Anyone who has seen any place I’ve ever lived in has noticed the general absence of photographs. I don’t know why I never have photos around, but a couple of days ago I bought a couple of picture frames to hang in the condo. So of course I spent most of today scrounging up the old photographs from backups from at least 3 different PCs.
As it is with these things, the moment you look at those old pictures, especially those you haven’t seen for a while, the sights and smells and sounds come back very easily. So as I gather, collect, sort, and decide which ones I’ll be hanging on my wall I’ll try to write down the accompanying memories just in case my Alzheimer’s gets worse and I eventually not remember anything at all.
Lets start with Paris.
I was in London then, and for months now I’ve been telling my pal Jo, that we should go and see Paris. Finally she relented and sprung the GBP100 ($150 at the time) plane fare. We had it all planned. We would fly out Saturday, on a whirlwind overnight tour of the city on Sunday then fly back that same night.
Of course, as Murphy would have it, the problems started early. First of off, when we went to pick up our tickets, Jo’s reservation (which I had made) could not be found, and Air France ran out of GBP100 tickets. The cheapest ticket was now twice as much. I agonized, but eventually made the logical choice of springing for the balance as I did not want my vacation to come to an end even before it started. That picture on the left is me at the airport food court with the damned ticket. The bottle of VOSS water I stole from the hotel.
The flight must have been really short, because I dont
remember any of it. What I do
remember was after landing, we took a short hotel shuttle ride to the Hilton Charles de Gaulle Airport, which was free. At the time I had around 2,000,000 Hilton points, yes, 2 MILLION, so I could afford to splurge. Arriving at the hotel, we were treated to a spectacular lobby with a high greenhouse-type ceiling, which was very impressive at the time, me still being a country yokel. 
After hanging out in the lobby just to cool down our heels, we decided to turn in early, as we would be walking the whole of the next day. And as you can see in the picture, I forgot to bring my sneakers.
Very early the next day, we hopped aboard the Paris
subway, which was an olfactory experience all unto itself. I had never smelled the likes of it outside the public toilet that was in front of the US Embassy in Manila. Was this Eu de Francois, I asked myself? Well, the aroma was "eww" all right. We got off the stop that was supposedly near the Notre Dame Cathedral, and started walking.
The first thing I noticed about Paris were the buildings. All of them, without exception, were works of art! These buildings by themselves would be the artistic centerpieces in any other city, but here they were everywhere. We found ourselves stopping every block to take pictures of these magnificent structures, and when we got to Notre Dame, my feet were already tired from the walking-stopping-posing-shooting routine.
We spent a couple of minutes inside, got some souvenirs, took the pictures and the videos, watched the throng of Japanese tourists mill about and eventually shuffled our already tired feet towards our next stop, the Louvre.
It took an inordinately long time to get to the Louvre though, because although I had researched the route ahead of time on a map, I didn’t care to check what the actual distances were. When we finally reached the museum, because of the distance and the photo ops which we still could not resist (all those pretty buildings!) it was already lunch time. But that was OK, just enough time to hit the tour bus, which would give us the hour long tour,
and we would have the rest of the day exploring what we discovered.
For some reason, I found the experience of eating in a
Paris diner memorable, of just sitting there, eating something I don’t even remember anymore. The diner was right next to the Louvre, a hole in the wall establishment not 10 feet away from a palace full of priceless works of art. On the wall was a cheap reproduction of Van Goghs Cafe Terrace at Night, and I imagined the diner I was in to be that cafe, though in reality the building in the painting was in Arles, France. Close enough I thought. I will have to find one of those paintings and hang it in my kitchen (that was a "now" thought, as I did not own my own place back then).
After hanging out in the diner, we got on the tour bus, and sped our merry way around the city. It could not have been too long. For some reason it was cut short. Was it the Pope visiting? Bush? Erap? I forget. But shortly after, we were dropped off in front of the Louvre again.
Surprisingly, the entrance was underneath that weird glass pyramid. I would remember years later when I read the "Da Vinci Code", something about asking tourists whether or not they liked the pyramid. I guess at the time, I
would have also said it was "a scar on the face of Paree!". It looked like some sort of spaceship landing in the courtyard of a renaissance palace, completely out of place.
Out of place or not. I still had to pay entrance. If I remember correctly, the entrance fee was 10 euros ($8 at the time), I paid and immediately got myself a map of the gallery, scanned for my "must see" items and was off.
(to be continued)
