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Published: November 1st 2013
This was the start of my 7 week stay in France and the beginning of the end of my 22 month trip.
I took the train that connects London and Paris and arrived at the "Gare du Nord" at around 1pm, after the train was one hour late late due to railway works.
First "culture shock": it wasn't my first time in France, but I had really gotten used to speaking everywhere in English, so when I had to dig up my very basic French to ask even the simplest of things, I really struggled at first.
I knew where I had to go, but not really how to get there. I managed to ask a security guard at the station where I had to go to take a métro that would take me to "Couronnes". As it was a Saturday, the ticket offices were closed and I had to manage to buy a ticket at a vending machine.
From the Gare du Nord I got on the métro to the Couronnes station where I was to meet my Parisian host, Marie Akrour. And before I go on, here's another one of my
"
6 Degrees of Separation" stories:
While I was
working in Port Douglas as a dive instructor, one of the days I had a French guy who I took on a first dive (
Discover Scuba Diving program). His name's Laurent Humbert and he was very enthusiastic about the whole experience and at the end of the day while going back to Port Douglas we started talking. It turned out that he was also a
Couchsurfer and at that moment he was also doing a Working Holiday visa in Australia; mainly traveling around and writing his experiences in his blog (
Trippin' Australia). After that we stayed in touch.
Just before I left Australia I went to
Tasmania. In Tasmania I stayed with A Chilean Couchsurfer, Paulina Illanes and her boyfriend Stefan. During a Saturday they organized a Couchsurfing meeting in which there were about 20 people. There was a Tasmanian guy, Bruce Harwood and an American, Kurt Williams who by coincidence also knew Laurent. Bruce had hosted Laurent for over a month in Tasmania and Kurt had traveled with him in Western Australia for a few weeks. So the 3 of us took a photo together and sent it to Laurent.
Anyway, back to the story. I
had told Laurent that I was going to be in Paris so we could meet up. He then (without me knowing) started asking around if there was someone that could host me. And then Marie stepped up and said she could. So I arrived in Paris to stay at the house of a friend of an acquaintance I had met one day in Australia.
Marie works for an advertisement agency and at the time I stayed there she had a lot going on and was switching jobs as well,
so here's a big thank you to her.
It wasn't hard to find Marie's flat, as it was very close to the station. That evening Marie had plans of her own so I went out to meet up with Laurent. He told me to meet him in an area called
Pigalle. This Parisian Quartier hasn't had the best reputation in the last decades, but nowadays is a popular place to go out for drinks and for dining out as well.
It was over a year since I had last seen him so there was a lot of catching up to do. At the moment
all he wants to do is go back to Australia for another "Working Holiday" year. His blog has been pretty successful in France (because it's mainly focused in French that want to go to Australia for the W&H year) and he's organizing meetings where he gets people that have already been there and people that want to go.
After having a few beers in a bar, we went to have dinner. Laurent lives outside of Paris, so he had to leave not too late to take the train and be able get back home. But we made plans to meet some other time as well.
That night I was already pretty tired, but there was an annual event going in the city which I had never heard about: "
La Nuit Blanche". It's sort of an arts related event that goes on for most part of the night with shows and performances in the streets and a lot of museums and galleries that open especially that night. Needless to say the streets were full of people. I did some walking around until about midnight, but by then I was dead tired and took the métro to get back to
Couronnes.
The next day I went with Marie to have brunch near the "Les Halles" métro station. Brunch as Marie told me is a very popular thing to do on a Sunday morning in Paris. We met with another friend of hers that also works in advertising. It was a fun lunch and we definitely got our money's worth with the food (and up to this point I was glad to still be able to be speaking in English and not struggling with French, as all the people I had met so far spoke English quite well).
After brunch I stayed in the city to do some walking around. I was in a very central place so I took the time to walk around the River Seine. That day was the first Sunday of the month and all the museums were opened for free. I tried to go to the Museum D'Orly, but the queue was too long and I didn't make it before closing time.
Anyway I had a very pleasant walk along both banks of the river; starting near at the Ile Saint-Louis and all the way to the Eiffel Tower and then
going back on the north bank until The Louvre and then back to the flat.
Along the south bank I wanted to see the "
Pont des Arts" which is one of the bridges in Paris where a few years ago began the trend for couples to leave padlocks with their names.
The last time I was in Paris (2006) I walked along this same bridge and this trend hadn't still become popular.
On Monday I didn't do much during the day, but in the evening Marie took me to a place which was very close to her flat. If you don't know a local who knows about this particular place, chances are you're not going to find it. It's a pretty new place called
Le Perchoir and it has become very trendy It's one of the cool things about staying with someone that knows the city. It's on a side street in a building next to a pool bar. There are no signs outside it either. You go into a building, get on an elevator and you're there (I think it was on the 6th or 7th floor).
The only place of this sort I've been to before is the "Casa Granada" in Madrid about 7 years ago (it took me about 4 days to find it even though I was staying in a hostel just a couple of blocks from it).
Le Perchoir is a restaurant that has a rooftop bar and especially on a day like the one we had, the sunsets over the city are really nice. The place is also not open everyday (apparently it opens and closes at the owners' discretion), so you go with the chance of finding it closed. We tried the mojitos and the pisco sours which were quite good. The place is a bit pricey, but it's well worth the trouble to get there.
After having a few drinks there, Marie made a superb dinner at her flat. She wanted to do a typical French dinner and it was a complete 3 course meal with entree, main and dessert. Plus wine and a good coffee. She's a really good cook and it was one of the best dinners I've had during my trip;
she was a really preoccupied and overall excellent host.
On Tuesday Marie asked me if I wanted to meet her for lunch on her lunch break, to which
I agreed and she told me to be at the office at 1pm.
In the morning I went to visit the
Pére Lachaise Cemetery, mainly because I wanted to visit the grave of
Jim Morrison. In that cemetery there are a lot of famous people buried, among musicians, writers, etc. The link I put up is quite good and has a list of the "celebrities" buried there.
It was only a 15 minute walk from Marie's place. The cemetery is pretty big and interesting to walk around the mausoleums and look around for the graves of "famous people".
I managed to visit Chopin's grave before arriving at the cemetery's greatest attraction: Jim Morrison's grave. I'm a big "Doors" fan so it was great seeing the grave of such an influential contemporary musician. I also wanted to see Edith Piaf's grave, but I ran out of time as I had to meet Marie for lunch.
I took the train to the "Pont de Levallois" station, the last station of the Line 3 of "Le Métropolitain". Her office was near there and after meeting her we went to a place nearby to have lunch. This area is full of office buildings
so at that time there were a lot of people around on their lunch brakes. We had
crepes for lunch. Well, technically, first a "galette" (unsweetened crepe) and a crepe for dessert (sweet). All with some wine. And after that Marie took me to her office and showed me around her workplace and we had a quick coffee there before I had to leave. The office she works for manages the advertising accounts for Hyundai and Kia motors.
In the afternoon I went to Montmartre and stayed walking in the area for several hours (I really like that area). First I went uphill to the Sacre Coeur Basilica which is always interesting because there's a lot of people walking around (tourists and locals). And then from the Basilica I walked around the top of the hill which is very touristy. There are numerous cafes, street performers, markets, etc. It's a great place to just wander around.
Then I continued downhill until I got to the Moulin Rouge and then continued walking down to the "Place de la Concorde" where I took the métro back to the flat.
On Thursday I didn't do much
during the day. In the evening Marie invited me to go to an "after office party". There was some sort of dress code to be able to go in the club (for which I was totally unprepared). As I've been backpacking I've opted to avoid all places that might have a dress code. Still I managed to pull something "decent" out of the backpack and I was "borderline presentable" according to Marie. She told me it should be fine as I would be going in with her and another friend of hers (going in with two girls to a club usually does the trick anywhere in the world and dress codes can be overseen).
The place is called "Le Madam Club" and we also met with Laurent there. The entry fee included a buffet dinner and free champagne until a certain hour.
We spent several hours, the music was pretty good and we stayed there until around 11. But the girls had to leave early and so Laurent and I went to have a few last beers in a place close to the Champs-Élysées and then called it a night.
Thanks for everything Laurent and see you again when I'm back in Paris, mate!
On Friday I took it very easy and only went out in the afternoon to meet up with a French couple, Xavier and Vanessa Désir whom I met
Diving in the Philippines. I met them in Malapascua Island while diving a few days with the same company. They were very friendly and besides the dives I also went out with them for dinner and to have drinks at the beach.
I kept in touch with them after the trip and contacted them again when I was in Paris to meet up for dinner or drinks. They suggested that we meet them at "La Fontaine" outside the St. Michel Métro Station on Friday evening.
After meeting them there we walked a bit around the area (they had made reservations for about 30 minutes after our rendez-vous) and then we ended up in a restaurant called
L'Ecurie. The restaurant doesn't look like much from the outside and the same goes as first impression when you walk in the place, but it's really good. I was surprised to read some the
reviews of the place. It was a great choice.
It's a place that
has a lot of history. It used to be stables and the underground floor used to be ancient cellars. It's also a popular spot for locals to celebrate birthday parties in the underground floor.
The restaurant itself is in Rue Làplace in the "Quartier Latin" and very close to the
Panthéon which was originally a church, but that now serves as mausoleum for distinguished French citizens.
Dinner was excellent with meats being the specialty. A free sangria and bread to start with, some entrees, the main courses, good wine, desserts and coffee. And very friendly staff.
The main topic of the evening was diving of course. And it was in a combination of English, French and Spanish, so it made it all the more interesting. Xavier is a train driver that works for the
SNCF company and Vanessa works for a lawyer. I had a great time with them and it was good to have kept in touch after all these months and be able to see them again.
So, to Vanessa and Xavier, thanks a lot!
That was the end of my stay in Paris. My next stop was going to be a town
to the West called Rochefort, but before going there I wanted to stop in another town called Laval for a few days, as I wanted to visit a family that lives there; the Cyprès. They're friends of my parents who adopted a boy and a girl (Antoine and Maxence) in Chile in the mid-80's. Last time we had seen them was when we spent New Year in Paris in 1992.
I got in touch with Maxence (I wasn't able to meet the parents those days) and after taking a train from Paris, she picked me up at the train station of the town.
Laval is a nice little town from the 13th century and it has a lot of history. In the town it's possible to see the Laval Castle, portions of city walls, medieval houses, churches, etc. But in general it's very quiet and there's not a whole lot going on.
As soon as I arrived in the house and got settled in, Maxence took me for a walk around the center of town, we had a quick lunch at the Place 11 de Novembre and then we continued along
the river bank (the
Mayenne River) which is quite nice. Usually people fish there and there's a rowing club also.
The main attractions are the oldest area of the town, an aqueduct, an old bridge (the Vieux Pont) and the Castle, which has a museum, but was being renovated when I was there.
In the evening I went with Maxence, Antoine and Maxence's best friend out for dinner. Again, it wasn't the easiest to communicate due to the language barriers, but me somehow managed between some English and some French and overall it was a very fun evening.
The next day I went out to walk around the city by myself to take some photos and visit a few specific spots I wanted to see.
That evening Maxence invited her boyfriend to the house and we had some drinks. He had to leave early as he had to go for dinner somewhere else, so I had dinner with Maxence at the house.
Maxance is at the moment studying English and working part time in a small club in town. she invited me to check it out and so I went there with
her at the time she had to start work (1am, so just like schedules back home!).
I had a few drinks with her there before the place started to get crowded. But I didn't stay there for long. No one really spoke any English and anyway I didn't see any girls by themselves.
In the morning Maxence had a tennis competition so I went with her to the tennis club. I stayed there for a few hours watching the matches and then I was invited to have lunch with all the people of the tennis club. They were a very friendly bunch and for lunch everyone had taken food and wine which were shared by all. It was really good and I enjoyed it a lot, even though,
again, I struggled with the language barrier.
The next day in the afternoon I was meant to take a train to Rochefort, doing 3 connections in total; the first one being Le Mans. Maxence drove me to the train station, but when we got there we saw that the train had been cancelled.
I thought I was going to have to go through the
whole hassle of changing tickets for the next day, but Maxence kindly offered to drive me to the next stop which was about 45 minutes away (honestly I don't know how she managed, after working most of the night, the tennis match in the morning and driving me to Le Mans after lunch). She
really outdid herself. In Le Mans she even waited for my train to depart to make sure I had no problems. While we waited for the train I got ourselves some coffee and we stayed there chatting for a while.
My stay in Laval was very chilled and it was good to see the Cyprès "kids" and maintain that connection there.
And here, a special thank you to Maxence for everything she did and the effort she put in making my stay as good as it was.
Next stop: Rochefort for about 5 weeks to immerse myself in the "French lifestyle".
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
6 degrees of separation
The world is a small place. Absolutely loved reading this blog. France is such a food fest! and a place to catch up with old friends.