You say sure, but you can't leave for another day or two. You have a story due.

"Mind if I stay with you until then?" she asks. "No problem," you say wondering how the two of you will manage in your tiny studio apartment. Dale, because she has lived in Paris for eight months, knows precisely what you are going through. She has generously helped you this first week to negotiate Paris so that routine tasks no longer gobble up whole days. You owe her.

But that night you toss and turn, unable to sleep in your double bed in your studio apartment with a same-sex virtual stranger. And you think, "Relax Robin. It's only one night."

You hole up in your apartment the next day to polish off the story. You leave a poetry reading early that night to take the Métro to the Web Bar where a Web techie will help you send photos to your editor in Panama. Hours pass as you email the photos one at a time. You do a final rewrite. Finally you hit the "Send" button and the photos are in Panama and the story in San Francisco.You dial up Terry on your one-dollar-a-minute cell phone and leave a message on her machine begging her to read the story, make corrections, and forward it to your editor in Panama before your deadline -- in five hours.

You pack up your laptop and catch the last Métro train back to your flat at half-past midnight. 

First thing next morning you hoof it to the neighborhood Cyber Cube to check for Email from your editor indicating he received the photos. He did not. Even from Paris a PC will not read photos transmitted from a Mac. So you rush back to your apartment to retrieve your stack of floppy disks with the photos. You return to the Cyber Cube where you crawl under the desk twelve times to insert each floppy disk one at a time. You choose a few keepers, download them, and hit the send button. Then you pray.

In all three travel agencies you visited earlier in the week, you were told that no, they didn't sell train passes. You'll have to go to the behemoth Gare de Nord train station and muddle through it yourself. By the time you arrive at the station it is 10 p.m. Every sign in the station is in French. There's one long queue under a sign that says "Billets International," so you get in line even though you're not sure it's the right one The one English-speaking guy in line knows less about what's going on than you do. After 30 minutes, the line is shorter, by one person. You leave prepared to try again tomorrow. 

Then you go home to bed for the third time with a woman you've just met, and you're not gay, and you lay awake most of the night wondering if you will ever get out of Paris.

You ride the Métro once again to the train station the next morning and wait in line. You tell the clerk you need information about train passes. She says something in French and points to another line. You move to that line. You reach the front and you are told that you must go to an office at the end of the station to procure train passes. You wait in line again and "voila!" You are finally in the right place. After a lengthy exchange in "franglais," you peel off way too many francs to buy a rail pass and a EuroStar train ticket to London. You leave the station, train tickets in hand, aware that you've just experienced first-hand the number one complaint of expats in Paris -- lack of customer service and the tangle of bureaucracy involved in getting anything done. 

That evening you meet Adrian at Les 7 Lézards to hear American expat Joe play piano with an assorted group of other expat musicians. When you relate your experience to Adrian,she says, "You paid how much? You should've gone to my travel agent on the corner."

The next morning aboard the high speed EuroStar train you shoot across the French countryside and under the English channel (known as the "chunnel"). You emerge in London, England. You've done it. You've escaped Paradise.

"I feel such energy just being here," Dale says as the two of you climb into a lorry outside the train station.

You speak to the cab driver. He responds! He understands! As the day progresses and you find yourself having conversations again, you realize that the ability to communicate gives you back your identity and makes it easier to accomplish everyday tasks.

You vow to join Parler Parlor next week when you return to Paris.

Adrian's web addresses -

Western Web Works
http://www.westernwebworks.net -
WebFrance International 
http://www.wfi.fr/ -
Parler Parlor French/English Conversation Group
http://www.parlerparlor.com -