Last weekend was just supposed to be a normal weekend in Brussels. No plans, no expectations. I was actually thinking of spending it to work on my thesis a bit, maybe cleaning (finally!) my room or doing some other boring stuff. I was thinking of spending February only in Belgium.
It did not work out. My boring plans were replaced by something way more exciting - Paris.
I was eating and getting ready (in the same time) for the ritual Thursday party at Havana when I got a call from Carolina, my Italian-Parisian friend recently living in Morocco but being in Paris for a few weeks. She was planning to see me in Brussels but eventually could not make it. So she invited me to Paris for the weekend. She said she would call me back on the next day to get the final decision from me. I had already known what I wanted to do but it remained unsaid. We spoke the next day and I said I would come over in the evening by car. She said 'by car? You're gonna be exhausted after driving for at least four hours' and I replied 'but it's cheaper than taking the exorbitantly expensive TGV and moreover I did the highway a few times and it's ok'. But she would not listen to me and decided to sponsor my trip by train as according to her 'she would pay the same amount if she decided to come to see me in Brussels'. Well, I agreed although I felt weird to let her pay that much...
After our conversation I went straight to the website of TGV and tried to book the train for the evening. For some reason I could not do that. There was an error popping up when I wanted to get the ticket for the train that was leaving three hours later. I was furious. I found their call-centre number and dialed it immediately. As usual a machine answered the phone and after annoying seconds (seemingly ages) of pushing some random button numbers I managed to be put through to a human being. I explained her the problem and she said she would book it for me. I was expecting to pay for the ticket at the train station but she asked me to give her my credit card number. I did that. It only later occurred to me it was not very smart but there was no time to waste. Luckily for me, it was my Polish bank account and it is always almost empty. I rushed home, packed, had a shower and watched one episode of SATC (to calm myself down). I left home at around seven PM, took metro, took the train (only one hour and twenty-two minutes!), took another metro and voilà! - I was at my friends place. I could not imagine that it can be so fast, simple (and expensive). When I arrived I had a dinner with Carolina, her boyfriend Philippe, his family and some more friends. It was nice but also hard for me to follow all the conversations in French.
The next day we all went out for a dinner to some of their friends. It was an uncommon experience. The dinner was hosted by a forty-something, devoted Catholic woman who wanted to celebrate the first free choice in her life - being able to decide what to do with her professional life without considering what others think or suggest which had normally been the case. I was very surprised that that warm and pretty extrovert person took her first step being twice older than me. The other guests included a priest (a former architect), a painter and a gospel singer in one and some other decent Catholic people. The dinner included a few hilarious moments e.g. the priest asking the singer to sing a prayer song just before eating. She started but she forgot the lyrics in the middle so we did not finish that. There was also a lot of talk on different saints, canonizations and beatifications. I could not stop laughing when Carolina's atheist boyfriend Philippe was asked some question and not wanting to be rude he just started replying something with a face expression showing a mixture of confusions and forced but polite understanding. Although the dinner included totally different personalities and people living different lives there was no clash but rather mutual understanding and respect. It was a great feeling to dive into that kind of uncommon to me and unknown reality.
On Sunday, the last day I got the chance to meet up with an old friend (a Moroccan guy I know from Rabat who lives now in Paris), then wander a bit around La Defense, have a drink at Carolina's and Philippe's friends' who just moved into a new loft outside Paris in Saint Denis and then spend some time just with her talking and catching up. Then, one metro, one train and another metro (two hours in total) later I was back in Brussels.
Another trip to Paris on the last weekend of March! :)
After our conversation I went straight to the website of TGV and tried to book the train for the evening. For some reason I could not do that. There was an error popping up when I wanted to get the ticket for the train that was leaving three hours later. I was furious. I found their call-centre number and dialed it immediately. As usual a machine answered the phone and after annoying seconds (seemingly ages) of pushing some random button numbers I managed to be put through to a human being. I explained her the problem and she said she would book it for me. I was expecting to pay for the ticket at the train station but she asked me to give her my credit card number. I did that. It only later occurred to me it was not very smart but there was no time to waste. Luckily for me, it was my Polish bank account and it is always almost empty. I rushed home, packed, had a shower and watched one episode of SATC (to calm myself down). I left home at around seven PM, took metro, took the train (only one hour and twenty-two minutes!), took another metro and voilà! - I was at my friends place. I could not imagine that it can be so fast, simple (and expensive). When I arrived I had a dinner with Carolina, her boyfriend Philippe, his family and some more friends. It was nice but also hard for me to follow all the conversations in French.
The next day we all went out for a dinner to some of their friends. It was an uncommon experience. The dinner was hosted by a forty-something, devoted Catholic woman who wanted to celebrate the first free choice in her life - being able to decide what to do with her professional life without considering what others think or suggest which had normally been the case. I was very surprised that that warm and pretty extrovert person took her first step being twice older than me. The other guests included a priest (a former architect), a painter and a gospel singer in one and some other decent Catholic people. The dinner included a few hilarious moments e.g. the priest asking the singer to sing a prayer song just before eating. She started but she forgot the lyrics in the middle so we did not finish that. There was also a lot of talk on different saints, canonizations and beatifications. I could not stop laughing when Carolina's atheist boyfriend Philippe was asked some question and not wanting to be rude he just started replying something with a face expression showing a mixture of confusions and forced but polite understanding. Although the dinner included totally different personalities and people living different lives there was no clash but rather mutual understanding and respect. It was a great feeling to dive into that kind of uncommon to me and unknown reality.
On Sunday, the last day I got the chance to meet up with an old friend (a Moroccan guy I know from Rabat who lives now in Paris), then wander a bit around La Defense, have a drink at Carolina's and Philippe's friends' who just moved into a new loft outside Paris in Saint Denis and then spend some time just with her talking and catching up. Then, one metro, one train and another metro (two hours in total) later I was back in Brussels.
Another trip to Paris on the last weekend of March! :)
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