Getting There

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The story of this trip began a few days before the posted date with Jo departing Auckland for Paris via Shanghai. I still had a days work in Lae to finish off before I met up with her. My four week stint had not been too bad, work kept me busy. I was pleased that there were no long, boring days clock-watching in anticipation of our holiday.

At 0825 on Tuesday 17th June, my G4S Security car left the gates of 11 Mile and we headed to NADZAB Airport for the first of the seven flights it would take to get me to Paris.

PX103 barely reaches altitude before it descends for landing and I managed to scam my way in to business class by complaining that I had a broken seat. The same could not be said for the six hour flight from Port Moresby to Singapore on Air Niugini. I had no leg room way back in cattle class and spent much of the flight standing at the back of the plane to save my kneecaps from being crushed on the seat in front.

The connection to Qatar Airways in Singapore was easy but involved a terminal change and a long brisk walk through the mini-city that is Changi Airport. I made my gate with 30 minutes to spare and had just dozed off to sleep when the boarding announcement came.

I had almost no sleep on the flight to Doha and again had a terminal change to keep my time on the ground interesting. I was pleased to find the flight only half full and utilised the three seats of my row to their fullest by sleeping from the moment the seatbelt sign went off to the moment the flight attendant woke me to tell me we were landing. A coffee and panini at Stockholm's Arlanda Airport brightened my spirits and the destination was almost within reach.

SAS were the next airline on the list and they would be taking me through to Paris with a short stopover in Copenhagen. I spent the time in the airport bar with a Carlsberg listening to Nirvana, The Kinks and Metallica playing on the sound-system. Whilst it's a bit of a reach to judge an entire country based on the music and beer at an airport bar, my experience of Denmark was rather pleasant.

Jo met me at Terminal 1 at Charles de Gaulle Airport and immediately the gruelling schedule was worth it. The worst was over and it was time to enjoy our holiday. We boarded the train and spent the next 45 minutes heading towards Gare du Nord through the northern suburbs of Paris - the ones you won't see in the brochures.

Jo already had the Metro well sorted out and we were at our stop and in the Ibis Budget Paris La Villette in good time.

41 hours door to door.

To get the body clock re-aligned I needed to try and stay awake until a reasonable hour, so we headed off to The Pantheon. The dome, for which The Pantheon is best known, was unfortunately hidden under layers of white shrink-wrap. We took a stroll inside, going downstairs into the crypt to see where several of Frances most famous names are laid to rest. As French history is not one of my strong points and there were no translations (as there almost never are in France), we only had the names to go by and most were unknown to me.

It took about 30 minutes to stroll down to Notre Dame where we joined the entire population of the planet and took photos of the Cathedral. It was already after 1800 so we elected not to go in. Instead, we took the Metro to Sacre Coeur and Montmartre District, boarded the funicular where we joined the entire population of the planet admiring the view.

Signs inside the Cathedral demanded silence from the tourists but the noise restrictions did not extend to the vending machines. Punters fed coins into them like pokie machines. At least these ones guaranteed a payout in the form a smaller denomination coin, stamped with a picture of the Cathedral. I declined the EUR10 prayer candles figuring that if there is a God, he'd give me a freebie or two but others figured that they were more likely to have their prayers answered if they came with a cash incentive. A small sign requesting funds for the upkeep of the Cathedral located under a five foot high solid silver statue of Jesus was enough to repulse me out of the building completely.

On a trip some 20 years ago, Mum and Dad brought me to Montmartre and I'd remembered there being a town square with restaurants. It was already getting late and both Jo and I were hungry so we wandered around before finding the tourist trap. They came by the busload for authentic french mussels and chips at EUR19 a head. We spent around half an hour trying to find a quiet restaurant in the back streets before giving up and headed back down the hill. We eventually found the only restaurant in town with local patronage. Prices were still touristy but the beer was cold and the seafood risotto hit the spot.

We returned to Ibis around 2130 where I slept through Chile defeating Spain in the World Cup Football from Brazil.

Paris had some making up to do... but maybe I was just in a shitty mood from all the travel.

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