We're Here - Betty

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We left Sydney airport at 3pm on a Singapore Airlines plane. The first flight was approximately 8 hours - a breeze as my stomach tightened with excited jitters every time I reminded myself of our journey ahead. Tossed over my French homework, watched a couple of films. Easy. A 2-hour stopover in Singapore began with Kate and I having a free automatic foot massage. We sat in run-down plastic chairs and put our socked feet into these communal futuristic fabric cul-de-sacs, which proceeded to munch on our feet and knead them into various stages of ‘gentle’ and ‘intense’ submission. Highly recommended if you are into gadgets and have no earthly fear of tinea. Singapore airport is an amazing terrarium with orchid gardens and koi ponds, which are much more interesting than duty-free consumer tedium. Kate and I were so engrossed that we heard a call for our flight, 20 minutes ahead of our anticipated time when we were up the wrong end of this kilometre-long facility. I took this as an opportunity for a jog. Forsaking all travelators, I ran all the way to the end. It was a relief to really stretch my legs, not in the least because one Tontonsof them fell asleep on the second flight and stopped communicating with the rest of my body entirely. The night passed as we flew around the earth turning on its axis beneath us, the moon a cold, chrome apple at arms reach. We arrived at Charles De Gaulle Airport at 7am local time. This airport is an unusual welcome to the city of my dreams. There is a slow escalator, filled with those who have arrived, stretching single file for longer than you can imagine under a cozy roof of moulded cement. The walls and ceiling are coated in a surface that looks like spray-on popcorn. Perhaps France is at the end of this tunnel. It is. A huge crowd is gathering at the customs desks as we disembark. Two desks are operating. It is before breakfast and Paris is not in a hurry. My last Australian experience for the month leaves me here. The loud Auzzie woman standing behind me talking incessantly over the quiet crowd, crowing to her attendant family with phrases like, “I loike the Chinese… they’re a very gentle people. (and other things I can’t bear to write)… That was the best aeroplane I’ve ever Parisbeen on… What do YOU think, Trace? I reckon I can figure that sign out in French… now let me see” And so on. I was just about to lose my head, but we made it. Au revoir, Kath and Kim. Onto our taxi transfer. The Hotel Moulin Vert (Rue du Moulin Vert, Montparnasse, Paris) is the sweetest little place. Tall, narrow, impeccable. We drop our things and take a walk. We managed to buy breakfast, coffee and baguette sandwiches with ham or saussicon in a local café. Then, onto the cemetary where the graves of Baudelaire, Simone De Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre and Serge Gainsborough lie. After a nap, it is dinner time and we walk through the area of Montparnasse to find a meal. There are small restaurants everywhere. You turn a corner and you see a street full of apartments… all very old and tall. Aged blonde bricks, narrow windows with shallow wrought-iron balconies, window-boxes full of bright red geraniums and through the lit windows, glimpses of people holding glasses of wine, bookcases, sculptures, lamps. We are really in France. People ride bicycles without helmets with bread in their baskets. We passed two art studios as

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Photos

First Meal
In a cafe called Tontons in Montparnasse where a woman complimented Betty on her very nice trousers!

Comments

[Ross]

Nice
Sounds very nice.

[Natalie Grace]

Love it!
Love the photos. Keep them coming :)