When I greeted Melbourne she bashfully hid her parched fields and warehouses behind a dense fog. At 5am, mine was the last plane to touch down in Melbourne, all the others were diverted to Sydney.
I was tanned and air freshener fresh as I was greeted by mum and the crisp cold air. Dressed in shorts and emboldened by adrenalin I didn’t feel a thing, except happiness to see my family again. This faux alertness faded of course, it masked the deep exhaustion of jetlag, but not before an exhilarating ride through the deserted early morning streets, home made special by fog and the ungodly hour.
Working on Le Tour for the last 10 days had left no room for contemplation, 5am to midnight of bikes, support vans and photography and official blogging. The results can be seen here. When it all suddenly came to end, after two weeks of itineraries and guests, I was cast adrift. On a train by myself watching Grenoble disappear, leaving Dylan behind for the first time in 6 months.
Of course it rained in Paris, just how I remembered it, a grey sky over a tapestry of roofs and chimney pots. I wandered aimlessly, filling in time until my friend Dakshinee arrived on the Eurostar from London (what a relief to not be friendless in a foreign land).
I found myself retracing old steps, the Eiffel tower evading my view, the walk much longer than I remembered. Then there it was, I sat there eating lunch, not feeling like a tourist, but an observer of them. Then just when I felt it was all rather boring, lacking the magic of first acquaintance, the skies opened, thunder and lighting split the sky. Running for cover, huddling under trees, there was something that bound us all together. It was more exhilarating than any perfect sunny day under that metal tower could ever be.
Rain cleared and began to walk away, a man fell into step with me. “You are a photographer?” he asked “you were taking photos of people, weren’t you getting wet?”. This was the kind of conversation that never spontaneously happened to me back home, perhaps for the very reason I am rarely alone. It was nice, and I’ll admit a little bit flattering that this Frenchman wanted to walk me all the way to the metro, and expressed regret I couldn’t spend the day with him. An experience, and a seamless escape as I went to meet my friend. Although it might sound strange, I never imagined that Parisians would choose to walk to that tourist trap of a tower, but I guess even they aren’t immune the romance of Paris.
After a late night Italian meal and a sickeningly sweet cocktail with Dakshinee (the French don’t seem to do cocktail bars), we had half a day before my flight back home. The end. We did some more aimless wandering and then settled on a walk to the Sacre Coeur for a picnic, and to catch a glimpse of that view. I needed to drink it in, there was nothing like it in Australia. Sunday streets were quiet and closed, even in Paris, bus as we climbed upwards, past the Moulin Rouge, the tourists thickened and so did the shops of plastic Eiffel towers and Paris kitsch.
At the top a sea of cameras and tourists, a steep slope of grass dividing them down the middle. Why was no one sitting on the grass? Was it forbidden? We saw no signs so we clambered up for our picnic. As so often happens, this emboldened others to follow suit. And then another magic memory, what I’ll hold as my last memory of the trip even though there was walking and packing, trains and airports after, this is the last thing that touched a string in my heart and kept resonating.
There were loads of men pushing their wares on tourists, buskers and performers taking advantage of the crowds, but amongst them all universal attention was on one. He pressed play on his CD player and mounted his stone pedestal. He lazily began twirling his soccer ball on his finger, then the tricks really began, not once did he drop the sphere, he rolled it over his back, up and down his legs, span and balanced on one hand, the ball never loosing its orbit. The climax, which was not lessened by a second watching was when he began to climb a lamppost, ball spinning on his head, then holding himself horizontal by the arms, began kicking the ball and twirling it on his feet. The crowd went crazy, he had earned his tips. People came up to shake his hand after it was all done. Then the rains began again and washed them all away. Then there was the quiet journey home, just me, the end of something special.
