HowTo:Get back to London if you suddenly find yourself in France

Travelling on the London Underground is at best, unpredictable. But as you sit there, you may find yourself wondering why everyone around you has started speaking in a strange accent, and if you're female why it's suddenly got a little bit moist. What's with the change? Well in the past, the London Underground has been responsible for special children being put into the care of the world's worst child carer, and now it's responsible for carrying you on an unexpected vacation in France.

Covered by comics on a yearly basis

Preliminary checks

Making sure you're in France, and not some pretentious film

Okay first of all don't panic; it may be a false alarm. Look around the train, what do you see? Are there any papers which have "metro" written on them? If so, you unfortunately are indeed in France. The French call their trainline the metro, or more accurately le metro, and diminishing attention spans in the nation mean there needs to be something to remind them where they are. Another tell-tale sign of being in France is that you become overwhelmingly sure of everything so the chances are you already know where you are, this does not necessarily mean you are right however, but that hardly matters does it?

The dangers of suddenly being in France

You may notice the metro logo is made up of the colours blue and white, what colour is missing to make up the French flag? RED!? That's right, you happen to be in France where the latest art movement is to graffiti anything lacking one of three colours that belong to the flag. Usually in France, there's a person holding a paint palette and an easel with copious amounts of red paint under his beret, but since this is the recession, we'll have to assume foreign blood is cheaper, is more poignant as far as art is concerned and now you're here, it's more easily obtainable. This means you need to escape the hell hole you suddenly realise you're in as soon as fucking possible. Fortunately, vampires are no longer a worry, so that's a load off your mind.

Blending In

Drop your fish, chips and carpets. Since we don't want to arouse suspicion that you may be foreign. Drop that caring attitude as well mister, it's not welcome where you are right now. It's vital to remind yourself that you do want to go home, so while you drop that caring attitude, write it down on an "important things to do" list and include a hand drawn picture in case any of the natives are watching you. Borrowing someone's easel to draw your picture may seem like a good idea, but what will the natives think if one of their own doesn't have an easel? Red paint is what.

Refer to this guide if you need more help blending in.

Getting Home

Planning your Route

Consult your nearest ticket officer and ask him how you get back to London as fast as possible.. at this point, the French ticket officer may say something like "Sacrebleu!".. In which case he is already being unhelpful, and you must find another ticket officer. Remember, as soon as they say "Sacrebleu!", it's time to move on. (Note: Wearing anything white maximises the chance of the ticket officer being unhelpful, since he is more likely to run off).

One of the most helpful people on the planet

Asking him to tell you directions in English is just plain dumb. Since you've integrated yourself into the French community, speaking English is a sure way of labelling yourself as a spy. If you don't speak French, then you will have to find an overly expressive ticket officer. Ticket officers with face paint who are dressed in black and white stripes will probably be the best people to communicate with, in fact they welcome communication without speech.

Hopefully you will at least get enough information to find your way out of the "Le Metro".

Arranging Transportation

Look for this, smell like lemons

With luck you got enough information from the ticket officer to find your way to the Eurostar. But first, you may need to refuel for the trip home, and more important, you need to clean up, so find yourself a KFC, it looks pretty much the same with the exception of the amateur blue paint splattered across the sign. Buy a mea-.. ahh shit, you need euro's.. It's okay it shouldn't be a problem, remember that nobody cares in France, so you should find an abundance of accidentally dropped money and cigarettes on the floor to pay for your meal and perhaps calm your nerves if you need it. I hope you bought something cheap, since all you really need is the lemonfresh wipes that usually come buried in your fries. You can eat your meal if you want, but for Christ sakes, don't put ketchup on chicken or you'll have to deal with a small army of painters.

Clean yourself up with the wipes, lemon counteracts garlic very well. If you have been on the Eurostar recently, then you should know that you'll have to pass the sniff test, with the rule of "if you smell like you've been in France for a while, then Britain probably doesn't want you". Let's hope you found a ticket officer mime in due haste to avoid national aromas sinking in deep. When all said and done, you should be in Britain again soon after boarding the Eurostar..

Oh, whoops -- wait! You need euros for the Eurostar, too, and a lot more of them than you needed for the rotgut "chicken" and "fries" at KFC. Unless you found at least €150 dropped on the floor in the KFC you may need a backup plan. (The ticket may only be a hundred euros but surely you'll want another bite to sustain you under the Channel, and if you're travelling in steerage to save €€ don't forget to bring along something for the pay toilets, or it's going to be a l-o-o-o-o-n-g ride home.)

A Quick Check of the Funds Situation

After realising that all those pretty coppery coins you picked up that have big friendly "5"s on the back are really not five euro coins (since there is no such thing), you also realise you're not going to be travelling premier class.

A panicky look at the schedule pasted to the wall in the gare (as the locals call it) leads to the realisation that you're not going back in coach, either, unless.... but wait...

Backup Plan 1: Miscount

OK, here's what you do: You find a ticket officer who can't count. This is easier than you'd think, since almost everyone uses credit cards for everything, and actually paying for something with money is enough to get you glared at by everyone waiting in line behind you while the clerk tries to recall how to make change for a fiver.

So just look over the clerks in their booths, and pick the one that looks dumbest. So, for instance, an officer who's using spare moments to work on the London Times crossword puzzle using a ballpoint pen might not be your best bet. On the other hand, if you see one who's picking his nose and staring at the wall, and maybe drooling a little, you're in like Flynn: Go for it! (Oh, wait, picking your nose in public in France can get you thrown in jail, so you probably won't find quite exactly that.) Then, affecting a bit of a stagger, walk up to the window, kind of stumble, and then spill your bag of 5 cent coins all over the counter. While the clerk officer is scrambling to pick up the ones that shot through the slot and onto the floor, and is wondering how come the English are all such bozos (or cretins as they call them in France), apologize profusely, and tell the officer where you want to go.

In case you're not sure, to apologize you say "Day-zoe-lay!". It rhymes with "Fri-to-lay!" (but don't get the two words mixed up, or nobody will understand you). Say it lots of times, very loud. Then tell the good person that you need to go to London. If saying "je voudrais aller au Londres" is like 'way too much for your nonexistent French, just say "London" (he'll get the idea), but remember, in France, it's not called "London", it's called something that sounds very much like "Laundry".

So just keep repeating "Day-zoe-lay ... Laundry!", very loudly, and eventually the clerk officer will get tired of counting pennies and do anything to make you go away -- like, for instance, give you a ticket to London!

Or maybe he'll call a guard. (A guard is called a "John-darn!" in French, or something that sounds a lot like that.) Oh, well, so that didn't work so well, and it's time to revisit the schedule of fares, and roll out....

Backup Plan 2: Need a Wheelchair

People who need wheelchairs get a big break in the fare. It's hard to tell exactly how many euros you have there mixed in with the fries, but it might be enough for the handicapped fare.

So this time, you want to pick the officer who looks the most sympathetic. Someone who looks like your mother might be a good choice (unless your mother is dead of old age, in which case someone who looks like she looks now would probably not be so good -- maybe you should pick someone who looks like she used to look). Once again, though, staggering is good.

So you stagger up to the window, maybe sniffle a little, and once again ask to be taken to Laundry.

Unfortunately most ticket officers who remind you of your mother actually turn out to be your fourth grade teacher whom you hit on the back of the head with a spitball not quite long enough ago so that she's forgotten it. She was never quite sure it was you, but she suspected, and in any case it had a lot to do with her quitting teaching and getting a job with Eurostar.

So when she points out with some glee (and in perfect English) that first, you don't look to her like someone who needs a wheelchair, and second, that the wheelchair rate is only available when paired with a full fare ticket, there's not much you can do except slink away, and move on to...

Backup Plan 3: Be a Child

Children get on really cheap, even cheaper than people who need wheelchairs.

For this one, though, you need another really dumb ticket officer. The one you tried before might recognize you (unless he's really dumb) so you should look for a different one.

Children, as you may have noticed, are usually short. So, to look more like a child, you should probably approach the ticket window on your knees. Children also don't tend to speak clearly, and may sometimes lisp. Some of them also suck their thumbs.

So, stick your thumb in your mouth, get down on your knees, skush your way up to the window, and say, "Day-show-lay ... Launry!" to the officer.

If that works, then ... what's that? Children must be accompanied by an adult to obtain the children's fare? Oh bother.

Ok, time for...

Backup Plan 4: Walk Home

Yes, seriously -- just walk. It's not all that far. I mean, people have swum (swam?) across the English channel, so walking that distance is a piece of cake.

There is the minor issue that the channel is rather too wet and deep to walk on easily, but that's fixed by simply waiting around a bit in France until the channel freezes over! Then you just stroll on across, and you're home, for free! That sure beats washing dishes or pushing a broom or begging or something to scrape the fare together, doesn't it?

Now there is something else to consider, which is that if you crossed into France in the summer, it may be a while before the channel freezes over.

• You need to wait for winter. That could take a few months.
• The Channel doesn't freeze right away in the winter, so you need to wait for the winter to get really cold. That may add another month or so.
• In fact, the Channel doesn't freeze at all some winters. So, you'll want to plan on waiting for an extremely cold winter to come along before you walk home.
• Actually, I just checked the weather forecasts, and what with global warming and all, it turns out the next freeze of the Channel is being predicted for some time midway through the cooling period which most meteorologists continue to predict will arrive in roughly 1200 years.

Ah, that's probably not what you had in mind.

OK, time to move on to the...

Final Backup Plan: Learn French

Learn French, find an apartment, and get a job.

It's really not such a bad place to live, after all.

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Of course, if you actually were in London all this time, then you can ignore the above advice. But start wondering how fast art movements spread.

See Also

• France
• HowTo:Be French
• HowTo:Wake up from a bad reality