Getting lost is a given with travel. You can never really know a city until you have gotten hopelessly lost there.

Depending on how adept you are with things like “directions” and “maps,” your formula for reaching that magical place where your number of times lost translates into having an actual sense of your city may vary.

When you don’t know the language that number gets a lot higher. When I first arrived I thought I could game the system. I had A WHOLE DAY of solo travel before orientation mayhem began. Certainly I could just go get myself nice and lost for a day and then all would be resolved on that front, right?

My day of “getting lost” was a joke. I essentially took the Metro to a stop along the 8 — the line I take to get to school — and mostly followed the 8 back to school. Not only did I try to short-change the equation, I also failed to do any actual “getting lost.”

Naturally, Paris has found a several occasions to mock me for this. She’s got a lovely sense of humor, that Paris…

On Saturday I decided I was long overdue for a run. After being a near-daily gym-goer in the States, the lack of proper cardio (endless Parisian stairs notwithstanding) has been taking its toll. Are you aware of how much butter is in pretty much everything here? And the bread? It’s so delicious! And so cheap! My ass can’t sustain this regimen. (And let’s not get started on my unhealthy relationship with Trésor…)

Having done with business like “getting lost” I decided that I would have no need of my cell phone, Metro card, or money. (Cue laugh track.)

See that delightful green space? I saw the map and said, in the great words of Liz Lemon, “I want to go to there.”

I, unfortunately, am largely devoid of an internal compass, and Paris doesn’t seem fond of unobscured sunlight. What I needed to do, as you can see, is walk just-a-smidge to the north, but basically just head west. What I actually did was head north, with occasional westward movement, such that 45 minutes later I arrived at the north east corner of this park.

By way of stopping at bus stop maps every 4.2 seconds, I eventually made it to the park. I had my lovely little run and enjoyed all the trees and blah blah blah nature is super pretty. I like cities and I came here to get away from all that rural nature crap so within an hour I was ready to wash my hands of the nature business.

I left the park about a few blocks north-west of where I entered it. This was not on purpose, mind you, but that’s how it happened. I found myself another swell little bus station map, but I was now exhausted and being at the northern edge of the park, I realized that my complete failure to understand my surroundings could soon go horribly wrong.

In D.C., getting lost 101 amounted to this: my school was a hop, skip, and a leap away from the Washington Monument. Unless you have gotten yourself stupid levels of lost, you should always be able to see the monument, or, at the very least, the capitol. Go there, and be un-lost.

I had assumed that the Eiffel Tower worked about the same way here. This is because I live in the 16th and go to school in the 7th and now we are deviating back into details that put our ADD generation to sleep. My apologies. The point: it doesn’t work that way because Paris is one hell of a lot bigger.

Fortunately for me, after a good bit of wandering I did finally catch a glimpse of the illustrious beacon of self-placement. Having recently seen one of these amazing bus stop maps (No, seriously, they are my lifeline.) I had a good idea of where I was vis-a-vis that famous quirky monument.

Unfortunately, it was only a matter of time before the street I was traveling would end and I would be forced to make another mind-blowing series of decisions, culminating in a conversation of gestures in which I pointed at where we were, acknowledged the street that we were on, and demonstrated my amazing French language skills with, “J’habite ici,” and pointed in either direction with a giant shrug.

Yes, my friends, I am doing delighful things for Franco-American relations here, let me tell you. Fortunately, this exchange got the message across and I was pointed in the right direction. After two hours of wandering, I found my way home.

Let’s review the math here: 45ish minutes of actual running/jogging. Three hours of aimless wandering.

And for a more important math review, let’s look at the score board I am now going to keep:
Paris: 6. Nicole: 1.

(I didn’t just make up that score. There are stories behind the numbers. Realistically speaking, I probably cheated Paris out of a few points, because counting my defeats is exhuasting.)