It was really nice to get to spend some time with my parents in Italy, and sad to see them go at the Venice airport. But when our plane landed in Paris, we traded one set of parents for another–the Stryjewskis were there to meet us.
Paris was the first destination on our trip that I had been to before, albeit for about three days. I was excited to be back. To me, it is a lovely city, every bit as charming and romantic as the stereotypes imply. We were all tired the afternoon we arrived, so we simply got some lunch in a cafe, and I napped while Tommy and his parents caught up. We went to evening mass near the Arc de Triomphe, and it was steadily drizzling when we emerged. We still visited the Arc, and then ducked into another cafe for crepes and hot chocolate. We all went to bed pretty early that night.
The next day, the weather was better, so we did a long walk from our hotel on the Ile de la Cite: past the Louvre, through the Jardin des Tulieries, to the Place de la Concorde, down the Champs d’Elysees, and back to the Arc de Triomphe. From there we took a metro to the Eiffel Tower, and then to Montmartre to see Sacre Coeur and a lovely view of Paris. The weather was spotty, drizzling at times. We had dinner at a nice restaurant in the Latin Quarter, and Tommy and I went afterwards to a great little place called Le 10 Bar, which serves delicious sangria.
The next day, Tuesday, most if not all of the museums in the city were closed. We explored the Latin Quarter and walked to the Pantheon. Tommy and I split off from his parents to visit the Bibliotheque Nationale, where we hoped to locate patents of nobility from his French great great great grandfather, who was knighted by Napoleon. It was difficult figuring out where to go, as the library is huge. There are four immense towers, one at each corner of a raised building with a tree-filled courtyard in its center. Once we were directed to a librarian, she gave us free day passes and sent us to the correct department. A very helpful librarian who spoke only a little English began wading through books with lists of nobles’ names, looking for Antoine Cloutain, the name Tommy had been provided with by his uncle. He wasn’t having much luck until Tommy spotted a book of notable Polish people on a nearby shelf. A quick look located several microfilms about the son of the man we were looking for, Jozef Milleret, who was a physician (Antoine was given the name Milleret when he was knighted, and settled in Lviv, Ukraine). The microfilms were in Polish so we printed them and brought them to Tommy’s parents. There was also a very brief page about his grandfather. It was really exciting to find them, and we’d like to do some more research next time we’re in Paris. I have lots of French relatives as well (although I doubt we were nobility).
We picked up a bunch of food from a grocery store and had a little feast on our balcony with Tommy’s parents. Then Tommy and I took a bottle of champagne and some desserts to the Eiffel Tower and watched the sun set and the lights come on. It was one of the nicest, loveliest moments of the whole trip, I think.
Unfortunately it was not to last. We have failed to mention in past blogs that I had been periodically getting sick, ever since Easter. Every few days I would start feeling achy and almost feverish, and sometimes I would get awful chills. We thought it was a little thing brought on by standing in the cold rain for three hours straight in the line for the Vatican Museums, and then three hours straight for Easter mass the next day. But that night it got much worse, and I woke up with 102° fever.
Now, Tommy and I hoped that our travels might broaden the horizons of some people at home, and convince them that you really can travel to, say, Africa without contracting a tropical disease, getting robbed, or being eaten by a lion. So it was with certain reluctance that we finally accepted that my recurring fever and accompanying symptoms seemed frighteningly like malaria. A mild case, of course, but the kinds of malaria that you can contract after leaving a risk area are not as dangerous as opposed to those that make you sick right away. We had been on prophylaxis, of course, but that’s not completely failsafe. We decided that if I got sick one more time, we would go to a hospital.
So I spent most of the day in bed, until nearly one o’clock, while Tommy’s parents went to the Louvre. I was disappointed not to go, but Tommy reminded me that I had seen it before and promised we would be back someday. I didn’t want to nix all of the things I had hoped to do in Paris, however, so in the afternoon when my fever went down we very slowly made our way to the Musee National d’Histoire Naturelle. I had not visited during my last trip to Paris, and had since read that they had a spectacular exhibit on evolution. It really was something. It wasn’t a small offshoot of an exhibit in a larger museum, as I had pictured, but instead it basically was the entire museum, other than a botanical garden and a hall of geology. I kind of liked the way they presented their entire biological collection in terms of evolution. A huge four-story space contained lots of specimens and really informative exhibits (unfortunately all in French). Despite the language barrier, I was glad we went even though I felt pretty awful.
We returned to the hotel where I promptly collapsed in bed and took a nap. Tommy and his parents went off to get some dinner, and brought it back to the hotel to eat. I ate too, feeling much better, and went to sleep early thinking that enough rest might actually make me better. Then I awoke at 3 am with severe chills and suffered through a long and unpleasant night. When I woke up, I had 103° fever, and knew I needed to go to a hospital. I’m not sure whether I was lucky or unlucky that we were taking the train to London that very morning. I had never felt less like travelling, but it was awfully good timing that I needed medical care the very day we were entering an English-speaking country. It was the first time since South Africa that there would be no language barrier.
So we made it onto the train, and I wish I could report what it was like riding through the chunnel, but I basically fell asleep and didn’t wake up until we came to a halt at King’s Cross station. We took a taxi to the hotel, where I collapsed on a bed again (I was getting very good at that by now) while Tommy made a ridiculous number of phone calls to the American embassy, my health insurance, and our travel insurance in an effort to find out which hospital I should go to. When no one had any specifics, we settled on University College Hospital, which has a Center for Tropical Disease.
We went to the Department of Accidents and Emergencies, and I began to fear I would never be seen. There were at least two bloody fingers and one case of severe abdominal cramps ahead of me. But the idea that I might have malaria seemed to convince the triage nurse to send me straight to a room.
I had several nurses and finally a tropical disease doctor come in, and we must have listed the countries we had visited in Africa twenty times. The doctor ordered a malaria test and a number of other tests, and recommended that I be admitted for the night. Nearly anyone who knows me is aware that needles and hospitals top my list of greatest fears, so I wasn’t exactly keen on the idea of staying. But I had been feeling awful, and the last thing I needed was a persistent illness when we still have over three months of traveling left. So after having blood drawn, I was rolled upstairs to a private room in the infectious disease ward (sounds pleasant, I know).
I was poked and prodded several more times but never saw another doctor (or, oddly enough, anyone who inquired about payment). For a couple of pounds I could have unlimited bedside TV and internet, and that made the stay much more comfortable. Tommy stayed the night on a couch. At 2 am a nurse came to take my vitals and told me the malaria test was negative. I personally took this as bad news, as it meant that we now had no idea what was wrong with me.
The next day a large team of doctors visited (twice), told me I didn’t have any symptoms that gave a decent hint to what I had, and ordered several more tests. I quickly got over my fear of needles after having blood drawn for the sixth time. The doctors also wanted me to stay until Monday (three nights away). So I kissed any hope of seeing London goodbye (exept the London Eye and St. Paul’s, which I could see from my window), and settled in for the long haul. All in all it wasn’t so bad. I had TV and internet, and although the food was pretty bad, Tommy would visit and bring better things for me to eat. I ran fever two of the nights I was there, and then it stopped. They determined I had an infection, and treated me with antibiotics. I was released on Monday feeling a little woozy after four days of bedrest, but otherwise fine. That will teach me to wait three hours for a museum in the rain–even the Vatican Museums aren’t worth four days of hospitalization! They also finally sent someone to my room right before I was discharged, a fellow from the Department for Overseas Visitors who politely explained that, unlike English citizens, I would have to pay for my hospital stay.
Tommy will have to write about what he and his parents did in London without me, but luckily I didn’t miss out entirely. Our travel insurance allowed us to move our flight back a day, giving me roughly 48 hours to sightsee. (Let me take this moment to do a plug for our STA travel insurance–don’t leave home for six months without it!) We went briefly to the Museum of Natural History before meeting Tommy’s parents at the Kensington Gardens Orangery for tea. It was so wonderful–they brought us tea, cucumber sandwiches, scones with jam and clotted cream, and rich lemon cake. I was stuffed. Tommy and I went off on our own to see Picadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square, and spent some time in an internet cafe. We met his parents for dinner at a really great Thai restaurant right by our hotel.
The next morning, when we saw the Stryjewski’s off for their 9 am flight, we were happier than ever that we weren’t leaving on our planned 6 am flight to Morocco. Instead we went back to sleep until checkout time. After storing our luggage (we were moving to a cheaper hostel for our added night), we went out in search of a full English breakfast. We found one and it was delicious. Next we visited the British Library, which has inside of it one of my favorite museums in London. Their collection includes letters written by Newton and Darwin, pages from Leonardo’s notebooks, handwritten manuscripts by people like John Milton, Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, and Oscar Wilde, musical scores sketched out by Beethoven, Chopin, and Handel, and even Beatles lyrics scribbled on napkins and birthday cards.
Next we dropped in on the British Museum, literally just to take a peek at the Rosetta Stone and the Elgian Marbes, knowing we’d never be able to see the whole thing properly. We went to Leicester Square and got some pizza slices for lunch, and sat in the grass behind huge crowds gathered around the Odeon theater for the premiere of Leatherheads; we saw Renee Zellweger signing autographs.
In the evening, we went well out of our way to a pub called the Cock Tavern for a Tuesday night comedy show. It was mostly amateurs, and a lot of jokes flopped, but there were some seriously funny moments. It was late by the time we retrieved our bags and reached our new hostel in Lambeth.
The next day we had the morning to visit the highlights in the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, and Westminster Abbey. Then we had to get our bags and catch a train to Gatwick airport. It was one of our closer calls, but we made it in plenty of time to board our flight to Marrakech, Morocco. I’m feeling fine, and hope to stay that way!