Saying Au Revoir in Paris

To break up the drive from Switzerland to Paris, we stopped for the night in the sleepy town of Beaune, France. I’m sure Beaune is famous for many things, but I wouldn’t know, having fallen asleep on our walking tour of town. What I did pick up was that Beaune is the wine capital of the region, so I wholeheartedly threw myself into the evening wine-tasting session. Angie, Kelle and Natalie are not the biggest wine fans around, though, so they kept dumping their glasses into mine. After four bottles (one yucchy white, two decent reds and one excellent champagne) and twenty minutes, I was reeling. Next came an evening of staggering around like an idiot, losing at pool on the 8-ball, and having everyone look after me, until I finally passed out.

We had been lucky enough to arrive in Paris on none other than Bastille Day. Following a trip to the cavernous Louvre museum for a close encounter with Venus de Milo and Mona Lisa, we set out at dusk to claim a spot on the Champs de Mars lawn beneath the Eiffel Tower in time for the spectacular fireworks show. Especially fascinating was every few minutes when the tower would light up with dazzling, sparkly white twinkles, a performance making its first reappearance since the 2000 New Year’s display.

Wildest Ride in Town

During our stay in Paris, Angie and I crammed in lots of sights: searching for the hidden underground lake beneath the National Opera House (the basis for The Phantom of the Opera), searching for Amelie at the Sacre Coeur church up on Montmartre Hill, and searching for a bathroom on an evening group hike to the Arc de Triomphe.

I admit I fell asleep again, this time at the Rodin museum after waving hi to the famous Thinker, who I was surprised to find sitting outside in the museum’s hot sunny garden.

Among the Paris attractions Angie and I scouted out on our own was one not mentioned in any of our guidebooks: hidden between two Metro subway stations was a long corridor housing several moving sidewalks, including an experimental new one that whipped people along at 9 km/hour, three times faster than its slowpoke neighbors. Riding that fun thing a few times may have been the highlight of the entire trip.

End of the Road

Our time together as a tour group was rapidly diminishing; only hours now remained, not days. Across the street from our Parisian hotel, we enjoyed one last group dinner, swapping trip stories and promises to stay in touch.

To stave off the weepy goodbyes a bit longer, we all walked over to the Champs de Mars again, this time for a last toast and a happy evening view of the Eiffel Tower.

I had really enjoyed getting to know everyone, and I was sad to think that I wouldn’t see many of them again any time soon. Likewise, all the places I’d been over the past month, each of them new to me, would all be somehow different were I to see them again later in life.

Everyone posed for dozens of photos, no one wanting to be the first to leave. The sky grew ominously dark, and the wind began whipping up clouds of dust around us. We knew it was time to go.

We gathered in a circle for a brief round of goodbyes, one person at a time. I wanted to say something enthusiastic, something uplifting to make myself and everyone else feel good about what we’d done, where we’d gone and everything we’d experienced together.

But instead, I found myself with only a Housman poem to offer.

Into my heart an air that kills
  From yon far country blows.
What are those blue remembered hills,
  What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,
  I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
  And cannot come again.

The clouds broke and the sky opened, sending all of us running for shelter. Our laughter and conversation were scattered to the wind, and my Europe trip dissolved into photographs and memories.