided the room number. Somehow managed to communicate that I needed to go downstairs to “information”. I stopped crying, went downstairs, and found the place she was talking about. Stood in line for a few minutes and then told the person that I lost my cell phone in Room #. They walked away and came back with my phone!!
I couldn’t believe it. I told my friend we had to go back and find that lady so I could thank her. No words were needed when she saw me approaching with a large smile on my face and my arms open wide to embrace her with thanks. As we hugged, tears of joy rolled down my face.
Can you believe it? I lost my cell phone at the Louvre and got it back.
Julie-Noted 