Paris.

The mere word conjures up images in my head, the likes of which quickly tell of my Western prejudice. Or rather, my personal prejudice. I used to think service was such as word, but Hell to the No! More about wrecking my prejudice later.

X and I left early to more for the airport. When we got there - having gone by Arlanda Express, a train that cut travelling time to the airport with three fourths in comparison with any other trains - Norwegian, i.e. the company that flew us, had cancelled our flight. Kudos, though, for that fight was immediately rescheduled to take off at the same time. I'd love it if all airlines were to have RSS-feeds telling you if a flight were delayed. Or at least an SMS-service.

Having checked our bags at the counter, we waited to board the plane. I love an early flight, and we left at mid-day to arrive at Orly at nine in the evening. Rummaging through passport control - a much quicker ordeal than at Gatwick in England - was a breeze and actually, so was our first affrontal with the French language. A bus-chauffeur reluctantly cast up his hands in height with his ears and made a frowning grin as I "Parlez-vous Anglais?"'d him. As we found out that the bus would take us to Montparnasse we calmed and just watched the outside as the bus made its way through Paris.

As with London, the old is intertwined with the new. Lavish houses built this millennium sat side-by-side with buildings made with mortar and clay, threatening to fall to their bare components at any minute. It seemed that age, rather than any well-aged composite material, was holding them together.

Our hotel was recommended to us by X's good friend Malin. The Hotel Aramis Best Western is part of a franchise, in a good way. The staff knew English well and were helpful in every way. And, unlike Hotel First G in Gothenburg, these guys knew how to clean the room we were staying in! The building was small and the elevator furry; it was completely carpeted from top to bottom. Funny, that. I felt like Robert Smith in the video for "Lullaby".

Our room was situated on the fifth floor, crammed into a corner. It was actually lovely! The room was single, contorted with a double bed in the middle. Ugly painting on the wall above the bed. We gave this little thought as we had to venture into the night and get ourselves something to eat.

If I'd been responsible and checked out facts on Paris before actually travelling there, I might not have mentally copied the rules of London onto it. There weren't many around-the-clock restaurants abound, so we were happy to get hold of the last two vegetarian pizza-slices from a horribly lit shack just down the road from our hotel. You should have heard my order, a marriage between gestures and bad grammar that would have made Jacques Tati and my old French-teacher wept. Still, we got our food and American soft-drinks without being cursed aloud. Not that I'd understand being barked at in a foreign language; oh, the pleasures of being a total foreigner.

The day after we made tea, made sure that a Do Not Disturb-sign was hanging from our door-knob and got ready for the day. Our friends D&T were getting married now, actually for the second time; apparently, they had to get married in Sweden first, in order to wed in France, which was their destination on where to get married.

We got a map from the hotel and went for the nearest Metro, i.e. subway. The French subway net is the oldest in the world and worked marvellously. One had to walk a lot at intersecting points but that wasn't a problem in the least as every turn had signs logically and visibly placed. We bought travelling cards from non-service-minded people who actually made me miss Swedish service, which is often beyond crappy. Anyway, we got to Ben-Hakeim we went all-in on the tourist tip, by which I mean that we visited The Eiffel Tower. Oh yes, all-in. My Bog, was that thing huge? Hell yes. It was more magnificent and actually more beautiful than through any picture or film I've ever seen it in. The surrounding area was a blend between parks, small gardens and a very attractive pond. Hustlers were abound, a lot selling metal trinket copies of the tower, others decked out as gypsies trying to raise money for their fake son's fake operation in a real country. We made our way through the rest of the tourists and found out that going up in the lifts or even walking up the stairs wasn't going to happen, as the queues were inhumanely long, stretching forever, with the partakers being accosted by the hustlers to and fro. Coupling the time it'd take to get into the tower with X's vertigo, we got some mineral water and sat down in an adjacent park.

Calm. Paris. It kind of dawned on me that we were actually, finally here. A month prior, X and I had talked about how soon our trip was to be. The week prior to the trip, neither of us were getting hysterical over trip details, passports, et.c.. We packed everything neatly and now that we were here, it all came to me.

We decided to eat and drink, but sadly we chose the tourist trap Café Eiffel, which was an absolute shithole. Service was relatively quick but that was nothing compared with what was to come; we ordered two vegetarian sandwiches with lettuce, cheese and tomato plus two café au lait. We received the sandwiches with eggs and mayo smeared all over. Fucking hell. X hates mayo and didn't finish her sandwich. The bread was good, but the mayo basically made the rest of the ingredients its bitches and owned them for life. I saw a big coffee-machine designed for professionally making nice coffees, and I even saw a grinder, but I'll be damned if the coffee tasted anything but pre-ground shit. It was horrible! The only excuse was the big chunk of cream on top, garnished with cinnamon and a hefty amount of sugar. The sugar helped neutralise the effect of the coffee. Having paid close to 25USD for that crapfest, we left.

Ah, Paris. I don't want to sound complaining despite the above description. Every street held something special and discovering stuff by stumbling onto it was blissful. We lead a cut-up existence, stitched together by a few set points. T&D's marriage, for instance. They'd already married when in Sweden, so that they could marry in France. Having visited the Eiffel tower, we got ready and left for the nearest Metro, maps in hand. I've actually never felt this comfortable as a tourist. Plodding along streets, trying to navigate while not really caring whether we strayed off the given path (unless time was of essence), we purchased flowers by a place and waited until the time was right. T's dad's a padre of the christian faith, and as such, his parents and kids were roomed in the Swedish church, where he was to marry. D's parents and kid had a room in the same hotel as T&D. The church had a beautiful little court on which the sun shone. X and I saw T&D arrive and vanish into the church, before heying them. We quickly went to a nearby café and had mineral water. X swore they had the filthiest toliets ever.

The ceremony was beautiful. I'm a true atheist, but as I grow older I grow more accustomed and liking of the ceremony where two people promise each-other eternal love. Of course, this is not a precursor to keeping christianity. D wore a shrouding bridal dress and T sported Roberto Cavalli, both radiating. X and I smiled so much during the ceremony that we both complained of gum-ache afterwards. Still, I could not help smiling afterwards. T's brother poured everybody champagne as we got acquainted with the families. The weather was good and everybody in high spirits. After the ceremony - or rather, following D's escape as T told her he'd carry her over the steps - X and I left for Hausmann, which D's brother told me we'd easily find on Boulevard Hausmann. X and I walked that boulevard for an hour, at which point X's shoes gave up and hated on her, resulting in our retreat for Champs-à‰lysées and trying to find somewhere to shop, somewhere existing; little wonder did we find two or three Zara's, a big Virgin Megastore - which, ironically, wasn't stacking the one French album I looked for - and so we looked a little until the time was more than nigh and we relised we had to get away. No longer trusting ourselves to find the Italian restaurant that T&D had picked, we jumped into a cab and were driven a couple of kilometers to La Familia, a very nice little venue that served brilliant vegetarian ravioli, good wine and a semi-irritating man who wanted to come on like Brando outta "The Godfather", even calling T's dad "padre".

X and I were first on the scene, just on the clock. The rain had started pouring down the very second we came into the restaurant. Everybody else were fashionably late yet trickled in, one after another and it was nice to sit on the opposite side of X at one end of a long table, with T's brothers next to her and T's mom on my side. X and I warmed a lot to her, who was warm at heart and had a great sense of humor.

We ate. Oh, lawd, we ate with heart and mind. It didn't feel strange to be a foreigner eating Italian food in Paris when the food was this good. Bruschetti with great olive oil, a parade of entrées and then the main course, marvellous ravioli with a very fresh, simple tomato sauce; the Brando wannabe twice stated that the ravioli were all hand-made by a most elusive mama. More wine. More laughter. I gazed at X, waiting for tomorrow, even though our current setting was grand. After a while we all left for home; X and I walked several quarters with T's mom and dad plus their two brothers. Once we travelled home by metro, we got hold of one of the few open shops in our neighbourhood, got a few Lay's and plopped down on our hotel bed while watching what turned out to be the middle of Jodorowsky's "Holy Mountain"; trust me, it was quite surreal, even moreso than watching French game-shows without subtitles.

The day after. The wonderful Saturday that I shan't forget for the rest of my life. X and I got ourselves ready, me with the box in my left jacket pocket, and away we went. It was quite a journey, to get to Cimetià¨re du Pà¨re Lachaise, a.k.a. the Pà¨re Lachaise cemetery. We refused to buy a map, and hence wandered through the huge cemetery ((It is reputed to be the most visited cemetery in the world.)) where dignities such as Edith Piaf, Jim Morrison and Molià¨re are buried. Aeons of graves, sepulchers and well-sculpted busts and thrones were inspected. Many old ones lay askew and at times seemed like they were going to tumble off the fickle ground. Some tombs were very ascetic in design while others contorted and throned magnificently. Some were superbly designed, others just gleaming of braggadocio. Tourists hovered like bees around the more well-known dead people, taking pictures, as we came further to our gold. The box seemed to burn in my pocket at this time.

Suddenly, we'd reached the tomb of Oscar Wilde. It was covered in lipstick, scrawled messages in different languages and and made me tingle. One of my literary heroes lay buried here, with a beautiful marker of stone to show the place, right next to a small strip of cobblestone road. Tourists were abound. X and I waited a little, inspected and photographed the place, then sat down at the opposite side of the road and took in the full glory. And we knew. And I felt everything. And I reached into my pocket and pulled out the box, opened it and asked X if she wished to engage with me, to be married.

She said yes and thereby made me the happiest person alive. I've written about our engagement before as I just couldn't help myself from blurting it out to the entire world. We shone as we sat. X illuminated me with her being and we stood up to walk down the road, slowly. Though the sky was darkening I couldn't have felt happier. If X hadn't been holding my hand I'm sure I'd have floated past the haunting trees and beyond.

We slowly left the cemetery and went to shop some more before heading back to the hotel; ironically, we found most stuff on the very street where our hotel was situated, i.e. Rue de Rennes. We then left in search of food, and ended up at a local Pomme de Pain. This is the Parisian equivalent of a sandwich shop, where we ate a sandwich - sans mayo and other painful stuffs - and then went to the nearest café which happened to be Café Leffe, where I had a wonderful glass of the Belgian ale and we settled down. It was terrific. The air was quite warm, we were surrounded by people who seemed to love life, and even the traffic was lovely; no, this wasn't because of the alcoholic beverage that I imbibed. The atmosphere felt completely relaxed, and the service was OK here.

We left to go see T&D at their hotel, where they had a room high in the air. As we entered the foyer loads of Asians were abound. Two old ladies were wearing kimonos and looking cool. Loads of Asian men wearing suits, while the Asian women rushed around. We sat down and waited for T&D to show up. There were golden blingy things everywhere in the ceiling of the foyer, rectangles symmetrically placed. T&D met us and we went up a non-carpet-covered elevator to their room, located almost at the very top of the very high hotel building. Luxuriously, we peered out from the windows until T made way and started launching biscuits from the window! Of course we tried to egg him on to throw more out the window, but suddenly we were out of stuffs and had to break everything down to drinking and talking. After a while X started feeling quite tired, and I was on the same path; we tried to break the tiredness by going to the fancy club that the hotel apparently had situated on the very top floor; when there, it was so packed with people that we went back to T&D's room - only to retry half an hour later, to little aid; it was still full. Never mind, the music sounded like shite. Writing of music, X and I were supposed to leave for La Loco, a big club that Malin had recommended. We even had flyers printed to get in at a discount price, but as tired as we were...oh my. We left our mates and their big hotel and jumped in a cab that was seemingly driven by the guy from "Vanishing Point" as he accelerated and braked constantly through the makeshift 20-lane traffic surrounding Arc-de-Triomphe. About 15 minutes and 20 Euro later we came to our hotel, went up and slept.

Sunday. The last day. We woke up without any hang-over and got up, checked out, left our luggage at the hotel and exited to discover that everything's closed in Paris on Sundays. Hell's bells! We nearly had to eat gravel as we struggled to find somewhere that was open and could serve us food; combining those two demands was near-death-impossible. OK, so I exaggerate. Maybe a little. A Pomme du Pain had to suffice, and it was nice to sit there as one of their people made cràªpes for everybody on the sidewalk to see. By the way, Sunday is the day when everybody in Paris takes their tiny dog for a walk. I rarely saw any medium-to-big-sized dogs, only miniscule ones. Wonder why, but as P.M. Dawn said it: that's the way it goes.

We ended up at Café Liberte where we were met by nice older men who served us well. I liked that a lot! I feel that ageism really is a problem in Sweden. However, Paris seemed undeterred by this, just like Spain, former Yugoslavia and most other countries I've visited ((Of course, there's no surefire way to know for certain, considering we visited Paris for three days in total.)). We sat outside where cold winds were starting to blow, so we went inside and watched as the rain started falling. This, paired with X's aching feet from all our walking, made us scrap our plans to visit Saint-Séverin and instead went to the Louvre. While we didn't swoon over the masterpieces from the Greek era - which is where we first went, bewildered from all the people swarming the place - we stumbled onto the Napoleonic era and were awestruck. I mean, a blinged-out set like this chair, table and mirror would probably even make Beyoncé or Baby grit their diamonds excessively. This picture of Napoleon III's dining-room says a lot about why the French people were starving and what lead the royals to lose their heads during the French Revolution. There were quite a few pieces there that I would love to have at home, oh brother. We weren't helped by the fact that whenever we strolled through a street that contained furniture for sale, a lot of it made me guffaw and want to take it home with us. Anyway, back to the Louvre.

There was a lot of modern art available as well, for instance this party lamb. GO, YOU FRIKKIN' LAMB YOU! I had to write that. Party hat and all, it killed me. There were a few other pieces of modern art that were massive, but seeing that there are appx. 32000 pieces of art in the Louvre, it's totally overwhelming. We entered the museum fairly unprepared, and for those of you thinking about going there to see a lot of art: plan what you want to see beforehand, at least per age/period/style. Having passed through the modern arts, we decided to take an elevator instead of grinding through the hordes of tourists who all were heading in the same direction as us: to see the Mona Lisa. Ooh-er, I told you we were tourists!

While waiting for the miniscule elevator with appx. 50 Asian people standing before us waiting to get on, we nearly collapsed. Having to wait for ages until they'd all cleared seemed impossible, until - bang! - all of a sudden every single Asian symmetrically moved away from the elevator and walked the stairs instead. 50 people moving in formation, impressive! Hence, we were in the elevator and up at the Mona Lisa-floor in no time at all. When there, X spotted art that she'd seen in books from history class in school. I spotted nothing I recognised, which goes to show how much I know from the 1700's. And there it was, the old lady, incarcerated behind guards, a fence and thick layers of plexiglass. We looked at it, looked at each-other, said "shall we?" and left.

Once away from the Louvre, we went back, got our bags and left for Orly airport. No troubles. The metro and then connecting at Antony towards the train line, we had our last pain de chocolates and checked in. We bought a few items and then queued to get onboard the plane. Looked like our airline of choice, Norwegian, had mistakenly ousted a number of passengers from their roster, thus creating tension, to say the least. Two younger Swedish men who obviously had travelled to Paris together, were told that only one of them could go home, and that the other could fly home tomorrow. There weren't any "excuse us" ejected by the crew, and the poor men had to call people themselves, fighting their way through the French and the English language. Oh, I was incredibly happy to see X's and my name pop up when the passenger-list was produced through an old matrix printer ((Why do all airlines use these old things, and not lasers?)). After a long wait, we boarded and got home. At Stockholm station, an angry cabbie literally threw our bags in the trunk of his car and drove us home, where we fell into bed and dreamland. At long last.

The days after made us recollect and dream of Paris even more. Oh, I can't wait to go back! The city and experiences we had outshone my wildest expectations, and I couldn't be more happy about it. By no way, most of the pics above are courtesy of X, whose pictures are available here.

Next stop: ATP!

Bonus: here's a video that I've spliced together from my constant filming. Enjoy!