She met a man on a rooftop bar on her first night in Paris. Her life changed forever

(CNN) — To Erin Tridle, it felt as though the universe paved the way for her to meet the love of her life years before their actual meeting.

“There was a lot of happenstance, fate, whatever you want to call it, that played into this,” is how Erin puts it to CNN Travel today.

The first step on the path was paved way back in 2016. A then-24-year-old Erin was on a train, praying against the odds she’d make her flight home to the US.

Erin’s original train had been canceled. She’d stood for ages at the station, analyzing arrival boards, Googling airport bus options.

Eventually, Erin got on a train that seemed to be heading back to Paris. Still she knew, in her heart of hearts, that making that flight was a lost cause, which was a stressful thought. It didn’t help that she couldn’t understand the French train announcements.

Trying to calm her anxieties, Erin turned to the guy in the seat next to her.

“I’m sorry, I don’t speak French,” she said. “But do you know if this train’s going to Paris?”

“I sure hope so,” laughed her seat neighbor. To Erin’s surprise, he spoke in English, with an American accent and the two twentysomething US travelers started chatting.

The guy was friendly and the conversation passed the time, alleviating Erin’s nerves.

But if you’re assuming he was the love of Erin’s life, hold tight – there were a few more twists in the tale to come, a few more stones still to be laid on her path to happiness.

A series of fortuitous events

When the train arrived in Paris, Erin and her seat neighbor went their separate ways, and Erin figured she’d never see him again.

Then, as predicted, she missed her flight home. Trying not to be disheartened, Erin took the opportunity to extend her time in Paris, staying in the city for an extra few days.

“The next day, I’m walking over to the Musée d’Orsay, and I run into this guy again, the guy from the train,” recalls Erin. “I was like, ‘Okay, we’ve got to hang out, right?’”

The two Americans spent a couple of days touring the city – as friends. They went to karaoke, and visited the Palace of Versailles, and chatted about their experiences as Americans in Paris.

“And during that time, he recommends his hostel to me,” recalls Erin. “He’s like, ‘I’m staying at this really great hostel. It’s called the Generator, and it has a great rooftop bar.’ And I love rooftop bars, so I remembered that.”

Erin returned to the US, and she quickly lost touch with her train friend. As time went on, he all but receded from her mind.

But when, some two and a half years later, Erin found herself considering another solo visit to Paris, she recalled the guy from the train and his hostel recommendation.

“I’m planning this big trip to Europe, I’m figuring out what hostels I’m going to stay in, and I look into Paris, and then that pops into my mind,” Erin recalls. “It was slightly more expensive than the other hostels, but I was like, ‘You know what? It’s worth it. I like a rooftop bar, and it’s already been recommended to me.’”

Erin had always hoped to return to Paris, but the circumstances that led her back there, at age 28, were less than ideal.

“I wasn’t the happiest I’d ever been at the moment,” says Erin. “I decided to book a trip to kind of make me happier, to bring up my outlook on life.”

By then, Erin was working as a TV producer in Los Angeles. While her show was off air over the summer months, she had an extended summer break.

“So it was kind of the perfect time for me to go on this big, long trip to Europe, starting in Paris.”

A rooftop meeting

When Erin arrived at the Generator Hostel in June 2019, she headed straight to bed – it was the morning, but she was jet lagged and exhausted from her flight.

Some hours later, she woke up, slightly groggy. It was 3.p.m local time. Erin dragged herself out of bed, determined to make the most of her time in Paris, as she was only there for two nights.

A sign in the hostel lobby suggested the rooftop bar had just opened for the evening, so Erin headed up, hoping to see a great view of the city before the bar became busy.

It was still early, so the roof was deserted, but inviting – dotted with chairs, tables and fairy lights. And the view was as stunning as Erin had hoped. She spotted the Eiffel Tower and the white-domed Sacre Coeur church illuminated in the sunshine. Erin stood there, feeling content, as she surveyed the panorama of Paris chimneys and famous landmarks.

Pretty much the only other person on the rooftop was the bartender. He met Erin’s eyes as she snapped photos of the panoramic view on her phone. She smiled at him, and he smiled back.

“Instantly, upon meeting him, I thought he was cute,” says Erin.

It felt like there was something between them, like they were both drawn to each other.

The bartender asked Erin if she wanted a drink, switching from French to English when he realized she was American.

Erin ordered a glass of chilled Chardonnay, her favorite white wine. And then, partly because she was the only customer on the roof, and partly because of this spark of potential between them, Erin and the bartender started chatting.

He introduced himself as Jordan, a twentysomething Frenchman who’d been living in Paris for a couple of months in between his studies. Jordan asked Erin questions about her travels, her life in America. He seemed genuinely interested in her responses, and kept smiling at her.

Not only is he cute, thought Erin, he’s nice too.

“But I wasn’t thinking too far into it,” she clarifies. “I was just like, ‘Oh, cute, nice bartender. Cool.’”

Still, there was that feeling that hung between them – a mix of possibility and chemistry. It felt significant, even then.

Erin didn’t know it yet, but here he was: the future love of her life.

‘Un coup de foudre’

If a series of small but significant decisions led Erin to the rooftop bar that day in 2019, the same was true – perhaps even more so – for bartender Jordan.

That year, Jordan had been feeling fed up with his college studies. He started dreaming about leaving France, seeing the world.

“So I took a break from school and just left,” Jordan tells CNN Travel today. “I took a giant bag with me, just put everything inside, and said, ‘Let’s go.’”

Jordan, who has asked for his last name not to be included in this article for privacy reasons, went to the Caribbean first. Then he returned to France, planning to stop off briefly in Paris to get his paperwork and visa sorted for his next stop, Australia.

“I’m from the southwest of France, not Paris,” explains Jordan. “So back then, I don’t know anyone in Paris. I don’t know Paris, I don’t know anything about it.”

Jordan figured he needed a cheap place to stay for a week, and that a hostel would serve that purpose. He Googled “best hostels in Paris” and the Generator popped up. Jordan figured the reviews were decent, the prices OK – and the rooftop bar looked appealing. He booked a room for a week – enough time to sort his papers and then continue on with his travels.

“The first day, I went on the rooftop,” recalls Jordan. Like Erin, he was impressed with the view. Sure, he was from France, but he didn’t know Paris very well. He was still starstruck at the sight of the city’s landmarks, laid out in front of him.

It was evening and the bar was busy.

“The bartender on the rooftop was running around everywhere,” recalls Jordan. “He gave me a drink, and I started speaking with him.”

Jordan told the guy he was doing a great job managing the bar solo – he’d worked as a bartender before and he could tell the guy at the Generator was slammed. Jordan expressed his sympathies – he’d been there, it wasn’t easy.

“Then the bartender said, at that moment, ‘Oh, you’re a bartender too? We need someone for the summer,’” recalls Jordan. “It was April. He said, ‘Stay here and work with me.’”

Jordan remembers hesitating. He was pretty set on his Australia plan and didn’t want it derailed. But some more money in the bank could be useful. Then the bartender called over his manager, who, as it turned out, was from Australia.

“She said to me, ‘Just stay here all summer with us, we’ll give you a room and you’ll make more money to go to Australia,’” recalls Jordan.

It sounded like a pretty good deal. Jordan agreed, and started working at the Generator that week.

By the time Jordan met Erin, he’d been serving up cocktails on the Parisian rooftop for a couple months.

He actually wasn’t supposed to be working that day in August, but one of his coworkers was sick, so he offered to cover for them.

To Jordan, looking back, the twists of fate that led him to the Generator Hostel that summer, that led him to meet Erin, seem both “crazy, weird and lucky.”

Jordan recalls being struck by Erin the moment she stepped onto the rooftop.

“We say in French, ‘un coup de foudre’ – a lightning strike. We say that when you fall in love with a person instantly. That’s exactly what happened to me that first day,” says Jordan.

He enjoyed chatting with Erin and wanted to impress her by making her a complex cocktail, but Erin was happy with her Chardonnay.

And then the bar started to fill up, and it was no longer quite as easy for Jordan to focus on Erin.

“Come back at sunset,” he told her.

During the summer months in Paris,  the sun doesn’t set until almost 10 p.m. That was around the time Jordan closed up the bar for the evening. It was his favorite time of day – he had the rooftop to himself and got to enjoy the city skyline streaked with gold and amber hues.

“Come back then, it’s really beautiful,” said Jordan. “I’d love to see you again, to talk properly.”

Although Erin had only just met Jordan, she felt at ease, comfortable in his presence. The idea of hanging out with him on the rooftop at sunset was very appealing.

“So I came back later,” says Erin. “I wore my best outfit that I’d packed, which was a cherry red jumpsuit. I was so ready.”

But then, several hours later, the bar was “wall-to-wall people, I mean, shoulder-to-shoulder, it was way too packed,” recalls Erin.

Erin felt anxiety rise up in her stomach. But then Jordan waved and got her attention.

“Through the crowds, he spotted me instantly,” she recalls. “He stopped and walked over to me. From the beginning, he showed me that I was a priority, in everything he did.”

But when security started ushering people off the rooftop in preparation of closing, Erin found herself among the crowds shuffling downstairs. She wasn’t sure how to explain to the other employees that Jordan had asked her to stick around.

Meanwhile, Jordan couldn’t follow after Erin until he’d finished cleaning the bar. Panicked he’d lost sight of her forever, he tidied up as quickly as he could, and rushed downstairs some 45 minutes later. To his relief, Erin was sitting in the lobby, waiting.

“Are you ready to go out?” Jordan asked her, smiling.

“Yes, let’s go,” said Erin, smiling back.

The two not-quite-strangers walked out of the Generator Hostel hand in hand, towards the city’s canals.

“It was nighttime, and kind of magical,” says Erin. “The lights were reflecting on the river.”

They considered going to another bar, but instead, Erin and Jordan ended up sitting, side by side, on a bench looking over the river Seine.

“We talked till four in the morning,” recalls Erin. “And sometime during that time, he made his move and kissed me.”

Back at the hostel, Erin and Jordan said goodnight, even though it was already dawn. They met up again a few hours later – Jordan wasn’t on the rooftop that day, thanks to him covering the unexpected shift the night before.

“And that was the day where I really got to see how much this wasn’t just like a flirtation for him, how serious he was, and realizing how serious I was as well,” says Erin.

A Parisian surprise

When they reconvened for a late breakfast, Jordan told Erin he had a surprise for her, but it wouldn’t be ready until later in the day.

Erin was intrigued, but had no idea what it could be. She put the idea out of her mind as she and Jordan spent the day together, enjoying the moment.

“We go to the Seine and sit on a grassy area near the Seine, and kiss. It’s very cute. We have a really lovely day in Paris,” recalls Erin. “And then he gets a text message. He looks at me, and he’s like, ‘Okay, your surprise is ready.’”

The two walked back to the hostel. When they got to the lobby, Jordan told Erin to pack her bags.

It was a risky move – they’d known each other less than 24 hours.

“I could have said no,” says Erin.

But she didn’t. She trusted Jordan.

“So I pack my bags, and then he hands me a key – a room key – to what turns out to be a rooftop suite that has its own balcony overlooking Paris,” says Erin.

The suite was at the top of the hostel. Erin couldn’t believe it when she walked into the room and saw the view. The balcony overlooking the beautiful cityscape would have been enough, but there were more surprises.

“He’d gotten his friends who worked at the hostel to get me a dozen red roses, and my favorite bottle of wine that they sell at the hostel,” says Erin. “Jordan was like, ‘This is just for you. I do not need to be here tonight.’ It was my last night in Paris. I was going to Milan the next morning, so he was like, ‘I just want you to have a really good last night in Paris.’”

Erin was speechless. She’d never been on the receiving end of such a grand gesture before. It was “a really nice and romantic and beautiful thing,” she says.

“Then, that night, there was a party, an organized event on the rooftop,” Erin recalls. “So he took me upstairs and introduced me to every one of his co-workers.”

Earlier that day, Erin had questioned whether Jordan regularly romanced American hostel visitors – their bond seemed genuine, but she couldn’t help but wonder.

But the efforts he’d gone to that evening reassured Erin their connection was special. He seemed “serious about this – he was introducing me to people in his life,” says Erin.

“And then, of course, he definitely did stay in that hotel room. He was invited,” she says. “So we had a really lovely night, and hung out in the room and hung out on the balcony, and just kind of got to know each other even more.”

Jordan says he was aware the gift of the hotel room might be too much, might be unwelcome, might be misconstrued. But he felt it was a gamble worth taking – he wanted Erin to have an amazing time in Paris, with or without him.

“A lot of people say this feeling, love at first sight, doesn’t exist,” says Jordan. “But it’s exactly what happened to me that first day. I don’t have a lot of explanation, I just have to say she was totally perfect in my eyes.”

But before long, the reality of Erin’s upcoming departure started to hit – her flight to Milian was set to leave early the next day.

“We hadn’t slept, it was 3 a.m. and I was packing for Milan,” recalls Erin. “I started sobbing, like, just outright sobbing.”

Erin was crying at the thought of leaving Jordan – a guy she barely knew. She shocked herself by how heartbroken she felt at the prospect.

“That’s when he turns to me and he says, ‘I love you and I want you to be my girlfriend,’” recalls Erin.

Erin stopped crying, in part because she was so shocked.

“I kind of glitched for five seconds because I wasn’t anticipating that,” she says today. “No one had ever been so forward with me, in such a loving way, in my whole life, romantically.

And then I realized, ‘Oh, I’m sobbing because I love this man and I don’t want to leave him. I’m in love too.’ So I said, ‘I love you back. And yes, I want to be your girlfriend.’”

That’s how Erin arrived in Paris, single, but left, a mere 36 hours later, with a French boyfriend.

On the plane to Milan, Erin thought back over the past couple of days and tried to get her head around what had happened. The whole thing was surreal, but it also just felt right.

Making a choice

From there, Erin enjoyed a few days in Milan and then headed to Nice, in the south of France, for the weekend.

Jordan arranged some time off work and came down to meet her by the sea.

“We were chatting every day,” says Jordan. “Then we spent the weekend together.”

After Nice, Erin was planning to head to San Sebastián, in Spain’s Basque region – inspired by an episode of Anthony Bourdain’s show “Parts Unknown.”

“I was doing what I call an Anthony Bourdain pilgrimage,” Erin explains. “Going to a spot he visited on one of his shows that I really enjoyed.”

But in the end, Erin abandoned the San Sebastián plans to spend the rest of her vacation in Paris with Jordan.

“I decided that really seeing what we could make of it was the most important thing I could do,” she says. “So I went back to Paris, got an Airbnb, and we spent as much time together as we possibly could.”

When Jordan was working, Erin kept him company at the rooftop bar. On his days off, they explored the city together. They grew closer and closer.

Before Erin returned to the US, they vowed to get to San Sebastián one day, together. In the meantime, Jordan promised he’d visit Erin in Los Angeles as soon as he could.

“He had never been to the United States,” says Erin. “But he got his ESTA visa immediately, and he was in the United States the very next month.”

Erin’s friends and family were a little taken aback when Erin told them she’d fallen in love in Paris. They were pleased for her, but apprehensive. But then Jordan came to visit, and they saw how happy he made Erin.

“I told them just how wonderful he was to me, and then they actually got to see it in person, and they were really, really happy upon meeting him,” says Erin.

By then, fall had arrived, and Jordan’s summer stint at the rooftop bar was ending. He decided to put the Australia plan to one side and to spend three months in Los Angeles, with Erin, instead.

“So he moved in with me for three months,” says Erin. “It was the best freaking three months. It was so much fun.”

During that period, their relationship began to feel less like a vacation romance, and more and more like something that could be real, could be lasting. Erin and Jordan were looking forward to the future.

Unexpected separation

Jordan’s three months in the US came to an end at the beginning of 2020, and Erin booked a trip to France that February, coinciding with Valentine’s Day.

By then, Covid-19 was splashed across newspapers in the US and France, but Erin and Jordan couldn’t predict what was to come.

“I flew back, but then the borders shut down,” recalls Erin.

She’ll never forget her shock at seeing the headline, realizing what that reality meant for her and Jordan.

“That was the beginning of nine months in which we didn’t get to see each other,” she says.

Erin and Jordan’s Covid-enforced separation was difficult for them both. As they weren’t married, they had no grounds on which to reunite. It wasn’t clear how long this limbo would last. Plus, the pandemic was a worrying, scary time.

“Once or twice a month, I would just break down sobbing,” says Erin. “I had a really hard time with it, as did he. So we just mutually came to the conclusion that we never wanted to be apart again.”

So Erin and Jordan got engaged over the phone, promising to spend the rest of their lives together, to reunite as soon as they could.

In late 2020, US and French Covid rules permitted the couple to finally meet, and so Erin flew to France to meet Jordan.

Erin’s got a blurry, emotional video of the moment they reunited after nine months apart.

“I wanted to be able to go back to it and remember it,” says Erin. “Our faces aren’t even in the video, because I was just frantically running towards him, not even paying attention to how I was holding my phone. It was the best feeling in the world.”

But another long period of separation followed in 2021, as the French borders closed again in the wake of the Omicron Covid variant.

But by summer, the pandemic had waned and Erin and Jordan were able to spend three months together in France.

It was a significant summer in more ways than one. When they first started talking about their future together, the couple had always assumed Jordan would move to the US, given Erin had an established career in Los Angeles in the television world.

But things had started to shift.

“I’d been in LA for a really long time, and it made sense, practically, with my work,” says Erin. “But when I came to Paris, every time I was here, I just felt really happy. And obviously the majority of that happiness was him. But there was a part of me that just really connected with the city and started thinking about, ‘Hey, maybe we could be here instead.’”

Erin started looking into the logistics of moving abroad, and the couple started planning their wedding.

A ‘perfect day’

Erin and Jordan got married in July 2023, in the district town hall building in the 8th Arrondissement, a Paris city center neighborhood that includes the Champs-Élysées.

It was a small but special celebration, “a perfect day,” as Jordan puts it. A handful of Erin’s closest friends flew out from the US for the celebrations. Her family attended too, as did Jordan’s loved ones.

Having everyone together felt significant and special, but one of Erin’s favorite moments of the day was shared just with Jordan.

“We got a little moment before the reception to be alone. We had a little break, and we had a little Champagne,” she recalls. “And I just remember thinking, ‘We did it, we did the damn thing.’ And it was just the best day.”

In October 2023, Erin officially moved to France. She was excited and apprehensive – she’d left her job in television, left her friends and family in Los Angeles and she still didn’t speak fluent French.

But she felt ready for this new chapter.

“I kind of got used to the idea slowly over time, that this could become my home,” Erin says of Paris.

And the move was made easier thanks to the welcome she received from Jordan’s friends and loved ones.

“I don’t have a very big family, but everyone absolutely adores her,” says Jordan, who says his mother treats Erin like the daughter she never had.

“She’s super proud of her and her achievements,” says Jordan.

For Erin, as much as she loved Paris – “looking at the Eiffel Tower and being like, ‘Oh right, I’m going to wake up and see this every day’” – the true reward was finally living with Jordan full time.

“It was less about like, ‘Oh, I live in Paris,’ and it was more, ‘I don’t ever have to wake up in a bed alone again. I get to wake up next to my favorite person in the world,’” recalls Erin.

As for Jordan, he says he’s thankful for the “stability” of their lives now. After their years navigating long distance, he feels like they’re building “something safe and strong.”

With Erin’s encouragement and cheerleading, Jordan went back to college and graduated with a degree in visual effects. He’s currently working as a bartender at a prestigious hotel as he figures out his next steps.

Meanwhile Erin’s segued into content creation. She chronicles her life as an American in Paris on TikTok and Instagram @erintridle.

Erin and Jordan both credit each other with encouraging them as they find their feet in life.

“We complete each other,” is how Jordan puts it. “I consider her my best friend, as well as my wife.”

Erin suggests her more “emotional,” spontaneous personality is complemented by Jordan’s “cool, calm and collected” vibe.

“He helps me logic my way out of whatever I’m dealing with,” she says. “He just kind of takes me through it step by step. It’s very kind of him. And he makes me laugh more than anybody else.”

“She has some stuff that I really need, that she gives me, and also that goes in reverse,” says Jordan. “That makes it even stronger between us.”

A ‘foundation of love’

Five years since they met on the rooftop in Paris, Jordan says he’s still struck by how “statistically impossible” their meeting was – how so many fortuitous events and choices led them to both be there that day in 2019.

“Something happened that’s almost impossible,” he says of their meeting.

As for Erin, she considers that if someone had told her younger self: “You’re going to marry a Frenchman, end up in Paris, you’re going to fall in love within 36 hours,” she wouldn’t have believed them.

“I would’ve been like, ‘You’re crazy,’” she says, laughing.

But meeting Jordan upended Erin’s world, and her outlook, in the best way.

“So if I had gone back in time and told myself, even 48 hours after I met him, ‘Hey you’re going to marry this guy, and you’re going to end up in Paris, I’d have been like ‘Yeah, that tracks, honestly,’” she says.

Today, looking back on how they met – tracing it all back to that train encounter years previously – makes Erin “giddy with happiness” and Jordan “proud.”

The couple are currently planning their honeymoon to San Sebastián – the destination Erin missed out on in 2019. And they hope to one day make it to Australia, given Jordan never got there.

Whatever the future brings, the two are confident they’ll enjoy it together.

“There’s just a foundation of love there that I can’t quite describe, if I’m being quite honest,” says Erin. “There’s not a lot of good nouns and adjectives I can throw at it. It’s just something that is strong and is there at all times.”

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