Yes, I really can’t get enough of it. It’s deep down me. This love for a city. This love for your hometown. As stupid as it may sound. I feel extremely fortunate to be able to say I’m from Paris, France. And coming back to it every so often makes it even more special. With absolutely no Parisians in sight it’s just way better.
It was Mum’s birthday today (still is technically) and we had a blast at home. Father prepared some “Filet Mignon” cooked in some Porto Jerez wine along with some fresh pasta and Thyme. Just mouth-watering. We, of course, had Champagne to top that and a few drinks to carry on during the night. We opened present sent it from all over mother earth as the english side of my family lives scattered on three different continents. You should of seen Mother, all excited and all. Earings, dresses, pottery, books and a Marc Jacobs clutch bag/purse. At one point during the night I had to get Dad’s brand new digital camera out to film the ordeal in High Definition. Here’s the result :
Not to mention she’ll be showing it off tomorrow at work along with the dress and earings. She happens to be surrounded by Designer hungry, fashion inclined female co-workers. Always on the look out for the next factory sale for Gucci and Kenzo. They have pretty sad stories to tell when it comes to pushing and shuving other clothingmaniac at after summer sales…
In any case, I think Mother was extremely happy to have her 3 men at home for her Bday. So Mum : HAPPY BIRTHDAY. With all my love.
In other news, I’d like to talk about our trip over here to Paris because that was quite an adventure in itself.
So I had been waiting for my dear Brother to fly back on the A380 from Sydney so he could spend some quality time by the pool at my condo (read flatshare with a rooftop pool…). He came and conquered the fresh waters available to us in those hazy, hot-as-hell Dubai summer days. We played and fooled around with the floaties I had got from Carrefour a few days before and got our tans working before we headed back to Europe. I got sunburnt. Obviously.
I desperately needed to get out of the sandpit as I’d been working non-stop for quite some time and was eager to breathe some fresh Paris air. So I decided, in agreement with Nick (my Brother) to cut the travel a day shorter and head to Dubai International Airport and try to score some cheap standby seats on the next Paris CDG flight with Emirates. I knew of the terrible loads on this particular flight. As well as any other flight heading back to Europe. It’s the end of the summer holidays for many Europeans and the flights are chocka’. But we tried with a lot of optimism, rocking up to the Staff Travel Counter with truck loads of hope. We waited, and waited and waited. To no avail. The lady behind the counter finally had to come to terms with us hanging around the terminal playing bumpers with the trolleys and flying around her like annoying flies. She bluntly turned our optimistic state into a right nightmare.
With little options left to play with. All the flights full for Gatwitch, Deathrow, Frankfart and Dusseldork… I, in a not so financially wise moment, decided we could turn up to the Etihad ticketing office on Sheik Zayed Road (where I used to live) with all our luggage, buy a 2 tickets for the first plane out of this hole and enjoy an extra day in Paris. The sales person behind the desk was in full uniform and looked surprised to see two young men turn up, say “Hi mam’, we need two tickets for tonight’s Paris flight out of Abu Dhabi”. She nodded, typed a few keys on her computer and finally came up with available seats. She didn’t announce any price. She didn’t have time because my card was already on the counter. I knew roughly how much I would toss out so I didn’t really care as long as I had the pleasure off waving Dubai goodbye for as little as 8 days. I was happy. We then went onto checking in our bags next door so we could carry on shopping at Mall Of The Emirates later on that afternoon before heading to Abu Dhabi. The check-in lady was real nice and treated us with Exit row, seat A and C, next to each other.
We landed in Paris at 7.30am after a 6 hour flight. Feeling absolutely fine, the cattle class seats they have are roomy and well maintained. Their In-Flight System is very similar to the one on Emirates. We flew an Airbus, much to my despise but was quite impressed. A340-600. Looked pretty new to me, the carpet and seat weren’t as bad as I’ve seen on other airlines.
Mum and Dad managed to get some time off work to pick us up from the airport, so we shuttled in style back home. A mere 10 minute ride from central Parigi.
Since then it’s been BEER > TERRACE > RESTAURANT > BIKE-SHARING > PINA COLADAS > SLEEP > LOUD MUSIC IN THE LIVING and so forth.
Catching up with High School mates and doing pretty much nothing. I’m enjoying it heaps. I’ve also caught up with Tall Ben who’s still working for that disgrace of a low cost. He’s trying to get back into the EK lifestyle. Hopefully when recruitment opens again in December if everything goes as planned.
Other than that, nothing much apart from the fact that the blog is now back live, fully with design tweaks here and there as I’ve previously stated. I hope you enjoy them… The FAQ is also up and running smoothly. FatherOfSodwee will be featured very soon (as soon as I edit the video) with his cooking skills.
I should also tape some of Mother doing some magic with the blender cause that’s a classic : Ever seen a fustrated banana murderer swinging raspberry coulis and mango cubes into a blender ? Stay tuned, you might just witness something truly abominable…
That’s about it from here in Paris. Take care.
Merci.
cool news & it was a pleasure to have you meet in paris .
hope; — see you!
Cool to meet you too !
OMG your Mum is so COOL!
Awesome post! Love the Marc Jacobs! Hahaha guess we now know what MotherOfSodwee wants for Christmas.
Finally Father of Sodwee, and with a cooking twist to it. How very Julie/Julia. Looking forward to it.
So glad you are back! Haven’t read the Paris pos yet but wanted to skoot on down here to the comments to say that I’m glad you’re back and you must dish about what happened – if you can!
Your mother is absolutely adorable!
welcome back, I had feared you never come back with your stories
but luckly you’re back again AND with this very nice video!
best birthday wishes from sicily, signora, and in italian we would say…
“tanti auguri, mammadisodwee!!!”
Thank you Antonio !
Much as I love the Marc Jacobs bag the real pressie was having you all with me for the b’day hugs and xxxx
Your mother is adorable! I love Marc Jacobs as well….lucky Her!
Nice to hear you’re having such a great time visiting home!
Your mother is fabulous! If only my mom was that fun/cool/hip.