On the road....

less travelled....

ode to Paris, Prince and my Mom....

and it's all about Prince and the Citadel now...

There are thunderstorms predicted and we do get a slight drizzle for a bit...but of course the weather clears and turns out to be completely perfect.  We walk from our hotel to the Citadel (maybe a 1/2 mile) and there's much beauty to enjoy along the way.

 There is quite the line and alot of waiting when we arrive....it's very  beautiful, lush....and hot.  Everyone is very mellow.  Here and there I hear someone talking near me and it takes me a moment to realize they're speaking english.

Those of us who have paid to be closer to the stage are sort of sent down a side path and enter through a different gate.  We come in next to the stage but this is still an outdoor venue with alot of sun and heat....so we hang out in a grassy shaded area which is a bit away from the stage.  We sit near a church from the late 1600s....the history is breathtaking.  We are sitting next to a church which was dedicated by Louis the XIV to his father...we're not in Kansas anymore...

ode to Paris, Prince and my Mom....

and let me guide you...to the purple rain.

So we get to delightful Arras!  The whole place is abuzz about the Prince gig or at least it feels that way.  We are only an hour north of Paris but a world away.  I immediately love it.  The train drops you right at this cute center with cafes and hotels and you literally walk across the square to "Hotel Moderne" (where we're staying).  We check in - and they couldn't be any nicer - we're lucky to even have a room.  It's a small town of about 50,000 and it is sold out due to the concert.  Many concert goers will have to return to Paris or Lille on late trains cuz they couldn't get a room.  We lucked out.

We're so excited to see Prince in such an unusual place....it feels so different from seeing music in a major city at a well known venue.  It's like being on an adventure with Prince at an exotic locale.

  We eat some food at a nearby cafe and speak in broken english and french to some very nice guys who are sitting next to us who are also going to the show.  I recognize they are Prince fans because one is wearing the Lotusflow3r  tee (free to members of Prince's most recent membership site.)  I too have brought my tee but have instead donned the purple tanktop I hand dyed before leaving home.  Yes! I am a Prince geek!  Funny, how it's not really "cool" to go in for such "fan" behavior but somewhere along the way I've decided there will never be anything cooler than L O V I N G something and putting yourself into it.  Hence my fantastic purple hand dyed with love tank.  And this I know...I didn't come across the universe on this magical journey of life to hang back and be cool - - I came to love and live and be swept up in every moment possible....love is cool.

ode to Paris, Prince and my Mom....

We only spend the first night at Hotel Brettonerie as we are going North to Arras (Prince!) on Friday around noon. It's tempting to even push on to Brussels after Arras because everything feels so close together - just another couple hours on a train and you're in yet another country!  I love it!  So different from the U.S.  and we do love a road trip, but it may just come down to dollars and cents and hanging in Paris. 

At any rate, we have to get some food and get checked out Friday morning. We eat some eggs at a cafe, and some OJ mixed with sparkling water (very mimosa-esque without the alcohol) and enjoy our next dose of fabulous cafe cremes. We go rushing down Rue de Rivoli to find the Metro station that will take us to Gare du Nord for our train to Arras. We have traveled light but are still handling one piece of luggage each and a shoulder bag. We get a good workout dragging the bags up and down the stairs to and from the Metro and it's a bit challenging riding the train with the luggage. It's crowded, hot and humid and it's all business as you try to drag your little rolling bag into the subway car while trying not to clip anyone in the shins (including yourself) and secure a place to hold on during the starts and stops. Nobody helps you, nor does anyone give you a bad look for crowding them.  The "it's crowded and we leave each other alone" law is in full force.  I think maybe one sort of young guy half-smiles at me...and I he.  As a I balance myself (standing room only), it's actually a rather familiar feeling - - it reminds me of being with my grandmother as a child and riding the bus all over Hollywood and downtown (she never drove).  It is very very hot and not the least bit glamourous but I can honestly say I so enjoy rubbing shoulders with the human race (as I so rarely do in Los Angeles) that even as I wrestle with my bag and feel a bead of sweat roll down my back under my tank top - I am completely loving it.

After a 15 minute ride we get to Gare du Nord (one of the main train stations) and I feel like a geek saying it....but it's all very Murder on the Orient Express as we board our air conditioned #9 train to Arras!

ode to Paris, Prince and my Mom....

and the sun goes down on our first night in Paris...
Thursday, 7 8 2010 10:18 p.m.

It's a Thursday night and the city is so wonderfully alive. There are people out everywhere, walking, smoking, hanging.  Does anyone work here....?  Hopefully not. Check out this whole "bar/club on a boat" deal they've got going.  Note to Self: check this out next summer.

ode to Paris, Prince and my Mom....

On our first night we absolutely have to hit Le Duc. We've fallen in love with "Bar Le Duc" (on an earlier trip) and have made friends with Monsieur and Madame Le Duc...so we want to make sure we get by to say hello before we head to Arras the following day. It's a neighborhood bar - which is exactly why we love it. We settle into a back corner for a Kronenbourg, a Ricard over ice and croque monsieurs. Relaxing and hanging out we start to go over our plans for the train trip to Arras and the Prince concert the next day!! And yes....we feel

f a b u l o u s!

Ode to Paris, Prince and my Mom....

We write to taste life twice....

We're back in Los Angeles on an overcast morning and ugh... Paris is already feeling so far away. I think to myself about journaling this trip and wonder "why do it at all" and then I think of that quote "We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection..."

One of the first things I love to do in either NYC or Paris....is to just start wandering/walking and then hit a cafe. This time, we're in the Marais and Paris is in the middle of a huuuge heat wave so everyone is out.  The streets are heavy with heat, smoke and laughter.  We want to see our friends at Le Duc (a bar on the other side of the Seine) so we head south and end up at a cafe (on the way) more or less behind Notre Dame. It's a touristy location but as we sit drinking our first cafe creme in two years (espresso and steamed milk = cafe creme) we watch the sun slip down the sky in the west beyond Notre Dame and in just that moment....I get so much of what I came for.

Ode to Paris, Prince and my Mom....Pt. 2

We arrive in Paris on July 7, 20ten...

So as I said in my earlier post (pt. 1) I always like to measure whether it's "my time" as the plane takes off....that's just me. Once I wear myself out with that drama (with buddhist chanting and thoughts of how I too am entitled to "live large" like Angelina, Madonna and Prince....) - - the flight is usually quite nice. I guess the fact that my mom had recently passed away - - a person who I'd spent many years trying to help - - I felt an even greater sense of "is my work done here - - now that she's gone?" We fly direct to Paris from Los Angeles (leaving 9pm ish) and arrive in Paris late afternoon the next day.

I must to admit once we get to the hotel (and our cute room at Hotel Bretonnerie) I make the mistake of momentarily laying on the sort of day bed/couch (we barely slept at all on the plane) and one teeny weeny thought sneaks through...."I'm too tired to go anywhere".....so I bribe myself up with the big guns - - the promise of cafe cremes galore - - and off we go.

Ode to Paris, Prince and my Mom....Pt. 1

Is it my time yet?

Not everyone feels the need to travel the globe seeing concerts, but evidently, I do. There were 100 different things I coulda woulda shoulda done with the money. But you see, coulda woulda shoulda doesn't seem to matter to me – never has.

There's so much more I could say about how we ended up on this journey, like that my mom passed away the night we got the tickets and that it seemed right to go, or that there was a small amount of money coming my way after her death that financed the trip, or that there was a talk with a friend at a pivotal moment who said, "in six months or a year, what will you remember, the bills you paid or a trip to see Prince in France?"

So I went. I did it for myself and I also did it for Mom. A person who had a rough life - - a person who never got on a plane....and she certainly never made it to Paris. The beauty of it all...now she's seen Paris - - I took here there with me - - in my heart.

So yes, we took off to Paris, and rode a train North from Gare du Nord to a magical (oh so faraway place) called "the Citadel", and we had the time of our lives! Me, the not so great flyer, who gets antsy and always likes to measure "is it my time" when I get on a plane... and "If it's my time I will know in the first three minutes of take off". I do an inventory of loose ends. I check in with myself to see if anything is unfinished - - "nope – I'm ok if I go"...ugh...and then I wait and see...(laughing...I've gotta laugh...)

Of course the good news is, it wasn't my time. Here I am back in Los Angeles, on a balcony, typing on my Macbook on a very hot summer day, getting to tell you about my wonderful trip. Thank you God for another week on this planet, cuz you really never know.....

Ode to Paris, Prince and my mom....

and so the story goes...