Our last weekend in May, Memorial Day weekend, offered a great opportunity to venture over to Paris to visit a good friend of ours that is here for a few weeks working on a few research projects and attending the Fulbright Seminar. The real treasure in our short weekend trip: hanging with a friend who has lived in Paris a few times and speaks fleunt French. Nice! Finally an opportunity to see the side of Paris many non-French speaking people get to see. It was an amazing weekend with great memories created.
Our friends flat was located in a very cool part of town.
The view of the courtyard outside of the apartment.
With the French Open taking place, we thought it would be fun to head out to Roland Garros and catch a few matches. Right. Good idea, but a bit naive. A funny story actually.....we thought we could pick up some tickets on the streets outside for the outer courts. Our plan was quickly thrown out when we learned that the going price was 200 Euro.....for each ticket. When we countered with a nearly 200% increase over face value, or 35 Euro for each ticket, the fine gentlemen "suggested" that we go enjoy the matches on the television. So that is exactly what we did. We found a HUGE television screen erected outside the Hotel d'Ville. It was actually a great experience watching the matches, lying in comfort in the sun with the Notre Dame Cathedral in the background:
There were a few exhibitions, including this really cute "mini tennis match" for the youngsters to learn the ropes.
Walking around the city a bit and coming back to find a better view to watch the match.
Our friends flat was located in a very cool part of town.
The view of the courtyard outside of the apartment.
With the French Open taking place, we thought it would be fun to head out to Roland Garros and catch a few matches. Right. Good idea, but a bit naive. A funny story actually.....we thought we could pick up some tickets on the streets outside for the outer courts. Our plan was quickly thrown out when we learned that the going price was 200 Euro.....for each ticket. When we countered with a nearly 200% increase over face value, or 35 Euro for each ticket, the fine gentlemen "suggested" that we go enjoy the matches on the television. So that is exactly what we did. We found a HUGE television screen erected outside the Hotel d'Ville. It was actually a great experience watching the matches, lying in comfort in the sun with the Notre Dame Cathedral in the background:
Walking around the city a bit and coming back to find a better view to watch the match.
It was a great weekend......a perfect weekend really. The weather was ideal...in the mid-80's and sunny, and the agenda included nothing but relaxing and having a great time with our friend. Living in Europe offers some great rewards but it does require one to be flexible and "just go with it" at times. In all, it was a perfect weekend hanging with a great friend in the middle of Paris and we are really looking forward to spending more time with her and her husband later this month when we venture out into the "European wild"!
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