What the hell am I doing here?

I finally managed to make it to one of the suburbs of Paris, St-Germain-en-Laye, at the end of a boring drive on a gray day which, luckily enough, managed to be quite uneventful. I say this because just as I was reaching the outskirts of Paris, there was drizzle which made the roads slightly wet. At some point I looked into my rearview mirror to see a huge Mercedes sedan careening out of control doing 360's, and bouncing off the guard rails on each side of the highway. The car was doing these autobahn acrobatics not very far from my little Peugeot 207, so the little hairs on the back of my neck were probably standing on end (I was too busy worrying to check). Fortunately, my car remained out of harm's way and by the time the Mercedes finished its pinball antics, it seemed that no one was hurt, that is no one aside from the owner's pocketbook.

Although I was glad to finally be near Paris, I still didn't have a place to stay. During lunch I perused a map of the greater Paris area, and for some reason settled on St-Germain-en-Laye as the destination. Who knows why. I certainly didn't. So I proceeded to try to navigate my way to this city. Although I'm usually quite good at getting around places, I somehow got completely discombobulated by the convoluted geography of this city. Of course, the pouring rain did not help any. I tried to contact the somewhat affordable bed and breakfasts of the area, but alas, all were full. So I ended up staying at a completely nondescript hotel which proudly advertised "Internet connectivity", so I hoped I could catch up on my phone calls and e-mail to make the best of a not so great situation. Naturally, France being one of the most backwards countries in Europe concerning Internet (this isn't merely my opinion, I heard this several times in news reports on French public radio), this so-called "Internet connectivity" turned out to be more of a ruse than anything else: a telephone jack. But I digress.... Since this first hotel was not inexpensive for a budget traveler going it solo, I set out to find a more affordable roof to put over my head. On the Internet, I managed to find a hotel nearby that seemed to fit the bill. So I was off on a beautiful drive through the Forêt de Saint-Germain, on my way to the totally nondescript city of Achères.

Achères is one of those boring, nondescript French suburbs you wish you'd never seen. After spending the night I did not quite inexpensive hotel in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, I was just looking for a cheap place to spend the night before moving on to greener pastures.