After 25 Hours, a Lovely Treat

In the middle of my torturously long trip from New Mexico back to Mozambique, I had a 9-hour layover in Paris. Normally, this would have me cursing, but on this particular trip I had the good fortune to meet up with a blogger who has increasingly become my favorite source for world news: Paris Parfait.

The plan was that I'd arrive at the airport, collect my luggage, and take a taxi over to Paris Parfait's apartment. I was hoping that my friend Elite could also meet us, but unfortunately we weren't able to coordinate a visit this time.

Putting a slight kink in our plans, Air France managed to lose my luggage. For the second time on this trip. Sigh. I had to spend about 2 hours hassling with the baggage services office to lodge a claim before I could head over to meet Paris Parfait. On the plus side, I didn't have to schlep my 100 pounds of stuff halfway across the city.

I had a hilarious cab ride over to PP's apartment. I can understand French thanks to Alliance Français classes when I was about 5 years old and the similarity of the other romance languages I speak, but really can't form a coherent sentence or say anything other than the basic greetings and a few random adjectives. No problem.

My driver picked up on the fact that I understood what he was saying and asked what languages I speak. When he heard Portuguese was on the list, he started to tell me about this one time that he gave a Brasilian drag queen a ride and the guy was changing clothes and putting on his glittery makeup in the backseat of the taxi! I've never had a funnier non-conversation with a person in my life.

I arrived safely at Paris Parfait's apartment (full of cute antiques and beautiful furniture, by the way) and we sat down for some tea and figured out what to do with the little time we had together. We opted for a nice walk around her neighborhood, followed by a homecooked meal by her husband.

This was my first time in Paris and I must admit the city actually lived up to my expectations in terms of being beautiful, romantic, historical, cultured, etc. Even in our short walk to a bridge and then to the local grocery store, I got a nice taste of that part of the city. I can definitely see why so many people just fall in love with Paris...

In this picture, you can see some of the houseboats that are docked along this part of the Seine. I asked Paris Parfait if people really live in them, and she said yes, that some of the residents are even full time.

The commuter train runs alongside the river and I spotted these cool garden plots from the bridge. Apparently it's a community garden where residents of the neighborhood can get a patch of land and grow their own vegetables. There was even a little old man watering his plants as we watched from above.

This was, without a doubt, one of the funniest moments I had in Paris. We were on top of this big bridge looking out at the Seine and all the gardens. Paris Parfait told me to turn around and look up the length of the bridge, where we'd just walked up from a nearby park. I looked up the bridge and saw this cute little family cycling, and some nicely painted historical streetlamps. "That's pretty quaint," I thought, and ooh-ed and ah-ed for effect.

Only whe we started to walk back over the bridge did I look up again and notice what Paris Parfait was *really* trying to point out - there was a perfect view of the Eiffel Tower in the distance! When she'd shown me the view earlier, I happened to be at the only angle where the Tower was obstructed. In the photo above, the Eiffle Tower is hidden directly behind the lantern part of the street light on the left. Silly me, I didn't take another photo because I figured the one above would surely have captured the Tower.

We stopped by the bakery and got a fresh baguette, which Paris Parfait gave me to hold to boost the authenticity of my Paris experience. We had the baguette later with spaghetti bolognese and let me tell you, it was the most delicious bread I've had in ages. Shame I had to rush out the door to get a taxi back to the airport, because if I'd had a chance I would have surely eaten at least half the baguette by myself, along with another good glass of red wine.

My taxi was late picking me up, but it ended up being no problem. Sheer exhaustion hit me as soon as I sat in the car and slept for most of the ride back to the airport. The check-in desk was just opening as I arrived, and I got the news that they'd managed to locate my luggage and had re-tagged it all to my final destination, Maputo. (I later found out that was a fatty lie, but that's a rant I won't go into at this point.)

The rest of my trip was uneventful, and I sat next to some really interesting people. On the way to Joburg, my traveling companion was the Bishop of the Anglican Church in Cape Town. On the way to Maptuo, I sat next to a Welsh camera reporter coming to Mozambique to do a piece on corporate social responsibility. He was with a group of Welsh executives that had made donations to orphanages here, and they were all going to visit the beneficiaries of their charity.

And that was my trip back home. Can't wait to do it again next year!