Amazing day of birding, exhausting day of returning the rental car.
It was supposed to be so easy:
And so, after paying a few dollars to get out of the garage, and this time choosing to turn right before I had made two turns to end up at a dead end (as in my initial departure from the garage today). This time I made the first turn ✨ correctly ✨ in spite of having negligible Google instruction & having to back up and re-approach to make the initial right turn.
That turn, 30 seconds into my 2 hour adventure, marked the pinnacle of the journey that was to come.
I began my "7 minute" approach to Esso Express. After about 10 turns, I guessed wrong on the 11th, and was re-routed about 10 extra minutes to finally make my way back to the intersection that allowed me to mercifully pull in to the station. There was even an empty pump available, things really looking up!
Having learned that the tap to pay worked less often than inserting card, I dutifully inserted my Citi card into the machine, as I shielded the intensely bright glare from the sun to strain to see what the gas pump card machine was saying to me in French.
La carte est refusée. Well F you too. The Savor card has almost always worked though, and Katy will forgive me, so I insert it into the machine and... la carte est refusée. UGH. This again. Guess that leaves my Chase credit card. That backup has never failed in any of my Central American adventures. La carte est refusée. Srsly?!.?! Ok, great, I'll subject myself to the risk of using my $#@#$ debit card, getting zero rewards to play your silly French game. I continue squinting at the machine in the intense sun. La carte est refusée.
Ok great. Three credit cards, all with $10k+ in available balanced, declined. One debit card declined. Guess that none of these companies have a good relationship with the French gas stations. You know who probably does? The largest company in the world. I got out my Apple Pay, picked each of the same cards in turn. Refusée. Refusée. Refusée.
Well, now what? I guess that human interaction is the only resort. I can ask the attendant, and they'll probably know a trick to get one of the cards working. Perhaps the card companies just want me to sign a physical copy to use the card on a high risk transaction like this? Worst case, I can at least pay with the $200 in euros I took out earlier in this trip, in case of an emergency like this. I waved the car behind me away and walked to the attendant station.
....And realized that, where the attendant station is typically located, there was a bakery instead. How very French of them. Whatever. I'll just wait behind this guy as he orders his baguettes...flirts with the cashier...waits for the cashier to go pick out the perfect bread for him from the back...say, I wonder if this lady is even going to be able to take my money? Maybe that's what the "Express" in this "Express Esso" station was implying to me? That would be incredibly obnoxious. If she could speak English she prob wouldn't be working at a bakery next to gas pumps, so I'll get my translation ready to ask her about how I can pay for this damn gas. After a couple more minutes of flirting, I was finally to the front of the line.
I showed her my translated question. She smiled, took my phone, spoke into it in French, and out came the English: "It is a card-only station." And her cash register had no connection to the pumps. How very French of them.
Still determined not to pay whatever premium Hertz was going to charge for this tank of gas, I shooed away another card that wanted to use the pump, and tried to shield the screen of the card machine enough to take a picture to send to ChatGPT. When all else fails, ask the all-knowing oracle. And the oracle recommends....I talk to a cashier, or use a debit card, or make sure to insert my card instead of using tap to pay. Great ideas, all, I had to admit.
There were no more ideas. I was already pretty exhausted from the nerve-wracking drive just to get to the station, and the rental agency was now scheduled to close in about 30 mis. There was no more time for futzing with gas stations, and there were no other gas stations around even if I did have the energy to futz. Guess we're paying out the nose for gas. Better than paying for gas in the nose I guess?
And thus began the home stretch, the final 5 minutes that Google Maps projected to reach the nearby Hertz. It would only be....checks route...6 more turns in this half km... assuming I guess the right exit to leave the station from:
Of course, it would also be nice to get some super glue to try to fix the key. So, after making the first five turns correctly 🧠🧠🧠 I made a quick pit stop to check nearby convenience stores and see if I could find some glue in the 5-10 mins before I needed to complete the last half mile of my trip to Hertz, before it closed. I investigated paying for parking, but I was going to have to enter 10 digit license plate for the car, and I didn't have it in me. Instead, I looked for parking cops, saw none, and made a dash for the Western Union Convenience Store (nope), the Carrefour Express (10 minute line), 2 pharmacies, and a partridge in a pear tree (or an Asian convenience market). With each additional stop, my right leg began throbbing worse and worse. Guess that this injury has a mental component that accompanies the physical one. I wanted to jog between these 6 stores to minimize the odds I was going to return to a parking ticket, but the pain was such that it I sort of gallop-walked. 10 minutes later, I had successfully....concluded that no shop in gallop-walking distance carried glue or super glue. Guess we'll be crossing our fingers they don't charge us $200 for a new key fob. I jumped back in the car to finish the last half km.
All that was left was one right turn, a weird white arrow in Maps, and I was home free.
So I took one right turn, and then I approached the intersection that seemed to be demarcated with the white arrow in Google Maps. Um, what the hell one of these four-armed starfish roads is correct?
Or was it that the "left fork Pl. de Strasberg," that immediately preceded those 4 roads might have been the right one? 😵💫
Well, first try I guessed door #1, and got stuck wedged into what started becoming a ped/bike only path. After turning on my hazards, waiting a few mins for every car to glare at me, waiting another minute for peds to stop walking behind the car, I backed out of door #1 and tried door #4 instead. Also wrong. 10 minute reroute to return to the octopus intersection.
I picked the wrong one again. And again, each time getting slightly better at finding new routes that could return me to the octopus intersection in less than 10 minutes of narrow streets, displacing the periodic "mother with baby stroller" up onto the sidewalk, with commensurate glare as I passed. These babies were doomed to live long enough to one day navigate these ant maze streets themselves.
After my 5th or so try seeing hide nor hare of a Hertz, I parked, turned on the hazards, and considered my options.
Google was convinced that a Hertz location existed at the locus of this area I had been buzzing round and round for what was now nearly all of the precious minutes before the store was set to close. Somewhere -- maybe just in our hearts, it seemed -- there was a Hertz around here. Maybe the train station on the next block? It's not impossible that the invisible Hertz might be in a mall of sorts within the station?
So I gallop-walked up a couple flights of stairs, through a very long train station, and ... bingo. A Hertz logo. I had unlocked the next clue in my rental car escape room hell.
The front desk guy spoke English (!), and said it was "no problem" to drop off the car at this location instead of the airport. All I needed to do was to park the car in the garage <gestures toward area where buses are parked>, on level -1, and return with the key. But since they closed in a few minutes, he might well be gone. But in that case, I could just leave the key in the drop box.
So I returned to the car, opened Google Maps back up, and puzzled what options were left to get up to the area where the buses were parked. It seemed the only option would be to turn up the steep hill that had not-one-but-two clear "Do Not Enter" signs manning the entrance:
YOLO.
Faced with a lack of options, I proceeded to pass through the Do Not Enter signs, toward the police car that I could see waiting atop the hill.
When I reached the top of this hill, I was momentarily pleased to discover it was indeed the hill that the Hertz man had gestured toward. I was further pleased that the loitering officers chose not to deepen my misery, and kept on tending to some other matter.
Now I just needed to find this "level -1" that I had been told WAS RIGHT HERE:
I am noticing it is a LOT nicer navigating these streets in Google Map view than it is in an oversized Ford Focus
... Right here? Right here has no signage. I continue forward. There is a parking garage on the left, albeit a divider prevents me from getting into it, and even if I wasn't prevented from it, there was no indication on the garage that it had anything to do with Hertz. So I continued back down the hill, and confirmed that there was nothing else even resembling a parking garage anywhere nearby. I pulled an illegal U turn and approached the first gate of the Mystery Garage.
To enter the garage, I had no choice but to accept a "pay to park" card, further implying that this was likely not where I was meant to be. Then I drove through the parking area, and parked by the information booth. As I closed my car door, I noticed the the attendant scampering away, 5 minutes before 7pm. I waited. I pushed the button to ring for help. No calvary was going to help me out of this one. After a few minutes, I considered my next options.
There was another gate that I could travel through to exit the parking area. Presumably I would have to pay off the parking card to get through this secondary gate, but it wasn't like I had other good options. I scrutinized the text on the gate, then opened the Apple Translator app to get it in English. Most of the words were muddled, but the words "Return car" were present. That was by far my most promising lead, so I stuck my parking card into the second gate, which opened without forcing me to pay.
Next, I was forced with another three-choice crucible: out, down, or up? Well, -1 seems like down? I proceeded down a few loops. There was no Hertz signage anywhere. I reached the floor below where I started. Still nothing. Hmm. Pulled over before I got forced to go through the "Exit." Looking at my new options, one of them did have a "-1" sign above the drive. Could this be it? Was it possible that this game had an actual ending???
Given that I am living to write this: yes, it did. On all counts. Going down a few more loops finally led me to level -1, where I finally saw my first sign that Hertz was associated with this building in any way, shape or form. Moreover, the Hertz insignia was present above a few empty parking spots. I slowly backed in, noticed it was already long past the hour that the Hertz guy was gone, and wished our Ford Focus "good riddance," hoping that I could find a way to commit to memory I must never drive in this backwards octopus intersection one-way-street baby carriage avenue town, ever again. 🫠