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.

Bird + Dylan

Our colleague, Elizabeth is a consummate professional in front of the camera and takes regular outfit-of-the-day photos so Rebecca and I thought that it would be good practice if we did a couple shoot of her and her boyfriend.  Of course, it helps that they look like models!  

I have to say though, as couples go, they were so easy-going and fun to shoot (much like Ben and Amanda).  The day started off cool and got disgustingly hot as the morning wore on but Bird and Dylan were up for anything we asked them to do, including rolling around on a muddy river bank on a sticky picnic mat.  Their outfits also really made the photos pop, and I love the results.  Rebecca and I were amazed at how Dylan's face looked exactly the same in every shot no matter how tired or hot he was.  Modelling contract, anyone?

We took the first set of shots just outside one of the GB domes before wandering deeper into the gardens outside.  In fact, Bird and Dylan were so relaxed that we had time to break for brunch and enjoy pastries and pancakes before starting out again.

One of my favourite parts of that day was practising taking pictures into the sun using manual focus.  Clearly, the results are not always great but I feel like if I can just get the focus under control, I'll be there.  The colour of the picture is exactly what I want, so I suppose that's half the battle won.

We finished off by the Dragonfly Lake so that we could try getting a shot of their reflection in the water.

Apparently, Bird printed and strung some of the photos up into bunting as a birthday present for Dylan a couple of weeks ago, so I guess they liked them too!  Thank you so much for all the time and effort, guys!  It was a blast!