"I could be a movie star if I could get out of this place," groans Billy Joel as his voice blares through the headphones.
Gosh, it has only been 20 minutes on the Eurostar and I really wish this journey will end soon. Sitting backwards, sharing space with three squabbling English sisters is not making this journey a breeze either. Yes, I am troublesome like that.
I'm reading 'Still Alice' and the words are slowly melting together. Gosh. So many distractions.
The past 4 days in Paris had been brilliant. Tiring but definitely brilliant, probably because I had such a low expectation of Paris in the first place. As my initial plan was to visit Suet Fun, the pastry student at Ferrandi, I did not have many other plans. Not that I love plans anyway. But when the parents expressed their desire to come along, of course plans of having no plans had to change. Anyway...thank God for the Paris Pass.
Bjork's 'Play Dead' is on. Great. The siblings' mother has just come over and more yakking is happening, but now, it's in Italian, or Dutch. Okay whatever I don't care. Just shush.
Back to Paris.
Sunday saw us ambling past French customs at the unearthly hour of 7 in the morning. Everything was smooth and we were out by 7.30. That was unexpected cause I have heard really bad stuff about the service at Charles de Gaulle airport. A driver was waiting for us and soon we were whisked off to Paris and reached our accommodation at 8.20am. Too early. We were only expected at 9.30am. Anyway, settling issues aside, we finally got ready to hit the Paris rue around 10.
Day 1: The first thing we did was to take the hop-on, hop-off bus (Big Bus) just so that we could get our bearings and to get our tourist freak on. I was actually in awe. That's good, right? For someone quite jaded with city life, I was actually really in awe. Paris was indeed beautiful like a painting.
After freezing our faces off on the bus, we alighted at the Eiffel Tour stop.
We only took the lift halfway for the summit was close, probably the crowd quota had been fulfilled. Not a biggie. Halfway was still high enough and the bloody wind did not add on to much regret anyway.
Got back around 5ish. Tired, plus I was meeting Suet Fun around 6 to pass her the stuff I brought from Singapore. We went to a cafe to catch up and by 8pm Sunday, I unceremoniously passed out without changing clothes only to wake up at 3am in a state of panic because the plan for next day was not done.
Day 2: So we decided it was the day for the Lourve Museum. Thanks to the Paris Pass, we did not have to queue for long.
Lourve was overwhelming not just for me but doubly so for my parents. Where to look, where to start. The father, being one who was not familiar with art (for he's just a plebeian like you and me) was warned many times by the curators not to teach the sculptures. Tsk.
We spent three hours at the Louvre. After finding the Mona Lisa, I could not stomach anymore art. So we got out and made our way to a place where we, the Singapore gypsies, hippies and bohemians (ahem!), could fit in. We went to see the Moulin Rouge at glorious Montmarte.
Montmarte was beautiful. I was in love. Oh my, I could spend the rest of my life here. Of course whenever a Singaporean says this about a certain place, it simply means the place is a tourist trap. Hahaha. Oh well. It's beautiful and artistic nevertheless. We took the mini train which brought us up to the top of Montmarte where Sacre Coeur stood and spent about an hour plus gallivanting around the area.
C'est magnifique. I'm in love and that's a very rare feeling for me, okay.
Montmarte was not the last stop. We headed to Montparnasse after that, one of the tallest buildings in Paris, to get a full 360-degree view of the whole of Paris.
Headed home after that, but not before stopping at Carrefour downstairs. The mother prepared spaghetti for dinner but unfortunately, I passed out before dinner was even ready. Man, the jetlag was killing me.
Day 3: The plan today was to go to the Orsay Museum, Notre Dame and then a cruise down the river Seine. But at the train station, plans got thwarted and we headed to Versailles instead.
Versailles was huge. Don't even get me started on the garden. It was almost obscene to dedicate such vast land to nothingness. Yes, I'm a Singaporean. We are used to fighting for space, okay?
The Versailles palace was definitely breath-taking. The opulent chambers, the grand paintings, the ornate cornice... were really stuff drawn out of a fairy tale (well...you can say they were). We spent about two hours in there and by the time we hit the garden, we were all shagged out of our skulls. Thank God there was the mini train which could bring us all around the garden. It was 7.50 euro but damn, we would take it.
We slowly left Versailles around 3.30pm and made our way to the Notre Dame Cathedral. I knew about this gothic cathedral, thanks to Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Always wanted to see the gargoyles but I guess, at 4.30pm, in the blistering sun, those gargoyles just looked like angry, malnourished cats.
We hung out on the grounds of the cathedral for a while before making our way to Pont de Art, the bridge that had thousands of locks. The sister and the niece wanted to place a lock on the bridge, for whatever commitment issue they had in their lives. I pooh-poohed the idea, of course, for I was never the romantic when it came to this. I did not understand the logic. Plus, the locks were such an eyesore to an otherwise beautiful landscape. Ah, whatever you deem fit, I guess.
We were making our way to the metro when the mother saw Shakespeare & Company book store. Without much hesitation, we crossed the street to visit the quaint book store. Best decision of my life for I had discovered my most favourite place in Paris. Yes, I'm a geek like that. I bought a couple of Hemingways and Huxley's A Brave New World, all received the store stamp on its imprint page, and I received a free tote bag. Ah, my life was complete...
...so was my spending days. I just broke my last 50 euro and was now left with 10. Any purchase after would have been funded by the father. (Don't judge. We had an agreement. I paid for everything else prior to getting to Paris).
We headed to the Eiffel grounds again and took a river cruise at 8pm, just in time to see the light show on the steel structure. The cruise, though comfortable and informative, was marred by the cold night wind. Still, we would not have missed it for the world.
Stopped by a kebab place downstairs before heading home with takeouts. I did not manage to eat them for dinner cause...yes...I passed out. At 10.30pm, it was way past my bedtime.
Day 4: The parents and the sister decided to call in 'sick' and stayed home so the niece and I headed to Palais Opera for our free guided tour at 11.30am.
Unfortunately when we reached at 11.20am, we were told that the tour group was full and should we still want to go on the tour, we could only join the 2.30pm tour. Ah...screw it, we said, and we headed to Orsay Museum but not before being victims of a botched pickpocket attempt.
This happened at Opera subway (should be..I forgot) as we were making our way to Rer C. A man came close and I could feel him coming close. I thought I kept a distance but apparently the distance was not far enough. Fortunately the niece turned around and saw the man trying to untie my bag. He saw her and panicked, and began to ramble for directions instead. I did not know any better and actually gave him directions. Bloody motherfucker. Thank God he did not take any valuables -- my purse and passport were in the side compartment. Still, thank God for my niece who managed to see it just in time. Otherwise, my bag of sanitary pads would have been gone.
We reached Orsay Museum a bit flustered and paranoid from the incident. But we were slightly soothed after seeing the van Gogh's masterpieces. Orsay was a laidback place. No rush and not too overwhelming. It was not crowded and the size of the former railway station was just nice. Manageable. After analysing the work of Toulouse-Lautrec, we hung outside the museum to eat our kebabs and reflect on the pickpocketing incident.
We walked to the Lourve from Orsay, stopping for a while at the Tuileries to see people having picnics on the garden. At the Lourve, we took the metro to the Arc de Triomphe, where we climbed almost 300 steps up the spiral staircase to see the view. Felt my lungs almost burst. Yes...we need to exercise more.
The niece and I stopped at the cafe near home because she wanted a French cafe experience. Stopped for hot chocolate, fries and a grilled cheese sandwich before going home. Suet Fun came over not long after (6.30pm) for dinner -- halibut curry, stirfry mushroom and broccoli, squid in some stew and prawn omelette. By 8.30pm, you guess it, I passed out.
Back to Day 5, the present. Johnny Cash is crooning about a ring of fire and one of the squabbling sisters sitting on front of me is fast asleep. My legs are getting numb for there's ironically not enough leg room for my short legs. 30 mins more to reaching London's St Pancras station and from there, we have to find our way to Bayswater station, where Nora will be meeting us.
Nora is a former colleague at MediaCorp. She is now staying in London with her family for her husband has been posted here for work. Anyway, I have with me some Milo and instant teh tarik for her and she is bringing us to the Malaysian food hall for lunch. What follows after, maybe a hop-on, hop-off bus around London before catching the Eurostar at 6pm.
Okay.
Back to reading.
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