Paris: Vivid dreams of colour in the brightest of black and white

Paris (France)
21 SEPTEMBER 2014

 

The open French windows of our apartment on Quai de Montebello allow our curtains to carelessly dance on the  gusts of wind entering our room, both teasing and provoking us as we dose in the early hours of this Parisian morning. That unmistakable scent of rain is intoxicating and energizing, it stimulates the senses, and its driving force, silvery grey curtains falling with purpose, blanketing this city, producing such a welcoming, soothing and calming sound, working as the perfect accomplice to a Sunday morning that has no enforced obligations. I slowly open my eyes and turn. Gazing out from my vantage point I can see the greyness of the sky, the grey leaves of the trees and the grey backdrop of Notre Dame, the historical cathedral standing imperiously on Ile de la Cite. The world to me at this moment seems to be vivid in black and white, a film noir, classic, evocative, unreal. Moments such as these you just can't script.

 

The morning hours pass with the same carelessness that you associate with a dream. Wonderful in its design but coloured by the lament caused by its own fiction. That however was the point where for today we had won, we had managed to trump the 'dream theatre'   by  creating a superior reality, the city of Paris playing the perfect supporting role. Thinking back now I can only ever remember those early hours of that Parisian morning in black and white, typifying the seductive atmosphere of that morning.

Mornings such as these have a knack of passing by all too quickly. In the blink of an eye we were standing out on the street, saying our goodbyes and wondering, I'm sure, when and where in this world we'd be seeing each other again. And even though now, typing this, I know the answer to that question, those sort of goodbyes are quite cruel in their design.

Some hours later my parents and I jumped on a train at Saint-Michel Notre Dame and headed up to Gare du Nord where we in turn bundled ourselves into a cab and made our way to Montmartre. It was the only time during our stay in Paris where the weather turned on us, rain occupying the best part of this Sunday morning as we were forced to negotiate the ever present crowds up on the butte. In all honesty, unlike other times in Montmatre, the crowds made it difficult to enjoy the morning. The little village was filled to the brim and perhaps I should have thought better of heading up there when I knew the crowds would be out in force.

Au de Gascogne - Montmatre - Paris - France

 



We made our way back to the Latin Quarter around mid-afternoon. My parents priming themselves for dinner at Jules Verne restaurant on the second floor of the Eiffel tower, and me, getting ready to head out into the Marais in order to steal a few evening cocktails and then pull up a chair at Chez Robert et Louise for another one of their famous meals, and yes, as always it was fantastic. A nice Bordeaux, boudin noir, entrecote and some salad. Its just such a treat, a place that always makes me happy for the food it serves up and its ambiance. It was the fourth occasion that I've had dinner there and I always seem to walk away in the same manner, happy, content and with a slight food induced daze.

 

Evening in the Marais - Paris - France

 

Afternoon on the Seine - Paris - France

 

Evening on the Seine - Paris - France

 

Evening on the Seine - Paris - France

My walk, or rather meanderings took me back down through the Marais and back down to Ille de Cite where I was able to watch the sun drop out of sight and leave its orange glow as its own reminder of the day. Boats drifted by carelessly, and my thoughts were equally as aimless. Seriously though, how many times in your life do you fly to Paris for a first date? Or how many times do you fly to Paris in order to simply surprise someone that expects you to be on the other side of the world? As I've said so many times in this blog, there are many times when I think of my travels, their outcomes and realise just how fortunate I've been. At times I even think that my 'luck' is due to turn at some point and that rolling the dice one too many times might just turn everything on its head, but I'm addicted, and as a travel addict I'm just going to have to deal with whatever punishment that fits my crime!

Making my way back to Rue de la Harpe I waited for my parents to make their way back from Jules Verne. Somewhere close to midnight they made their way back in, with alcohol inspired cheer and raving at what a magnificent evening they had. That was it, mission accomplished for me, now I was fully satisfied.

Hitting the streets of Paris once again I made my way slowly through the Latin Quarter, once again alone, once again living in my own thoughts but already thinking ahead as to where and when my next port of call would be. Only the night before Inga and I had been discussing a few months in South America in 2015, and writing now about what my thoughts were then, I'm happy to advise myself that I'll be spending  three months with Inga, in South America commencing in Buenos Aires on the 28th of March, 2015! So watch this space, 2015 is going to be an amazing year for both my own travels and the unravelling of an amazing storyline that commenced some four years ago.

 

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, 18^th 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 18^th 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!!

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