Sunday, July 10, 2005

PARIS Day06//13.Nov.04 - A Bientôt!: Paris - KL

Today being the day S and I were supposed to catch the flight that will remove us from all things French and Parisian, there was nothing else that we had scheduled on our itinerary save that 9am train that we had to catch from Montparnasse to Charles de Gaulle Aeroport.
Before we bid goodbye to Montparnasse, S and I made one last stop at a nearby boulangerie and I ordered 1 brioche raisin for S and 1 pain au lait for myself. Our carbo-loaded breakfast may have provided enough sugar for that morning, but instead, it was that (all too familiar) bittersweet feeling that was coursing through me whenever parting and departure looms in the horizon. As the train hurtled towards the airport, both S and I were quietly reflective. I believe we were both already reminiscing, rather, clinging to the immediate past.
Mementos are objects that serves as reminders of past events. One such memento that we nearly lose was S's Carte Orange* ticket. Upon alighting the train station at the airport. S used his ticket one last time, and was visibly dismayed when the ticket reader/machine at the turnstile did not spit out his ticket. Nevermind that we were on a tight schedule and had a bus and aeroplane to catch, S was steely determined to retrieve it despite that it no longer served any functional purpose. S set me to govern the bags and I watched anxiously as he tried to catch the attention of the attendant. This effort was not without drama as there was initially no one to be found at the booth, and when the personnel made an appearance, he attended to another passenger's dilemma first. Finally when S was able to seize his attention, he was brought to the turnstiles. And for a while, uncertainty and hesitation reigned, as we tried to figure out which turnstile S passed through. We identified one (or two?) turnstile(s) and the attendant unlocked and opened the turnstile(s) and let S rummaged through it. Imagine my relief and our jubiliation when S finally managed to pick out his ticket!
May he have not been able to find it, I would have tried consoling him with that fact that aside from the ticket, we have our experiences captured by hundreds of photo, and more significantly, through our memories, that are of sentimental value of the times spent during this lovely Parisian trip.

* Read about how we got our Carte Orange on PARIS Day01//08.Nov.04 - Bonjour Paris!: Montparnasse & Luxembourg Qtr - CC