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Showing posts with label Rue Galande. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rue Galande. Show all posts

Friday, October 24, 2014

Paris: Conversations in the key of ascent

Paris (France)
19 SEP 2014

You know that buzz that inhabits your body the day after you’ve done something particularly cool, or that sense of satisfaction that you get from achieving a goal? That was me, at that very moment. I’d woken up mid- early morning to a very foreign, yellow hued glow coming from the streetlights along the Seine, cheekily breaking their way through the sheer window curtains of the apartment. Completely uninvited of course, but its Parisian light and the standard rules for courtesy don’t seem to apply here in the manner and style that they do elsewhere. I do however like these moments when in a foreign city.  Laying in silence and listening to the sound of a solitary vehicle making its way up Quai de Montebllo, I imagined it to be cutting through the early morning tug-a-war between synthetic light and shadow. I tuned in on both its arrival and departure from two floors above its transit line. It’s funny, but in eternal quiet you never really capture the solitude and isolation of what that silence actually means until it’s actually broken. It’s why I liked that particular moment, I was alone, ‘somewhere else’ in this world that wasn’t home, and to me that’s always an exciting prospect.

If both the lesson and achievement of day before was the execution of a surprise then today was going to be the realisation of my own piece of destiny.  To quote a saying that my mother often spruikes , ‘It’s not to whom it is said or written, but rather, to whom it is destined’.  Only now, looking back do I know that I was never going to obtain that ever elusive ticket to the World Cup final in Rio, nor was I ever going to have an afternoon in the sun-bathed vineyards of Saint-Émilion, even though the plans had been set, it appears that my destiny was always going to be act as Parisian tour guide for my parents and  to find myself on a somewhat impossible first date with a gorgeous girl that I’d met in Riga just the once 4 years ago. Some stories you just can’t create, not without the intervention of fate.
 
19 Quai de Montebello - sunlight breaking through - Latin Quarter - Paris - France

The lonely solemn streets of a Parisian dawn quickly turn into fervour, induced completely by the banal necessity of daily Parisian life. The intense noise of city streets in the morning  have the tendency to annoy me, well, annoy me when I’m still in a muted slumber. It’s the not due to the volume of noise either but rather its weight and intensity. The energy and earnestness, the urgency and eagerness, the implied anger and frustrations, somehow there’s a transference of that irritable energy to me and I always feel compelled to ditch my intentions and get moving.

Cutting through the backstreets of the Latin Quarter I fell back into my earlier mood of excitement and exhilaration. These backstreets  were still empty, yet to be tapped on the door by the streams of sunlight that had already cut across the continent from the far east.  Here, in these small hours, I could still own snapshots of this day that nobody else  in the world would ever see but me. That’s cool.
Something for me - Rue Galande - Latin Quarter - Paris - France
 
Coming to rest in the living room of #42 Rue de la Harpe, I stuck my head out the window and gazed at what I could only assume to be the typical Parisian setting in this part of town. French style architecture bounding small medieval type streets, filled with false French balconies that more often than not supported pots filled with colourful flowers. I just sat there for a few moments to appreciate to vista. Then I heard the laboured movements of my parents coming from their bedroom, attempting to stir themselves into daily existence.
 
Outlook from #42 Rue de la Harpe - Latin Quarter - Paris - France

The disbelief of the night before was still very much with us, along with the continued questioning of how I managed to pull off the stunt. Dad kept repeating that he was certain ‘Up until the last Skype conversation’ that I was on my way to Paris for an ‘intercept’, thankfully that conversation convinced him otherwise.
Black coffee, croissants and the smoke of my mums’ cigarettes filled the quaint Parisian apartment. I think it was one of those rare times when I could handle her cigarette smoke, and even considered it charming in the given setting. Enjoying the conversation of the morning I outlined our plans for the day, ‘Tour of the Eiffel tower in the morning, afternoon lunch, open top bus tour, then finally a dinner cruise on the Seine’. It sounded like full-time work from the start but something that I always get a lot of pleasure out of doing, which is, seeing the enjoyment and surprise in the faces of the people that I love when they discover a new place.
 
Parisian breakfast - Rue de la Harpe - Latin Quarter - Paris - France
 
Rue de la Harpe - Latin Quarter - Paris - France
 
Your 'breakfast cliche', brought to you by Paris - France
 
As our taxi cut through the mid-morning fracas of traffic on Quai Voltaire and turned left onto Pont de la Concorde I could see that  there was visible disbelief in the faces of my parents. Disbelief from the fact that they were actually in Paris and disbelief that I was undertaking such a mundane task of catching a cab with them, in Paris too! In their minds I was still back in Sydney doing ‘who knows what’, and yet here I was, occupying one of the jump seats just as the cab pulled up to the Palais de Chaillot which overlooks the Jardins du Trocadero.

On its own the gardens of the Trocadero are impressive in their grandeur but the ‘oohs’ and ‘ahs’ that you hear from the top of the stairs of the Trocadero are always reserved for the centrepiece of the French capital, the Eiffel tower.
Mum and dad at the Palais de Chaillot - Paris - France
 
The Eiffel Tower taken from above the Jardins du Trocadero - Paris - France
 
Eiffel tower - Paris - France
 
As iconic as a building can be I would challenge anyone to name a structure that identifies a city and country more readily than the tower. All of its impressive 301mtrs of stature can be viewed from the steps of the Palais de Chaillot, apparently a fair rarity in this city. It’s a funny thing, but after seeing their reaction and remembering my own when I first saw the Eiffel tower, I recall that I only truly realised that I was in Paris after I had seen the tower with my own eyes. So to say that the Eiffel tower ‘is’ Paris would not be any sort of grand overstatement.
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After finding our tour guide only at the very last moment we all made our way down through the Jardins du Trocadero and to the base of the structure. Now it was time for a dose of reality. Whereas standing from afar and appreciating the tower can be lesson in awe, the crowds of hungry tourists waiting for their own piece of Eiffel can be a lesson in ‘necessary patience’. From ground to level 2, from level 2 to summit, your space is constantly occupied by ‘unwanted’ clients who may have more vigour and purpose in their ascent than you. Still, this is Paris, and this is what you do ‘ the first time around’. So when we all reached the summit and cast our eyes on what really is a grand city, we allowed ourselves to indulge in three ‘chilled glasses of cliché’ and appreciated the over-priced champagne at the none-too creatively named Bar a champagne that occupied the rooftop of Paris. Still, it will always be one of those fond moments that will be easily retrievable from the memory banks.
Champ de Mars from the Eiffel Tower
'Tower shadows' - Paris - France
 
'Smile for the cliche' - Champagne at 'Bar a Champagne' - Eiffel Tower summit - Paris - France
 
Looking down the Seine from the summit of the Eiffel Tower
 
Our afternoon was spent back in the heart of the Latin Quarter where we pulled up a few chairs for a late afternoon lunch at a fairly typical bistro. I was still hoping also that Air France was going to ‘express courier’ my lost luggage in the afternoon and wanted to be within striking distance should they have considered it time to do work that afternoon, of course I need not have bothered! My luggage wasn’t delivered until 2:30AM on the morning that I was scheduled to leave. An absolutely pathetic performance from Air France from start to finish! Devoid of customer service, completely shambolic in both their approach and treatment of me, it was the worst dealing I’ve had with an airline in all my time travelling.
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As another glorious Parisian day started to wind down and those familiar sunburnt hues started to occupy the rooftops of the buildings in the Latin Quarter once again, I sat in front of the large French windows that provided a wonderful outlook over the Seine, directly in front of Notre Dame and the Place Jean-Paul II,  within touching distance of ‘point zero des routes France’, in other words the ‘official centre of Paris’. I marvelled just quietly at how lucky I’d been with the weather thus far. Checking ALL forecasts prior to arrival I had anticipated the worst that Paris could offer with cloud, rain and heavy thunderstorms projected for ALL days. Here I was, nearing the end of my second full day and already I had had several randoms comment to me how unseasonably warm and spectacular the weather was. Indeed, if I could have placed through my own request to Mother Nature asking for the days that we actually ended up receiving then I’m sure the trade-off would have required the sale of a kidney.
As the lights of Paris started to take hold, all three of us were picked up on Rue de la Harpe for our Seine dinner cruise on the Bateux Parisiens. This was to be an absolutely wonderful 3-4hr boat cruise which gave us the chance to view some of the highlights of Paris along the Seine, with a more than adequate four course meal and champagne/wine to  place us in exactly the right type of mood. Making its way effortlessly up the left bank, the remaining sunlight relinquished its authority of the day and gave in to the artificial light of the night that admittedly was even more impressive. Gazing out from our glass cacoon we witnessed the grand sights of Paris silently move through our frame of vision, a kaleidoscope of colour on the water. Ducking under more than a hatful of the total 32 bridges that span the Seine, by the time we had reached Notre Dame my mind had fully started to occupy the space of that I was dedicating to where I would be at midnight, because as you know, all great first dates commence in Paris at midnight! (Of course ;)).I looked up to the apartment that I had left earlier in the afternoon and knew that by now she had arrived, now I just has that internal urgency to be there right at this moment. I wasn’t at all nervous however, just extremely excited.
 
Bateux Parisians - On the Seine - Paris - France
 
Bateux Parisians - On the Seine - Paris - France
 
Bateux Parisians - On the Seine - Paris - France
 
Bateux Parisians - On the Seine - Paris - France
 
An hour or two later we rounded Ile aux Cygnes after having our ‘cup runneth over’ with spectacular views of the tower lit up at night. It really is a sight to behold, although you definitely have the tendency of taking more photos than are really necessary. By the time we docked and were underway through the Parisian night my head was already trying to picture a moment, a face, an instant that I (we) had now been in the planning for 6 months, all the while, attempting to retrieve images of an evening in Riga that occurred 4yrs ago. So by the time I took the walk from Rue de la Harpe to Quai de Montebello I was ready, buzzing internally.
Bateux Parisians - On the Seine - Paris - France
The Eiffel Tower from the Seine
The Eiffel Tower from the Seine
Making it to street level at 19 Quai de Montebello I entered in the two pin numbers that gave me access to the building and made my way up to the 2nd floor, heart pounding just a little more frequently. Reaching for the keys and turning the door, I saw that lights had been dimmed, and there she was, sitting against the window with the lights of Notre Dame illuminating her frame and acting as her backdrop.

I looked at her...

…and she smiled