Tag: paris

Side note: I’ve just been crushing allergy pills since I’ve arrived. Never had allergies my whole life until I turned 30, and then all of a sudden tree jizz just fucks me in the early summer. Fucking things Super annoying, especially with contact lenses,

Oh. Something really funny I missed from the previous night. We had a moment where C lost her keys back to her parent’s. Both parents outta town. We were both pretty tired, both wearing backpacks, and searched the hell out of HERS. Couldn’t find them, it was getting pretty late, and I was searching up nearby hotels trying to find anywhere to take us in. Happy to drop 100-200 euros just to sort it out and keep us off the streets, but everywhere reasonable was booked. Seems to be a recurring theme in my trip so far. Fucking get home, Brando!

C isn’t having it. There’s a 5 star nearby with vacancies, and she’s done with the bullshit. We walk over there, and she’s in the process of swiping her card to drop… an obscene amount of money, at 3 or 4am at this point, to basically just have a bed for the night. Not like we are going to be enjoying a spa, massage, room service, etc… we’re going to be checking out in about 6h. Made zero sense to me. I think no matter how well I do in this world, when it comes to the fancy shit, I’m always going to be fairly grounded when it comes to extravagence.

No one needs to drink 10k bottles of champagne; I’m pretty sure the 200’s taste just as good. I’m definitely not cheap, love splashing cash on friends or buying randoms shots at the bar, but there’s just this… point of excess where it all starts seeming like Monopoly money and crazy to me. I’d realistically rather sleep in a fucking tent, or on the street, than drop that kind of coin for a bed for the night… but only if it was just me. Never let a lady crash under those conditions.

Anyways, realistically, she was just trying to be responsible and not make her perceived mistake of losing the keys something we’d both suffer for. Or maybe she was just really tired and cranky, but I’m gonna choose to believe that she was being noble and offering for me.

I suggested a few additional options but she was ready to pull the trigger, card in hand at the front desk, and then all of a sudden she remembers that the backpack on me was actually one she had lent me, on this very day. We unzip the back pocket, and sure enough, key’s fucking there, crisis averted. Lot of money saved that day.

The Paris trip has been decidedly wholesome so far. And maybe that’s why it’s going so well. Imagine if somehow there was a correlation between not getting absolutely shitfaced, and your plans loosely coming together. But nah, that sounds like some nonsense pseudoscience. Cheers boys, drink up!

Paris Day 4:

I wake up at C’s place feeling like a million bucks. No hangover, smile on my face… Paris may feel like Montreal, but it’s still sinking in a bit that I’ve just started what should be the adventure of a lifetime, and I’m lucky enough to be kicking it off with plenty of good company.

The last member of the crew, Shaon, is piling into Paris later tonight, to visit the whole gang, and help his sister, S, who’s just moved into town a week or so ago, get settled in. Seems like an excuse to try and spring some debauchery with Vidy and I, but maybe I’m not giving him enough credit for supporting his family. People change over the years no? I’m sure he’s visited S plenty of times! Vidy, Shaon, and I have some plans in our obscene group chat to all link up later this evening, so I’m covered on that front.

C also has a few daytime plans / some errands to run. Which is fine by me; I get a chance to settle into my Paris flow. My first mission of the day is to make up for that fake Filet Mignon, and finally sit down to a proper bistro experience. No more fucking around; I only have a few days left to make it happen.

I take a lazy stroll out her front door in the early afternoon, and start heading towards an area a few hundred meters away that, at least according to Google Maps, is chock full of bistro’s. Walk through a busy marketplace, use my newly discovered knowledge that some bistro’s double as cigarette vendors to acquire a new pack of smokes, and eventually reach the target.

Can’t remember the name of the fuckin’ place for the life of me, but it’s everything I wanted. Cute brunette waitress that doesn’t take forever to take my order, carafe of red wine and smokes on the terrace, steak frites and a light house salad ordered up just like that.

Man, you feel like a king being waited on in the Paris sunlight, on a terrace, half a liter of red wine on deck, with the smoke from your dart just curling up and blowing away in the breeze. Feels like summer, and I can’t wait for the food to show up.

Only complaint is that I order my steak medium rare, and it basically rolls out well done. Have a suspicion it’s a Paris tourist thing and take a mental note, but it’s tasty enough, and while the salad is refreshing, it’s the fries that really steal the show.

Crispy on the outside, delightfully fluffy on the inside, and accompanied by a tangy blue cheese dip, I could eat these things right up ’til my heart exploded. I take my sweet time munching everything down, completely relaxed and living on Euro time. The magnitude of my decision to say fuck it to everything sacred and start a ludicrous journey on a shoestring budget fades away in a solitary moment of satisfaction and bliss.

Am enjoying myself so much that I decide to order dessert. I take a white wine with some vanilla ice cream (which comes with some sort of crumbly sugar roll thing) and am just in heaven being lazy for a day and enjoying simple pleasures. Finally I’m letting go a bit, and after I pay and walk out, I just have the biggest fucking smile on my face. Life is fun again, and things are looking up.

Axel is hungover as fuck / down for the count, but Sahil and Mikhail are ready to tango one last time over the board. I also have about 50 euros left on the fucking gift card, and I’m not one to leave anything on the table.

So I pound back over to Blitz Society and decide we gotta make it count. Blow the rest of the card out on a bottle of red and a couple of snacks. Look at me now Ukranian hostess, I’m a high roller baby!

Sahil + Mikhail join me soon enough and I spot them a glass of wine each. Not sure why the unemployed lad is splashing the cash, but it was just a gift card and you gotta spread the wealth when you have it. We fire up a blitz rotation with an additional warrior from the club, who puts up a decent game, but inevitably crumbles to my attacking style. Don’t recall dropping a single game to any of them; Blitz Society is really my new home turf. Definitely going to have to go back.

Exchange some goodbyes with the lads. Some tentative talk to potentially collab with Sahil on an AI contract job or 2, but somewhat doubtful it will pan out. Both really great gents, will def try to catch em again next time I’m in Paris.

Check-in with C briefly at her place. She’s going to be busy most of the night / is tired, so I can rally with my friends, and I’m welcome to crash back at hers… but it comes with a curfew. I mean fair enough, it’s her place and she’s gonna sleep when she damn well wants to. I manage to negotiate 1am, and we’re both pretty ok with it; obviously want to spend some more time with her, but I don’t wanna let the boys down either. They’re counting on me to bring some energy and I’m going to do my best.

Hop on a Velib bike, and just power my way through downtown to get to an area southwest of the Eiffel tower. Boys are all around the Eiffel tower, they could have picked a spot in my direction, but fuck it, I’m excited to see big SHAOOOON. We spent an entire year and a half playing Smash Bros Melee and getting gooned at Montreal dive bars, and though he did have a brief run through Montreal recently, I’m looking forward to catching him in a bigger group context.

Initial hangout spot is a terrible fucking bar choice. Asian bartender running a small resto bar in a pretty dead neighborhood. Order a charcuterie / fromage board for the table, which is trash, and we smash a few pints catching up. V+V+S+S+B (we got girlfriend and sister in tow), good times but relatively uneventful.

I’m starting to realize the 1am curfew sucks. The drinks are just starting to hit, that beautiful buzzed glow is coming over me, and after talking to the bartender, we discover there are more lively spots that could go til 5am. I was really close to sending it, Shaon’s sis and Vidy’s gf were both out, and it could have just been the boys doing dumb shit… but then I have a real think.

We already had tentative plans to link up in Albania in less than a month. Music festival, insanity, the whole shebang. And I have exactly one more night after this one, to see where the whole C thing goes, and leave the impression that I want to leave. Is not making curfew to get shithoused with the boys really going to send the right message?

Ah fuck, what a fucking dilemma though. I can see the excitement in Vid and Shaon’s eyes, they know that I can bring that degen energy, they both have gfs and are slowly winding their lives down, and this could be one of them BIG NIGHTS where we do crazy shit.

But it’s not. I put my foot down, and suggest that in the interest of keeping the whole group together, we send er to another bar that has a bit more energy. We do so, it’s an Irish pub with live rock, we grab some pints, and I negotiate an additional hour on the ole curfew extension via phone. It’s not a bad spot, but it’s not a full send, and I can tell Shaon is disappointed. Same time, he spends twenty mins on a phone call with his GF back in the UK, so it’s not justttt me that’s trying to be a little mindful of the womenfolk.

We keep our shirts on and our brains intact. Wholesome catchup. Love all around. And then, like a responsible adult human, I hop in the cab and head back to C’s. Choice I never would have make any amount of relationships ago… but it’s not one I feel bad about right now. Of course sending it with the boys would be a killer night, and who knows when we will get this chance again? But we do have Albania potentially on the table, and sometimes you have to prioritize the things that could bring you longer term happiness. Some things are worth fighting for just a little bit, so you don’t have to spend the rest of your life wondering how things could have gone.

Went back to C’s. Didn’t regret it at all. SOFTTTTTTTTT. We getting old boys.

Paris Day 5:

Last day in Paris before I rip out to Albania. I’ll keep this one brief. We assemble the whole squad for lunch and drinks.

C and I, V+V, S+S, Imge, her partner M, and their baby.

Marketplace is great, and I show off some dad skills in the park kicking a soccer ball around with a kid who has no friends. Wish I could say it was a tactical dad-skill flex to demonstrate my potential parenting ability to C, but tbh it just comes naturally, kids are fun when they get to that age where they can play sports. Eventually say goodbye to our little buddy and hit a terrace to grab some drinks.

C, Imge + M stick around for a few hours but bail to take care of a few things prior to dinner. Shaon complains that he got a single when he ordered a double (I swear buddy is always getting into it with barmaids haha, but this was pretty light.

Great story from his last Montreal visit, where a really funny bartender I know asked him if he could handle a racist joke. He said ok, and she proceeded to make a joke about his parents working at 7-11(who are Indian or Paki or something), and he was just RAGING for about an hour, while I found it hilarious. Clearly he could not handle the racist joke (to be fair, we were smasheddd).

Anyways, the rest of us hit another random resto. Shaon and Vidy order steaks medium rare and give me some strange looks and comment when I order mine blue. I could probably have told them what I’d learned in terms of how French cook steaks at the bistro yesterday, but I’m not 100% sure about my theory yet; I figure I can always ask them to cook it more if it comes out raw though.

Fifteen minutes later, their steaks come out as barely recognizable charred ash, while mine is a perfect medium rare. Theory confirmed! I laugh my ass off and gloat openly about my worldly understanding of Paris culture and cuisine.

We put away a few carafes of red which are on special, excitedly discuss plans to send Albania, and close down the night fairly responsibly, hugging out some goodbyes. Just a bunch of fucking gems, if there’s one argument for sticking it out in Europe, it’s that I already have a family here. These guys are awesome.

C + I have a nice last night back at her place. Going to miss her tremendously, but there are high hopes that she visits me out in Tirana in a week or two. Travel around Europe is cheap, and we’ll have to see where it goes. Have a few reasons to be optimistic, but ball’s sorta in her court in terms of defining R+R. If she wants to operate as friends, friends we shall be. There’s something tremendously real here, but I’m not blind to the compatibility issues that she’s flagged either, and I think we’ll just have to feel it out with strong communication along the way.

Paris Day 6:

Not really a Paris post. But just to catch things up. Wake up at some godforsaken hour early in the morning (4am?), barely slept at all. Taxi out to the Beaudry airport. I’ve decided to book a flight through Wiz Air, which operates way out north. Flight is cheap as hell (the cab actually cost me more, around 100 Euros), but I soon find out why.

I paid for a check-in bag to avoid them claiming my carry-on is oversize, shelled out cash for a few other random small extras and selected my seat, but I didn’t pay 4 Euros for the auto check-in option. No idea why that would be needed, when I can just… check-in myself at an airport kiosk?

I’m at the airport 3 hours ahead of my flight time, and the Wiz bag drop isn’t even open yet. There are also no kiosks that I can see, but I figure I’m 3 hours ahead and fine. Kill an hour and bag drop opens up. Get all the way to the front of the line, and the lady working it takes my bag, but when I inspect the ticket she prints me, it reads “standby” with no seat number on it. Apparently it’s because I didn’t check in.

The fuck do you mean I’m on standby? I have my seat picked and everything. Exactly how was I supposed to check in without a ticket kiosk at this trashcan airport?. Some serious horse shit.

I end up going through security freaking out, and bring up my issue with the people working my gate, who inform me that I will have to wait until last minute to see if I get on the plane. Beauvais is about an hour and a half north drive from Paris, and I’m absolutely steaming at this point. But I’m slightly mollified after another 12 people join me and are forced to wait in the standby line behind me. I might be a retard but at least I have company, and theoretically since I’m at the front, I should get first priority to any seat that opens up… right?

Line turns out to be meaningless. They let every senior citizen and wheelchair bound passenger who apparently understands the instructions better than us fly through the gate, and then, they start calling random passengers out from standby to pass through and board, instead of just grabbing me from the front of the line.

Name after name gets called, and I’m really starting to freak out. No idea what I’ll do if I get fucked here. Literally end up being the last number called… and placed in the exact seat that I booked. I thought I would be more pissed off, but at that point, all I’m feeling is relief.

Fucking ridiculous, probably would have had a meltdown if I was denied boarding. God may hate me, my luck has always been shit… last out of 14 people is really something else though. I guess all’s well that ends well, but damn was that close to me ending up leaving the airport still in France, detained in cuffs.

Takeoff goes off without a hitch, I lean back in my seat for a much-needed snooze, and just like that, the Albanian leg begins!

^ Really a professional photographer. But hey fuck it, at least I’m snapping some pics.