Afterward, we did some personal shopping, what little our backpack space would allow. At La Plume du Marais, a stationary and gift shop, I bought a beautiful Christian Lacroix notebook that I’ve subsequently treated as too good for the likes of me to use, and at Le BHV Marais,  Jason bought a scarf with accents of metallic thread and scattered sequins. 

 

While I didn’t experience Paris Syndrome, this trip did wreak havoc on my body. I generally don’t deal well with drastic time change, at least at first. There’ll be a couple days at the start of a trip where my stomach is feeling tender, and nausea will color my first few meals. This trip was on a whole new level. From Winter Wonderland onwards, my guts were in disarray. I was so sick in the sole occupancy restroom in what is basically the middle of the dining room at Imagine that I hoped that I would just die in there so I wouldn’t accidentally make eye contact with anyone after emerging from its paper thin walls. After the terrible pizza in Montmarte, I got worse, shuddering in a restroom an average of once an hour.  At night, there was very little time for sleeping with all of the sweating and cramping I was doing. The reason I first selected the toilet row on the train to Chantilly was because I was afraid I’d need to use it, and this was after having to pay to use the restroom in Gare du Nord. In Paris, I watched a man pull down his pants and defecate in front of a statue, and near Les Halles, I was afraid I’d have no choice but to do the same thing because three quarters of the public toilets were broken. That’s basically all I did while Jason was off enjoying sushi–desperately look for a toilet. I was thirsty and tired and wrung out and fed up. And then we arrived at the Louvre.

 

The Louvre: originally a fortress, then a palace of the Kings of France, it’s the art museum that even non-museum enthusiasts know about. I knew it would take at least a full day to see properly, and though we did not have that kind of time to dedicate, we found ourselves with a free afternoon and decided a few hours would be better than nothing at all. 

 

There are signs all around the Louvre warning tourists not to purchase anything from street vendors around the site, particularly tickets, as official tickets are only sold inside the museum itself. So of course when we were approached by someone asking if we needed tickets, Jason responded in the affirmative and that is when I grabbed him by the elbow and marched him away. I’m glad his sushi wasn’t followed by a timeshare presentation or we would definitely own a week a year in a horrible condo that never has a free week available. 

 

Inside the museum, the noise was deafening, on a Wednesday, in the off season. I cannot even fathom the volume during peak season, honestly, and I used to sell guitar amplifiers for a living. My enthusiasm was draining rapidly, but instead of listening to my gut and getting out, I bought the tickets and went in deeper.  I didn’t find the going any easier inside: it was just so loud and so hot and and after watching someone attempt to climb onto a plinth to take a selfie with a statue rendered me temporarily blind with anger, I waited in the twenty person line for the restroom and discovered that I also got my period. Not just got it, it was like it was exploding out of me. And I can’t remember precisely anymore whether they didn’t have any kind of dispenser or whether it was broken or whether it ate my money because frustration has swallowed the details but I know that by the time I left that bathroom I was just done. I was so done, I couldn’t be in the museum anymore. I was so done, I started yelling at Jason on the street when he suggested that I look on the bright side.  I was so dehydrated from all of the various fluids that were shooting out of my holes that I was practically mummifying in front of him, and he thought I could find a bright side? No. NO. I AM MELLZAH, ENDER OF WORLDS!