Paris: 'You're not normal!'

Paris (France)

17 SEP - 18 SEP 2014

 

I was lambasted, harangued, taunted and humiliated for even considering to wear a pocket chief with my trusty black blazer and resplendent jeans, let alone allowing to convince myself that I could execute the fashion feet, which in turn meant that I had directly placed myself in the firing line of whatever this now unforgiving audience could conjure up. In hindsight it was over the top but I had allowed myself a small indulgence of Parisian couture ahead of my midday escape. Hence I honourably endured the well-mannered taunts of work colleagues that had collectively changed the pronunciation of my name to ‘Henri’ for the entirety of the meeting. There are, admittedly, far less unpleasant things than sitting in a team meeting, looking out over Sydney harbour to north head and accepting the good natured jibes of your co-workers for concocting one of the coolest surprises going around town at the moment. Well, it was going to be the coolest surprise in this town only until  about midday really, as I mentioned, I had a 3pm flight out of Sydney and into Paris via Abu Dhabi and Amsterdam in order to execute my incomprehensible, and lets say it, ‘enigmatic’ surprise. And hence I  continued to stare, with eyes slightly glazed, focusing on the path of a Manly ferry as it progressed from Vaucluse to Circular Quay, cutting through the deep harbour blue, and thinking to myself, this was going to be legendary!

 

 

Meeting room view - 'Say what you want guys, I'm focused elsewhere' - Federal Courts of Australia - Queens Square - Sydney

 

View from my desk, it's 'ok' - Federal Courts of Australia - Queens Square - Sydney

 

This idea was the resultant distillate from the essence of several other trips that I had been in the midst of planning in earlier months whose own identity and life I regretfully had to relinquish due to the onset of reality, i.e., a full time job with little or no scope for leave in its first few weeks! How can you not give a new starter in a role leave immediately? Especially when the reason for leave was to go to the Football World Cup!? I mean seriously, where’s the compassion? Where’s the justice? Who’s running this Federal Court of ours?

Plans were felled, ruthlessly chopped down by the brute force of reality. Reality then lent its own requirements to my mind whereby I was finally able to construct an awesome holiday from the ruins of all those that went before, with one simple catch, I would not be involved in the execution of any of those plans, as in, the next holiday benefit would have to be paid forward to some lucky recipient! The actual benefit to me therefore? Good question…the benefit to me was allowing to place myself into the role of travel agent for my parents and to send them to places that they would never have arranged for themselves and never have dreamed possible, for various reasons. One of those destinations was to be the City of Lights, Paris.

Planning trips on behalf of other people for me is easy. It usually starts with one great idea. On this occasion it was this, ‘They have to have dinner at Jules Verne’. For those that don’t know, Jules Verne is a Michelin start awarded restaurant located on the 2^nd floor of the Eiffel Tower. It’s somewhere that I’ve always wanted to go and it was the first thing that came to mind when constructing the ‘epic Parisian’ four day get away for them.

Inspired by the thought of dinner at Jules Verne I then crafted an itinerary like a feverish Ebola victim, manic, careless, brutally unkind to my own well-being (financially), I settled upon the following plan. Let me roll it out for you now, because I know it like the back of my hand;

Thursday 18^th of September - Depart Belgrade 06:00 – Arrive: Paris 09:15 – Airport pick-up and drive to the apartment on Rue de La Harpe in the Latin Quarter – (afternoon at leisure) – (evening – dinner at Le Restaurant @ Le Hotel)

Friday 19^th of September – (Morning – tour of the Eiffel Tower), (afternoon – Bus tour of Paris), (evening – Seine dinner/river cruise)

Saturday 20^th of September – (morning – Louvre museum tour), (afternoon at leisure), (evening – Moulin Rouge dinner/show)

Sunday 21^st of September  - (morning – walk of Montmartre), (afternoon at leisure), (evening – dinner at Jules Verne restaurant)

Monday 22^nd of September – Depart: Paris 10:10am – Arrive: Belgrade: 12:35am

The itinerary was crafted in my mind over weeks, figuring out how many iconic places and sights I could cram into the four day period, each time wondering ‘What could I do that tops that?’, ‘What would  they really remember?’… then that last question somehow stuck with me, ‘What WOULD they really REMEMBER?…’. All these places and sights were great but I know in myself it’s the placing of a fantastic, unexpected moment in a specific location that makes that moment truly unforgettable, and then I had my inspired moment, what if, without telling them, I flew to Paris whilst they were there and perhaps ‘casually’ ran into them somewhere…actually,what if, knowing their itinerary I just ‘happened’ to stroll on in whilst they were having dinner at one of the venues I had organised for them!?  What kind of freakin’ surprise would that be!? There would be no way in hell that they would see that coming!! Now that’s the type of idea that deserves to earn the title of being capital of the land of EPIC! The idea then planted itself so firmly in my mind that from the moment I thought it that until when it happened there was not one single second when I thought of  changing it, or of doing something different or forgetting about it, it was ON!

As I sat on a shiny plain white table near departure gate #18 at Sydneys’ Charles Kingford Smith airport, looking onto the main runway, I thought of all the various components that went into planning this jaunt, but mostly I thought of the complete looks of dismay that I was going to inevitably receive from pulling off a stunt of this magnitude. Sitting there in my own headspace and mulling  it over for a little while I heard the boarding call for Flight KL3937 to Abu Dhabi.  I looked at my newly acquired mate ‘Oz’ who’d also taken up residence with me on this glossy table and thought ‘Ok, now it’s definitely on…lets go and do this’!!!

12 kms above the Indian Ocean - Etihad flight to Abu Dhabi

Etihad flight to Abu Dhabi

 The flight to Paris was relatively uneventful, with stops in Abu Dhabi and Amsterdam. It was only when I arrived in Paris that the trouble that I intuitively felt was coming with several luggage handovers actually eventuated. There in the arrivals hall was my name, printed in dark blue on the electronic boards, HENRY ELISHER – KL1229 -  AMSTERDAM – TO BAGGAGE SERVICES. Ahhhh DAMN IT!!!! I knew what that meant! I knew before departing  Sydney that this was going to happen, so confident was I of this scenario that I actually tried to negate the issue by ONLY having carry-on luggage! The problem with that plan however was that my carry-on luggage came in a few kilos overweight and I  therefore had to check it in. I remember in Sydney, watching my back track away down the conveyer belt thinking, ‘I hope we meet again’, and yet here I was nearly 24hrs later, at Charles de Gaulle airport, standing in queue at Baggage Services, waiting for the inevitable news that some bright spark baggage handlers in Amsterdam had hit the ‘wacky tobacky cafes’ pretty hard the night before and had sent my bag on a cargo flight to Nigeria. Expected time of return, NEVER!!

 

Home of KLM - Schipol Airport - Amsterdam - Netherlands

 

Now this is how you get to a first date, you fly in - Schipol Airport - Amsterdam - Netherlands

 

Now to deal with the hassles of having no luggage. Actually, more like the hassles of having to deal with a first date in Paris with no luggage, no toiletries, no anything! I did still however have my trusty Boss suit in tow, at least that was something of a suitable default. Now  my head was filling with disjointed thoughts of newly formed requirements  drawn from this base of small misfortune, thoughts such as ‘damn, need to buy a new phone charger asap’ and ‘what’s my signature scent going to be now???’, making appearances in my head as I sped south on the RER from CDG to my stop of St.Michel/Notre Dame. Usually, may I say, situations such as these this irritate the living daylights out of me, but I’m not sure whether it’s my more ‘mature’ age or whether it was the situation as a whole, but mostly the issue of my lost bag was met with an internal ‘c’est la vie’. I was in Paris now and I had some big days planned no matter what.

Exiting at  St.Michel/Notre Dame station I surfaced in the heart of the Latin Quarter and immediately I remembered why I love Paris so much. There’s such a charm, elegance and sophistication that you can’t find anywhere else. It’s the epitome of what ‘being European’ is but in a distinctly French way, and therefore for me it’s a city that I am very much fond of. Making my way down to Quai de Montebello on a magnificently bright, warm day, I saw Notre Dame come into view as I crossed the square Rene Viviani, reminding myself of scenes out of the move Before Sunset where the main characters, Jesse & Celine walk the same road up from Shakespeares’ bookstore in the opening scenes.

 

Notre Dame from square Rene Viviani - Paris - France

 

Notre Dame - Paris - France

 

My home for the next few days was to be an open and bright apartment on Quai de Montebello which had an unbeatable aspect straight over the Seine and onto Notre Dame, yeah I though, this is  working for me…this is alright. The sun just appeared to be that much brighter today and given that the forecast for these days in Paris had provided the forlorn hope of ‘rain, cloud, late thunderstorms’ for each day, then this sunshine seemed to me to be the justified trade-off for my bag remaining in perpetual transit.

 

View from the apartment - 19 Quai de Montebello - Paris - France

 

My early afternoon was fairly mundane to be fair. Running around to locate an iPhone charger at an FNAC near Chatellete/Le Halles, undertaking toiletry shopping in the Latin Quarter and acquiring a bottle of red wine along with the consumption of a red wine chaser on the Rue Saint-Jacques. It was all very grounding, setting the scene for what would eventually be the coupe de grace at Le Restaurant that evening.

The decision of having dinner at the restaurant of L’Hotel was made in part by recommendations from Tripadvisor and part from the memories I had of watching one of my first ‘No Reservations’ shows on the travel channel. Actually, it was from the same show that the wonderful world of Chez Robert et Louise was brought to my attention also, the restaurant that currently owns the title of ‘…What Henry Elishers’ last meal would be..if ever he was required to have a last meal because he ended up on death row for being overtly stupid’.

As the late afternoon sun lit the rooftops of the French capital and they were soaked in their various burnt orange afternoon hues, I left the apartment, suited, booted and donning a pair of newly acquired Ray Bans, I felt uncharacteristically cool. I mean how many times do you fly across the world, get dressed up and walk into a restaurant with the notion of surprising someone in this manner? If your answer to that question was zero, then you’re wrong, you get one chance, and that’s why with this one chance I wanted to make sure that I got as close to perfect as possible

Walking into L’Hotel I felt enlivened, this moment was going to make a bold entry into the ‘memory charts’ and knock a few of the favourites by the wayside. By the time I had walked from the apartment to the hotel I had given myself about 30 mins of certain space prior to their arrival. My game plan was to wait at an open and visible table in the L’Hotel bar, which in fact you had to pass through to get to the restaurant in any case, and just watch the realisation of what was happening hit them squarely in the face like a sledgehammer. I ordered up a St.Germain sour from the bar,  took my seat ringside and waited for the show to commence, all the while fielding texts from all over the world wanting to be provided with a blow by blow account of what was happening. I think half the time I spent in the bar was replying to texts message of people that were nearly as eager as was I was to find out how this would play out!

Le Bar @ L'Hotel - doesn't it just sound better in French!? If you said 'The Bar at The Hotel' in English you would sound like a tool! - Paris - France

 

Waiting for impact with a St.Germain Sour - Le Bar @ L'Hotel - 13 Rue de Beaux Artes - St.Germain -  Paris - France

 

As the minutes ticked down and passed into overtime my brain started to play tricks on me. I questioned whether I had the right date, the correct address, whether they may have had any reason to have cancelled this dinner. I had well and truly rounded my second St.Germain sour and had set my sights upon a third when I saw the familiar style of movement of my parents as they entered the bar. No we were close, the moment of impact was nigh! When I say style of movement I mean that I recognise how these guys move when they enter an unknown place, there always appears to be an air of confusion, turning around, looking for seats, pointing at vacant tables, it’s always a production of indecision and hesitation. I knew this would happen. Which is exactly why I had selected a table that could be easily seen. I also knew that they wouldn’t ‘see’ me as such, that even if they saw a person sitting at a table their brain would not comprehend that it was me in this distinctly unfamiliar location. It was in those few seconds of their confusion that I realised just how cool an experience this was, and as my mum spun on her heal looking for a vacant seat she turned in my general direction;
‘You can join me if you’d like’ – saying it to the both of them as they constructed their dance of disorientation.

As my mum picked up on a familiar voice and looked straight at me I pointed at the two vacant seats at my table and said again;

‘Sit here if you’d like’

I saw her facial expression change and then I saw it, the realisation of what was going on just hit home and now this was the instant that I had planned months for!

Looking squarely at me she just repeated ‘You’re not normal, you’re just not normal’.

My dad, being a second or two behind the game connected fully and just started shaking his head, ‘Unbelievable…unbelievable…but you know what, I knew it, I knew that you might do something like this. I even said it to Tanja and Vladimir the other night…’

 

'...You're not normal Henry'...'I know :)' - The 'gotcha' face - Le Bar @ L'Hotel - Paris - France

 

Gotcha too! Dad just before he told us that he 'knew something was fishy' - Le Bar @ L'Hotel - Paris - France

 

I just laughed out aloud, not in that fake ‘lol’ sense but in the actual, laughing out loud’ sense. Their reactions, but more so their expressions were absolutely priceless.  Then came the inevitable 101 questions on how long I’d been planning this? How did it come into my head ? Why they were running late? How long had I been waiting? What was the weather like in Sydney? What was the weather like anywhere…?? But just those reactions and that conversation made it all worth the effort that I’d put in over the months prior to that.

The dinner at Le Restaurant was fantastic! A wonderful 7 course meal organised by the chef with wines to accompany every 2 courses.  All of us now, running on that excitement high probably chatted too loudly and a little over animatedly regarding what had just transpired but in all honesty we didn’t care. For me it was one of just one of those times when you can just sit back, enjoy the moment and say to yourself, ‘Well played sir, well played’.

The 3-4 hours that we spent at Le Restaurant came and went all too quickly. The setting itself was charming and elegant without being pretentious, and whole moment was as close as I could have imagined it being to the one that I had planned out in my minds’ eye all that time ago.

 

Dinner at Le Restaurant - L'Hotel - 13 Rue de Beaux Artes - St.Germain - Paris - France

As the evening wound to a close and with several glasses of wine massaging our mindsets, we stepped out of Le Restaurant onto Rue de Beaux Artes and the unfamiliar streets of Paris. Piling into a cab we took the short ride back to Rue de la Harpe, watching the changing colours of the neon night as we sailed through St.Germain and into the Latin Quarter, all three of us sedately quiet, taking in our own impressions and processing all that had gone before.

Entering their apartment on Rue de la Harpe we just sat and chatted for a while, discussing the logistics of what and how I had organised things, and listened to dad as he again repeated his ‘premonition’.  It was a night for making bright and fantastic memories, and how fortunate that the City of Lights should lend us her backdrop to utilise as we pleased for one evening.

 

Apartment view from parents place - 42 Rue de la Harpe - Latin Quarter - Paris - Frane

As I left their apartment and walked the few mins back to mine on Quai de Montebello I felt extremely fortunate. Not many people get a chance to do this let alone think about doing it. This now was something I was going to carry with me always, and whether I’m normal or not, something which shouldn’t be debated (because I’m not), the final result was the three smiles and three separate memories that this idea created, and that’s alright with me.

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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