Lost with Nowhere to Go

We were lost in Paris with no clue where our hotel was or even what its name was. 

My mom and I had arrived in Paris that morning, and we were so excited to be in France that we immediately took off from our hotel minutes after checking into our room. We wanted to see the Eiffel Tower. It was so amazing to see the site in person after years of looking at it in pictures. However, we were so caught up by our excitement that we hadn't paid attention to our surroundings.

When we were ready to head back to the hotel, it was then we realized that we didn't know the name of our hotel, its address, or what area of the city it was located. Within a couple of minutes we soon realized the gravity of the situation because we didn't have access to our phones and we knew no one in the city. After much hard pondering, I realized we had our hotel key cards which might have the information we needed, and I was correct. We then called a cab, handed the driver this card, and for the rest of the trip we always knew where our hotel was located.

This was taken before we realized we were lost

So the moral of the story is to always carry a piece of paper (or your hotel key card) with the name of your hotel and the address written down on it. It's fine if you can remember the information and say it back verbally, but having it written down will be really useful if you don't speak the native language. I have taken several years of French, but my accent and pronunciation is very poor to a native French speaker, and I could accidentally say the wrong address. Having this information will let you explore freely, but you'll never get lost.