Victory Road: My First Solo Trip: Part 1
The Globe Junkie
âEllo sir, would you please sign this petition to support the deaf?â
âOh uh sure. I can sign.â I said awkwardly.
âOkay thank you so much sir, sign here your name and country you come from right here.â
âOkay no problem.â I got to signing, Kai, USA. All good and I handed the clipboard back to her.
âThank you sir. And can you make a donation today?â
âUh lemme see.â I dug through my pockets and little pouch, realizing I hadnât yet taken any euros out since I arrived. âIâm sorry no, I donât have any money on me.â
âWhat!?â Her face suddenly contorted into this foul grimace. âNo money!? But no sir, you sign your name here that means you must pay. If you donât pay police will come for you!â
âWhat?â I gasped.
âPolice will come! I will call the police, you no sign!â
âMan fuck the police! You think I give a shit!? I run these streets! Got them 7th arrondissements shooters on standby you really wanna fuck with me? Iâll let that thing spray like blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub (frog noises)â
This one is actually France but still not actually Paris
âOh no sir, please donât let it spray? I am so sorry I didnât mean to offend your divine sexiness!â
âYeah now scram, run along, and leave me here to count this money. HAHA!â
âScammer Out!!â She cried as she ran away, never to be heard from again.
Okay so those last few lines didnât exactly go like that haha. That wasnât me who challenged her police claim, that was the Wackyliltyke, my alter ego. Who is he you ask? Basically heâs my revisionist history avatar, the traveler I wish I could have been in hindsight, a legendary character whose savagery know no bounds. Youâll see more of him later. Anyways, in actuality the story is true up until this woman threatened to call the police on me to which, in reality, I responded with:
âUh okay.â I started to walk off, less in a badass way and more so just in a confused manner as I was unaware what was going on. As I walked off, she kept yapping about something but I just tried to tune it all out. An elderly gentleman turned to me as I walked and merely said âBe carefulâ throw a thick French accent.
Your reality belongs to you
Despite me nonchalantly evading this incident, it did weigh on me as I finally took a break from walking in Le Parc du Champs de Mars, feeling uncomfortable with my present location and situation. As I sat on a bench in the long green fields of the park I couldnât feel anything positive. I was tormented by loneliness and the idea that I bit off more than I could chew. It sucks that the Eiffel Tower, looking down on me from above, didnât seem to offer me any sort of peace or allure at that time. It just felt as though this task I had laid out, to travel France alone was going to be insurmountable and that I was a fool for even thinking I had a chance to pull it off. I began the first entry into my travel journal for the trip, one which served as a resource to write this eventually. It brought me a little escape but no general peace.