Some adventures begin with a cancelled train. Others begin with a first-class upgrade.
When the email arrived telling me my Paris trip had been cancelled due to strikes, I was devastated. When the rescheduled ticket turned out to be first class, well. I felt extremely fancy. 🐾
Five hours of tip-tapping keyboards and cups of tea later, we pulled into Gare de Lyon. The air was cool and crisp, the sky an impossible Parisian blue, and I — Zuma — strode out onto the platform like I owned the city.
"Hold on, Zuma!" my human called from somewhere behind me.
I did not hold on.
The plan was simple: follow the river with it to our left, walk three kilometres, and find the Louvre, a grand old palace with glass pyramids in the courtyard. Easy.
Except. I got distracted. The smells! The people! The warm drift of fresh croissants from a bakery doorway! My brain went full puppy and my paws went full gallop, crossing roads, crossing bridges, always keeping the river to my left, until my tongue was lolling and my lead went slack.
I looked behind me.
No human.
Am I lost... in Paris? 😶
I sat very still for a moment, feeling very small in a very large city. The clouds were gathering. The afternoon was cooling. And I, Zuma the Dog, had to think.
What did she say? Follow the river. Keep it to the left. Do not cross it.
Oh no.
I had crossed the river. And then kept following it to the left. I had been walking in entirely the wrong direction.
There was only one thing to do. I tied my lead around my middle so I wouldn't trip on it, took a deep breath, and told myself firmly: "I am not lost. I have simply found a new way." 🌿
I retraced my paw steps. Crossed back over the bridge. Followed the Seine, the Seine, I later learned it was called; I shudder to think what would have happened if I'd fallen in and been, quite literally, in Seine, with the river now to my left, nose high, searching for anything familiar.
Then a flyer blew across my path. Two glass pyramids. The Louvre Museum.
I grabbed it in my mouth and ran to the nearest street vendor, a sweet lady selling art and postcards from one of those green boxes that perch so precariously on the riverbank wall. I placed the soggy flyer at her feet, pushed it with my nose, and made my most polite and urgent noise.
She looked down. She looked at the flyer. She pointed down the road.
Right at the big fancy building.
I galloped.
The Louvre appeared within seconds, enormous, ornate, sculptures clinging to its walls like they were holding on for dear life. I padded through the archway into the courtyard, and the sun broke through the clouds at exactly that moment, pouring through the glass pyramids in rivers of gold and light.
I stopped. I stared. I forgot entirely that I was supposed to be finding my human.
This is what the world holds, when you slow down enough to look. Ancient beauty. Light through glass. The feeling that you are standing inside a story that began long before you arrived and will continue long after you leave.
And then, through the golden haze —
"Zuma!"
There she was. Distraught, then relieved, then laughing, then crying, then scooping me up and rubbing my ears while I nuzzled in to say sorry.
The rest of Paris was wonderful. The Eiffel Tower. Beautiful parks. Buskers playing in the evening air. Food that was, I can confirm, entirely dog-friendly.
It wasn't the Paris my human remembered. It was better. Because this time, she saw it through my eyes.
Note to self: listen to your family. They usually know the way.
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