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: 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 2^nd 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

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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