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Published: August 17th 2013
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After years of fantasising in my head over how wonderful Paris was going to be, I knew that I had a lot of work to prepare myself for reality. However as we drove into Paris for the first time and as we saw the Eiffel Tower glinting on the horizon; it took my breath away. Really, it did!
The plan was to sleep outside of Paris that night but we took the wrong road and ended up being a couple of kilometres away from the Eiffel Tower, so we set up camp in our car with the tower light show over our heads. This was to be the last night in our little car.
The very next day we moved into a one-room apartment for the week and a bit that we were in Paris. It was at the very top of our building. To get to the room you could take the very steep stares or the rickety old elevator with only enough room for two people. It took about a minute to get to the top and lurched about as it past each floor. With just one tripod fan to keep the room cool in
the middle of summer it was quite a sauna, but this didn't matter when we saw the view from our tiny balcony. Our little balcony was a gem! We could see all the way down Boulevard Republic with its tiny cafés and shops. A stage was setup for public concerts that we could hear from our room. Ahh this is the Paris I had dreamed of for so long! At night we would go down to a pasta restaurant just a few minutes walk from our place and order a new pasta every night to eat on our balcony with a bottle of red, while we listened to the music from the concerts floating down the street.
On the second or third day of our stay, Ben and I managed to lose each other! We were together one minute and lost the next. We looked for each other for two hours. We didn't have the ability to call each other or text, which made things a little tricky. At first I started to worry but then as I thought through my options I stopped panicking and started to enjoy wondering around Paris on my own. I knew that
I had the ability to get back to our apartment and that I wasn't going to be harmed by anyone. I was sure that it was going to be OK, so I started to enjoy this newfound experience. I found a lovely couple who let me use their Wi-Fi so that I could Facebook Ben and let him know that I was OK and where to find me. Good old Facebook! Would you believe it though, this lovely couple couldn’t wait to use the two-headed joke on me! They had been to Tassie the year before and thought it was the funniest thing. We eventually found each other at a specified location and held hands all the way back home.
While we were wondering the streets of Pairs we stumbled upon a Lock Bridge. Love padlocks (or Love Locks) are a custom where couples attach a padlock to a fence, bridge or gate to symbolize their eternal love and tradition has it that the key is then thrown into the river. It is an amazing piece of evolving art and wonderful anthropological study as it is a contentious issue between The Tourist and The Parisian. From the
Tourist perspective it is a sign of everlasting love and commitment to the person whom you put the lock on the bridge with and at the very least it is something to do. For the Parisian it is a shameful sign of control over the person that you love and it attacks the integrity of the architecture of this particular bridge. You will be wondering whetherwe added a lock to the millions of others weighing the bridge down into the river Seine. We did, in a mixture of romance and gilt!
Our last night in Paris was spectacular! We dressed up in a mixture of Op-Shop and new clothes. Ben bought me some beautiful flowers and we set off to find the restaurant that we had made a reservation at. We got of the train just in time at Champ de Mars and from there it was only a short stumble (in my Op-shop heels) to a fantastic view of the Eiffel Tower and dinner. We felt like imposters sitting at a 5 star restaurant with three sets of knifes and forks, whilst pretending to know about the quality of the wine we were given to taste. As
we looked around to see if anyone else had noticed our culinary awkwardness, we were met with the same shy smiles and sly glances at other diners to see if they had indeed picked up the right fork. Oh good, the only people who knew anything about table etiquette here were the waiters! As the light slipped behind the horizon the Eiffel Tower came to life, its lights reflecting off our wine glasses. We chatted about the amazing time we had had over the past three months and what was to come as we headed off on the next part of our exciting adventure to South Africa.
I can say with firm conviction that I loved every moment of our time in Paris. It was everything I had hoped for and more. In another life I can see us in a small apartment catching up with friends in a few favourite cafés, Ben writing songs on our little balcony while my camera and I captured the beautiful city, but I know that this is not what we have chosen to do with our lives and I am looking forward to what the uncertain future holds…
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Gus
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Thanks Lauren. Beautiful!