All quiet on the Western Front? No way!

No one has ever accused me of being particularly flexible. I’m seldom mistaken for one of those go-with-the-flow individuals; it’s one of the many less attractive traits I got from Mama, rest her rigid little soul. But when I’m overseas I do try to adapt as much as possible – you know, to get the most from my travel experience.

There are a few things, however, that I find hard to compromise. One of them is the need for music. I’m hard-wired to need music around me, especially when I’m alone, as I have been most of this week. My French exchange house has a TV, but the only English-speaking channel, the BBC’s equivalent to CNN, has such a buzz in the reception that I can’t make out much of they’re saying. Did John McCain call for us to bomb Portugal this week? I couldn’t swear to that report…

There’s a radio in the sitting room but it’s not hooked up to speakers. Operation of the CD player requires an engineering degree, and the small radio in the kitchen, which may have been new when the Everly Brothers were rocking the airwaves, went mute the instant I touched it. I have that effect on electronics.

The three – count ‘em, three – online music services to which I subscribe back home are unavailable over here. Those crafty foxes know I’m trying to access them from a foreign computer and have blocked me from downloading a single tune. And did I mention the tiny car’s radio had been removed, and of course I couldn’t figure out how to get it back in? I was so desperate I’d have listened to ghetto rap.

And so I soldiered in silence for several days, becoming more morose by the hour. I cursed myself for never having gotten up to speed on technology such as iPods and MP3 players. They’re probably obsolete now, anyway. Lord, when did I blink and become a fossil?

Then it occurred to me: I am only a 20-minute train ride from Paris! SURELY I could find an electronics store there, flash an obscene number of euros, and buy myself something that would make some music-like noise.

Confidently I set out yesterday, calling on my guardian angels as I boarded the train. At the Paris station, the third person I stopped knew enough English (“electronics?”) to give me directions to the FNAC store, apparently the French equivalent to Radio Shack, which was literally across the street! The place was mobbed, but within 10 minutes (and the requisite obscene number of euros) I had myself a sweet little portable Sony radio – about the same low-tech model I so proudly owned when the Everly Brothers rocked the airwaves.

Boy, did the rest of the day perk up! After poking around the Sacre-Coeur Basilica and the Montmartre Museum in Paris, I swanned back to the house in La Frette (think Brooklyn in relationship to Manhattan) and spent a lovely evening with a book and Ravel, Mozart, Schubert and Harry Connick, Jr. Great company, n’est pas?

P.S. The photo up there was taken of the River Seine in the public park in La Frette, just at the bottom of my street, the day after I arrived. The weather has continued to be just that gorgeous all week.