Day Four: Rolland Garros

Throughout our preparations prior to vacationing in France, we were repeatedly told to expect rain. Lots of rain. So, Daniel and I packed clothes and shoes that would be suitable for wet, rainy weather. All of this packing along with worrying about rain was completely useless, because we experienced close to no rain the entire trip. The weather was beautiful, sunny, and hot. Extremely hot and humid. I gladly welcomed the warm weather, because I would rather be hot than wet. This wasn't the case on day four, though. I would have done anything to be sitting in rain. It was so hot and humid the three second breeze every three hours was pure bliss. This overly warm day was the day we decided to go to Rolland Garros for the French Open tennis tournament. We were voluntarily, in fact we were paying, to sit in the blazing sun for nearly ten hours watching tennis. Now, this particular experience is close to the last item, if not the last item, on my bucket list, but I knew when I married a Spicer I would unwillingly have to learn to love tennis. So, I decided to make the best of my day at Rolland Garros. It was difficult, and after contemplated suicide several times, it was worth it to see the gigantic smile on my sweet husband's face. He was so happy in the presence of several favorite tennis players, and in the end I was happy to see him so happy.

One would assume that buying a ticket to enter the grounds at the French Open would be a quick and simple task. Unfortunately, this was not the case for us. We arrived at the front of Rolland Garros expecting to purchase our tickets at the gate, but we were informed that the tickets are no longer sold at the gate, strictly online. At this point, I had a slight glimmer of hope that we could spend the day shopping the streets of Paris or maybe riding roller coasters at Disney Paris, but instead Daniel began searching the premises for a scalper selling tickets.

There were several scalpers, but Daniel decided to select a particularly scary looking man on the corner of an intersection. The scalper could see that we had American tourists radiating all around us, and told us to follow him. We walked and walked and walked and walked until he left us inside a small park, telling us to stay there for ten minutes and then he will return with our tickets. At this point, I was officially frightened. The scalper finally came back and said that he wanted Daniel to come with him and Daniel's parents and I could take the tickets and call when we got in, proving that the tickets weren't fake. At this point we were clearly radiating stupid Americans, because we agreed to the deal.

John, Robbie, and I left Daniel with the scalper and went to the entrance gate. There were two checkpoints before entering. First, we had to scan our tickets. If your tickets were legit, the machine would print another ticket with your name on it, at which an actual person would match the name on your printed ticket with your I.D. My ticket claimed that my name was Ricardo Lucero. I had a feeling that the official wouldn't like that Ricardo Lucero was not even close to Courtney Spicer on my passport, so I let Robbie and John go ahead of me to see what would happen. Robbie went first, and then official immediately realized the names didn't match and started escorting her to the exit. John and I took this as our opportunity to walk right through the gate without having our I.D. and ticket checked. John and I had made it in with the scalped tickets, while Robbie was talking to more officials. At this point, my hope for Disney Paris returned, until John turned to me and said, "Just act like you don't know her (referring to Robbie)". So, John and I turned away from Robbie and walked into the first tennis match.

John and I didn't have any way of contacting Robbie or Daniel, because Robbie had our only cell phone. The next two hours, John and I waited inside the gate, hoping that Robbie and Daniel would some how find a way to get in. The only thing I could think about was Daniel getting robbed and beaten by this scalper and his buddies.

Finally, I see Daniel turn the corner. He had made it into Rolland Garros! I was so happy to see him, and know that he was safe! Scalping tickets for the French Open will always be a memorable story and experience!