As a new tourist to Paris, Cassie had been looking forward to seeing popular sites like the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre and the Arc de Triomphe…
...until she met a panhandler who placed an ancient gypsy curse on her.
What most Paris tourist material won’t tell you is that the city is a mecca for panhandlers, especially near popular tourist sites. Unfortunately, Cassie found this out the hard way when she was approached for change by an old woman near the Eiffel Tower. Having just arrived in Europe, she didn't have a single Euro to give to the woman. Outraged, the woman called to her friends, who quickly surrounded Cassie and proceeded to place the "evil gypsy eye" on her, which involved plenty of spitting, hissing and cursing. Needless to say, Cassie made a hasty exit.
She thought nothing of the gypsy curse until later that night, when her mother ended up spraining her ankle by falling down a flight of stairs. After getting her ankle checked out at the hospital, Cassie and her mother then returned to their hotel room, where they had discovered that a 100-euro meal had been brought up for them by... read more >>
Paris Travel Stories
It was my first week as an exchange student. I was sixteen years old and in Paris with my best friend Jim. We would leave our host house, take the subway into the heart of the city, wander around Paris for the day, then take a bus to meet up with our exchange group. It worked perfectly the first day we tried it. We met up with Mr. Reily and the rest of the exchange students at the D'Orsay museum.
The second day we were not so lucky. We underestimated the ability of Parisians to pull a fast one on unsuspecting American youth. We were supposed to meet our exchange group at the Arc de Triomphe. Around two o’clock we started asking French citizens how to get to the monument. Our French skills were lacking, but many of the French spoke English, and we were soon on a bus on our way to the Arc. Following our guide’s instruction we got off the at a park on the edge of the Seine River.
We made our way to the center of the park where there was a twenty-foot arch in the middle of a fountain. An hour went by, it was... read more >>