Europe episode 2: "Disneyland is a child buffet"

When I told my French teacher, Chris, that one of the things we had visited was Disneyland, he recoiled in horror.  The implication was clear - who'd go visit such a touristy thing in y'know... Paris?!

But we were actually quite excited.  Thanks to one of Bear's friends, we'd gotten free tickets ("Ah, Singapouriens!" Chris shook his head), we love Disney cartoons and I never really had the chance to go to Disneyland as a kid, so I was pretty curious to truly experience it.

Plus, in the morning as we were getting ready, Bear turned to me and sagely intoned, "Disneyland is a child buffet," which sounded incredibly inappropriate and paedophilic but was just her way of saying that it would be an awesome place to practise portrait photogaphy.  (I know, I know.)

So, we decided we might as well make a day of it.

We ate a huge french breakfast in our pajamas (hidden from judging French eyes by our coats) and Rebecca let me journal at the table as she slowly sipped her hot chocolate and orange juice.

Back at the apartment we were staying in, as we showered and dressed, I pottered around and amused myself with our host's tiiiiny plant.

Eventually, we took a train down to Disneyland and even though the light played hide-and-seek with the clouds the whole afternoon, the colourful, fantastical buildings and rides managed to make up for it.

Relaxed and slightly jetlagged, we strolled slowly round the park smiling at little girls in princess costumes who looked like they were having the best day of their lives.  At the base of the Sleeping Beauty Castle, there was a sculpture of the sword in the stone and children were climbing all over it trying to prove themselves to be Arthur.

One thing you have to give Disneyland is its complete and total commitment, right down to the perfectly curated tiles on the floor.  Everything is bright and cheerful and everyone is happy and patient and even though it's touristy and capitalist, the vibe is also that of parents and children and people in general just having a really lovely time.

(The look on that little girl's face isn't trepidation, she's actually sceptical that she's meeting the real genie.  She asked him twice before she finally agreed to pose for a photo with him, where they both flexed their biceps.)

Around lunchtime, Rebecca's OCD finally kicked in and she decided to look at the park map and plot some kind of a route, after which we ended up having our first "argument" of the trip.

See, someone is scared of big rides and having read stories about people flying off roller coasters to their deaths, prefers (quite sensibly, I might add) to abstain.  Someone else was feeling adventurous that day (despite claiming earlier that she, too, hated roller coasters) and kept following the first person around, saying, "The Crush Coaster.  The Crush Coaster.  I want to go on the Crush Coaster."

The latter wouldn't go alone or let the former hold her camera equipment (as she'd kindly offered to) and this persisted for a good hour until Rebecca finally started falling asleep on a bench from jetlag (I kid you not!) and eventually came to and informed me that she had been pulling my leg the whole time.

We ended up taking a couple of other rides instead, including a very well-produced haunted house in a beautiful gothic-style mansion that was draped with creepers.

Also amusing: this Singin' in the Rain umbrella that sent showers down on anyone who stood under it.

We took the Pinocchio ride, the movie stunt train where we watched the stunt explosions and landslides and eventually climbed Jack Sparrow's ship for exercise.

At around nine, the summer sun started to set, the light began changing and Bear and I were witness to the gorgeous, long, golden "hour" that makes photography there so breathtaking.

I was eternally grateful that we chose to visit the Alice in Wonderland rides around this time, because Fantasyland was utterly magical just then, the quirkily manicured gardens, thatched cottages and pastel furniture glowing warmly.

The teacup ride was especially attractive and I finally managed to fulfill a cliched tourist objective by trying it out.  (I thought of that rather upsetting scene in the Brittany Murphy movie where the little girl has just realised that someone in her family has died and she refuses to speak and just goes round and round and faster and faster on the teacups with a grim look on her face and tears in her eyes (vaguer, vaguer...).  Naturally, I did not have such a grim look on mine.)

Because it only got completely dark at around half-ten, we had to wait around for the fireworks, and sat on the lawn in front of the castle trying to catch ever fading slices of light.

Bear fought her way through the audience to try and get pictures of the sparks while I, a massive sucker for fireworks, stood further back, hopelessly short and hopelessly excited.

Over a sea of children's heads and flashing mouse ears, the fireworks raced and shimmered like stars and I have to admit that there were moments (especially during some of the sentimental Disney childhood songs) when I welled up a little.  People say this is a magical place and there were moments when I truly felt it.  The fireworks went on for a good fourty-five minutes and by the end, the night felt chill and clear and completely worth it.

We were well and truly knackered, jetlag having officially set in about two hours before, and ended up missing the last train and catching a cab at midnight. 

Sorry Chris, but I have to admit, I really enjoyed Disneyland Paris.  On the bright side, I remembered how to say the house number, address and give basic directions en français.

Thanks to you, we got back in one piece!

Europe: Life should be

Where we would have once spent our days rushing around, trying to see every single landmark each city had to offer, we now preferred long hours of sitting in the shade, watching the world go by, and eating chocolate.

Lots and lots of chocolate.

Cube upon cube of melt-in-the-mouth praline or smooth truffle globes, cups of hot chocolate so thick they snatched our breath back from the cold, cakes and tarts with dense, dark underlayers capped by airy, whipped peaks, we ate it all.

Every two days, we would pass by a chocolatier in some hidden, cobblestoned alley and despite complaining about how much weight we thought we were putting on not five minutes before, our eyes would meet and without a word, we'd duck right in.  

After an agonising twenty minutes or so choosing flavours and box sizes, we slid back onto the street, blinking in the sunshine, our secret tucked under an arm.  And then, we'd search for the perfect cafe.

I'd order a latte, Bear a cappucino.  She ate her chocolate reverently, eyes closed as she smoothed the flavours over her palate.  I'd wait, and we'd give it a score.

Although I can't recall every little bit of cocoa we tasted, I have fond memories of an explosively delicious sea salt caramel in Nice, perfectly smooth Giandujas in Florence and the familiar slide of Leonidas pralines in the chill basement of Harrods.

But my favourite one of our chocolate moments was the first big box we shared on a hilltop in Avignon in the late afternoon.  The table was a little rickety on the uneven ground.  Water bubbled in a pond filled with absurdly wagging ducks, and children flashed along the banks, throwing bread and flying kisses.  I threw my head back and watched the sun's interminable summer crawl toward the horizon.

Bear and I took turns reading from the pamphlet and carefully tasting each dark square.  Like a food critic, I scribbled our ridiculous comments.  Over one glorious hour, to the sound of quacking and the breeze in the trees, we finished every piece in the box.

I gave Bear the brochure to take home, but I still like reading, every now and then, what I wrote beside each one.

It is a reminder of every other afternoon we spent guilty and giggling, chocolate melting between our fingertips.  Of how life should be.

Europe, episode 1: La Tour Eiffel

Naturally, we had to start our entire sojourn in France doing something completely touristy and cliched.  Rebecca (or Bear, as she hates me to call her) really wanted to see the Eiffel Tower and when in Paris, how can you not?

I have a love-hate relationship with Paris.  I adore French (obviously) and I think it is a beautiful place but people have been less than kind and after my friend got pickpocketed and I was stranded there without money in a blizzard for three days, I've developed a sharp phobia of something similar happening.

So Paris and I, we haven't spoken in a few years.  This time, armed with my baby, present-tense-only, French and a dose of optimism, my goal was to make amends.

We put our bags down at the apartment where we were staying and had lunch at Trocadero - goat's cheese for me, a croque madame for her.  (Goat's cheese is my poison in France.  One of the best meals I've ever had in life was a goat's cheese salad in Cannes that almost made me cry.)

My old friend, Marie, met us at the cafe and we strolled down to the tower together.  The Eiffel Tower is not pretty, or particularly historic like some of the Roman monuments we saw.  I'm not sure I'm even that fond of it.  But there's something about it.

Each time I see it, almost-rosy, almost-faint against a sky heavy with grey clouds, I feel a strange sense of longing.  I don't know what this pull is but standing at Trocadero, looking across to the tower, it came over me again.  We were finally in France.  Together.  Having planned this trip for a year.  

We went down the steps and crossed the fountains before deciding to complete the tourist experience doing something I'd never done before: climb the tower.

As part of my friendship-making effort I lingered underneath the tower, admiring the symmetry and structure of the lattices, the curlicues under the arches - delicate in something so huge.  We also people watched; under the giant Roland Garros tennis ball that had been strung up for the French Open, we saw groups of men with souped-up bicycles ride past, their bells making the cold air tingle.  Tourists posed for photos while their children ran, waving, among the pigeons.

Eventually, we drifted over to the base of the stairs, bought 5euro tickets, and crumbling macarons from Carette (highly recommended!) in our mouths, started upward.  The weather was perfect, gusty and chilly and it was easily the most comfortable climb of the trip.

We stopped on the first level and I bit back my fear of heights and stood on the glass viewing platform for a good five seconds.  (Mind you, not two nights before that moment, I'd heard news of Chicago's glass viewing platform cracking so I thought my fear was well-placed.)

Thus refreshed (or frightened), we finished the last four hundred or so steps with a little whining (me) and laughing (Bear).  Now I've never really been seized by the need to climb the tower before, but I really enjoyed the view on the second floor and the wind buffeting my face.  We could see the (arguably less exciting) Tour Montparnasse, Notre Dame and other church spires peeking over the tops of the slate-blue roofs for which Paris is so famous.  Below us, people swarmed round a giant screen showing the French Open.

Up close, we could see the squat, pyramid-shaped lights that make the tower glitter at night.  

On the second-floor mezzanine, I stood and watched a very enthused tour guide tell stories about the tower in French and fought to understand snatches of words on the wind.  (This became my favourite hobby of the trip, Bear got very used to me grabbing passing waiters and asking them what things meant, or making her look up advertisement words on the Metro with her fancy iPhone app.  For instance, with some help, I could understand that the plaque below was a tribute to some crazy dude who had walked a tightrope between Trocadero and the second floor of the Eiffel Tour.  And no, I didn't cheat by looking at the picture.)

Above the ground, my breathing started to slow in the cold and by the time we were ready to descend, I felt calmer, more alive.

I suppose we all did.

We capped the evening by people watching and then walking along the dusky Seine until the urge to pee kicked in.  I ended up hopping desperately on my toes outside a mechanical loo that kept yelling "DOOR CLOSING... DOOR CLOSING" in French and spraying water on itself as I tried to get in and Bear laughed helplessly by the side.

Oh well.  So much for the city of romance!

And now back to your regularly scheduled programming

It's weird to plunge right back into regular work after thirty days of waking up at ten thirty and padding to croissant breakfasts in our pajamas, of glorious, endless, aimless walking, getting lost and feeling found.

But it's been wonderful.

As much as I love my job, my home and my family, seven months of nothing but the grind was beginning to get to me and I was starting to do one of those headspace-downwards-spirals that can make you forget how much more there is to life than work.

I came back feeling energised, excited about life and mentally and emotionally, well, clean.

Rebecca was the ideal travel companion - comfortable, unfussy and with the best sense of humour.  And of course, we took hundreds and hundreds of pictures.

In our own separate ways, we're really looking forward to sharing them.