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Showing posts with label Arc de Triomphe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arc de Triomphe. Show all posts

Monday, November 3, 2014

Paris: What midnight in Paris commits

Paris (France)
20 SEP 2014

 

'Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.’

...Also see Friday in Paris which accompanies this blog entry.

I don’t need to re-tell our story, suffice to say, we met on a beautiful Summers’ afternoon in Riga and I waved goodbye at 3am, walking out of the bar with the promise of an almighty hangover and a crudely drawn map in my pocket. Four years later we had our first date in Paris…and it was unforgettable!

It started here: Riga - Latvian nightmoves

...this is what happens when destiny gives you a second chance.

 

KLM flight to Paris. This is how you should get to a first date! Amsterdam Schipol Airport - Holland
 
Leaving my bag behind, thank you KLM and Air France! Amsterdam Schipol Airport - Holland
 
Apartment view over the Seine to Notre Dame - 19 Quai de Montebello - Latin Quarter - Paris - France
 
View over the Seine from the second level of the Eiffel Tower - Paris - France
 
The famous Champs Elysees from the top of the Arc de Triomphe - Paris - France
 
The Eiffel Tower from the Arc de Triomphe - Paris - France

I always liked the look of this place - Au de Cadet Gascogne - 4 Place du Tetre- Montmartre - Paris - France
 
Evening view along Seine - Paris - France
 
Notre Dame - Paris - France
 
Finally got my luggage and my clothes back! A shame it was 2:30am and on the morning I was leaving! Anyway, here's a 'selfie' @ 19 Quai de Montebello - Latin Quarter - Paris - France
 
 
 
 19 Quai de Montebello - Latin Quarter - Paris - France
 
 
 
 

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Paris: Who the hell saw that coming?


The Who the hell saw that coming tour

18 September - 23 September 2014


The Eiffel tower as taken from the Palais de Chaillot

Wow, this trip was so far out of left field that when it came at me it hit me on the right side of my face. In my mind I had already pre-judged 2014 to have been an entirely ‘travel barren’ year, but as I also know in my heart of hearts, you can NEVER say NEVER. Circumstance can be odd and  sometimes can conspire for doom, and sometimes,  conspires for the force of BOOM! (yeah, I said that).
Hence, in the tradition of all my other kick-off write ups such as Life in a year full of Saturdays’, ‘The wing and a prayer tour’, ‘Don’t call this a comeback’, ’43: The tour of awesome’ and The two-timer tour’,  I bring you Paris: Who hell saw that coming?’.
There are so many components to my Parisian jaunt, elements that conspired to fashion my express saunter through several glorious early Autumn days in city of lights, that had I have even attempted to have planned the eventual route that was taken, nothing would have manifested, nothing at all.
I think the best place to start is to provide a flavour of some of conversations that were held in the hallways of the Federal Court when questioned as to what I’d be doing with my entire four days of leave that I had requested. Most conversations were structured accordingly;
Random work colleague – ‘You’re taking a few days off H, are you up to anything?’
 
Me – ‘Yeah, I’m going away for a few days’
Random work colleague – ‘Oh nice, where are you going?’
Me – ‘Paris’
Random work colleague – (insert incredulous look) – ‘For how many days!?!’
Me – ‘I’ll be in Paris for the weekend mostly’
Random work colleague – (now looking at me like I’d been smoking too much tutti-frutti) – ‘Ummm – Why?’

Me – ‘I’m there to surprise my parents, oh, and I have a date lined up, a first date actually’
Random work colleague – ‘Can I get some of the stuff you’ve been smoking??’
The ‘who the hell saw that coming’ tour had so many iterations prior to where it settled that it easily could have been called ‘World Cup Rio’ or Living la vida en Latin Europe’, but as the reality and demands of working for the Federal Court drew down on the mental time credits that I’d assigned myself in earlier months, it became all too obvious that the only travel I would be doing was via the 6:27am all stations ride from Seven Hills to Town Hall.
Let me commence however with an overview of what would be my greatest Criss Angel impersonation, aka - the Le Restaurant heist on Rue de Beaux Artes – Thursday, 18th of September, 2014. As you know, the best laid plans of both mice and men quite often go astray, and so too, my plans for making it to the World Cup in Brazil and also a France/Spain tour sadly sank into the murk of the shallow marshes, induced by merciful euthanasia. The family resistance gene to ‘required work’ however is still carried by my parents and that resistance equated to both travel fortune and opportunism. Theirs now is a life of retired bliss created on the foundation of purchased time as credited from the Bank of Life. So, as unbelievably cool a son that I am, I hooked these old-timers up with a two month holiday and also threw in an all expenses, kick-arse four day excursion to one of the most loved destinations on the planet.  I give you these lines in order now to set the foundation as to what additionally was to play out in my mind after I created their itinerary.
 
In the early months of this year, sitting back one night  and contemplating my handy work at playing the role of ‘legendary family travel agent’, I had one of those lightning bolt thoughts where the alignment of stars brought on the phenomena  of  brilliant inspiration acquired through pangs of what I thought would inevitably be travel jealousy, that was  of course underpinned by the lead tenets of ‘crazy’ and ‘cool’.
Now ‘what if’, I thought, ‘what if whilst they were in Paris I flew in, all covert, cloak and dagger style, and met them at a five star Parisian restaurant that I had pre-booked for them? What if Henry…what if you managed to pull off that stunt without so much as a word to anyone?’, and thus the planning for who the hell saw that coming commenced in earnest.
Part two of this now breathtaking story has a lot to do with the entry details in  Riga - Latvian night moves. And whilst I have made a promise not to discuss in public what should really be kept private, I will mention that the idea of a first date,  four years removed from a random, innocuous meeting in a Rigan bar, that had me wandering the streets of the Old Town like a hapless, ill-fated nomad , somehow germinated within the midst of these two sentences;
Ms Pop – ‘You know, if you could fly into Europe, anywhere, I would be able to meet you there’
Crazy man – ‘What about Paris on the 18th of September, I’m there for the weekend’
Ms Pop  - No comments to be added, just refer to the line offered by Random work colleague as outlined earlier dialogue regarding the same escapade.
…And there it was, random events, bonding to form an epic atom of awesome. It was to be Paris like a Rockstar! It idea had now somehow been dreamt, all that was left was for the dream to be realised!!
ACTIVATE DREAM SEQUENCE >>>>