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After lot of nagging and
paperwork (as my friend Mithalwen once told me, egalité, fraternité, vos papiers...) moved about,
we finally were granted entry permission to France. And would I run ahead
of things to tell you I loved it there? My writing skills are not tool
sharp enough to communicate the feeling we felt back than and the longing
we feel now. And to the left is the first Parisian to welcome us to the
city as we were having snacks by the Tuiliers garden. He walked out of the
garden and asked for the photo to be made of him
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Day two in Paris. We climb
up to Sacre-Coer. It’s hot, very hot, some 39°C. In an hour or so, it will be
pouring, famous rain of June, 23, breaking up half of Paris’ subway for
leakage of water, sending us drenched through to our socks (in my case,
Tina was wearing no socks at the moment) to seek refuge in Opera House
vestibule, but there is still an hour or so ahead for us to enjoy the heat
on the Montmartre :)
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The sky in Paris is
different, especially when you see it pierced by the spire of the Tour
Eiffel. Beautiful, ain’t it? To think there was a lot of protesting when it
was first erected, on account of it ‘defacing the beauty of Paris’. I
believe Balsac was one of the protesters, but my memory may be playing
tricks on me
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Tour Eiffel looks weird from
below in the evening. Something related to space-travel. Evening on
Baikonur, April 11, 1961, Gagarin pondering tomorrow’s launch and the
danger and the beuaty of the ‘far heaven’, I felt myself looking up
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The Invalides. The place
of Napoleon I’s last rest. He lies there under granite (or maybe marble, I
never was an expert on minerals) slab so enormous, I had a feeling that
probably they fear his coming back to life and put that on him in order to
prevent his coming out. On the other side of the edifice there is a hospital
and a garden, where we have been reposed for a while in the shade of trees
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Paris is the city of Love.
Every living being we’ve seen there was in love. I suppose the wedding of
these piegeons was scheduled on the nearest weekend as well as ours :)
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We ended up near Tour
numerous times, but that’s because of enormouse queues of tourists (or
should I say Toursits) wishing to climb it. We managed to stand it out to
the end on the third visit only, but one out of three ain’t bad
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Here we are, on top of the
world! In this case, top of the world is Tour Eiffel’s second landing stage
(I somehow can not force myself to call it ‘floor’, it is too high for the
‘floor’). It was nice and windy up there, but you better not buy souvenirs
up on the tower, they are five times costlier than what you’ll find several
streets away from the place.
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This was shot from the
boat on the Seine. Notre Dame on the background and French flag tell their own
story.
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And Notre Dame itself.
Mind you, my garment is not chosen with regards to its colouring, but
somehow it fits with the edifice anyway :)
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She’s teasing me :) But
that’s because me and my bestman are about to jump on an attraction machine
of some sort. She thinks I’m being childish, and that’s indeed what I’m
being. Can’t help it, though – adrenaline is what we are after now, who
cares about museums!
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And here he is himself –
my (Paris) bestman. Also, my friend and classmate. His name Alexander
Adeishvili, he’s a student of Sorbonne, and he rules!
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Ave, Caesar, morituri te
salutant!
AC/DC’s ‘we salute you’
would make appropriate background music for the scene. Could not help
remembering Jules Verne and the method his characters traveled to the moon
– they were shot up there!
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We fly, we fly, we fly so
high! Shame we are tied up to that slingshot! Or maybe that’s for the
better, after all ;)
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Cultural porgramme – Orsay
museum’s big clock and Louvre seen across the river. There was a balcony
too, but it was raining and we were not let out to it, as ‘there is danger
of falling of as the surface is slippery’. Civil servants are overtly
cautious at times.
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Walking bridge not far
from the Cité. Did I tell
you Paris’ sky is beautiful? And the water reflects it in just a right way.
I wish we had more time (or more money, which is basically telling the
same) to spend there. According to just another custom, we cast coin
together into the water to ensure our going back one day
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