Recently, I embarked on a three-week trip with my family and family friends (typical Asian travel style), to the most historic, iconic landmarks of Europe. Despite already visiting most of the places in our agenda five years prior, I was excited to see the central continent with my newly-high-school-graduate eyes.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from traveling, it’s that nothing goes as planned, and the mess-ups are the most memorable. But this moment, in particular, is one I will never forget… or live down.
This is also something I will never live down.
To get into Le Château Versailles in the middle of summer, one must wait in a three hour zigzagged line in the scorching 90-degree sun with no relief shade.
After finally entering the palace and admiring room after room of historic treasures, Chris (the other guy my age I traveled with) and I saw a tour group go through a roped-off staircase into an upper level. A few moments later, the daredevils in us decided to slide under the rope and dart upstairs, just out of curiosity.
Unbeknownst to us, a security guard eyed us from downstairs and shouted at us a few times before we heard him. In a thick French accent behind a dark mustache, he scolded, “Out! You disrespect le château. Out! Out!”
Chris and I just stared at each other, not knowing how to respond to the stereotypical angry French security guard. The image of us behind bars in a dark French dungeon kept running through my mind as he ushered us towards a side exit.
His parting words were: “If you wish to return into le palace, you wait in le line again.” So we were back in line. But I was not feeling the many hours wait in the awful heat.
Looking around, I saw many Chinese tour groups, and one, in particular, was near the entrance. The entrance into the palace was just around the corner from the main gate, where many others were snapping pictures. I nudged Chris to take my lead as we weaved through the massive crowd to the gate.
“A-ya! So pretty. Lemme take a picture!” I exclaimed in Mandarin as I took pictures of Chris posing by the gate. Remembering I was carrying my mom’s sun umbrella (t’s telltale sign that you’re from the mainland), I put it up and joined the small sea of umbrellas right up at the entrance.
Note: This is a picture of me, not Chris, taken prior to getting escorted out of Versailles. It's the same gate though.
With that, we were back in, browsing the lavish livings of enlightenment royalty. And despite the nonchalant nature of my storytelling, there were some serious lessons I learned:
- Be respectful of museums. They contain irreplaceable pieces of history and endless knowledge. Take the time to appreciate that.
- Take risks! Without them, you’ll have no good stories to tell.
- Karma will probably get me for line-cutting, being an imposter, and breaking the rules in Versailles.
- I really should have taken IB HL History.
