French adventure…
I won’t remember the heat, I won’t remember the blistering headache, I won’t remember what I wore… All I will remember is Paris 2025, the year my dreams came true with a day trip to Paris, healing my inner child and getting to the peak of adulthood. My ability to pack light? Unmatched. Organisation? Unmatched. Ability to run and function on 2hrs 37 minutes sleep? Problematic.
So my day never technically ended from the last day. I worked, I stayed in Victoria. I went to bed at 1am. People in Victoria were still up. I’d told reception I was going to be out by 4:30am and I was right.
4am rolled along and I slept through that alarm. It was the 4:05am alarm that woke me. I got dressed and was out by 4:35am. I walked from Victoria to St Pancras, and there were some, somewhat scary people outside the hotel, making weird noises. They were sad they’d only just met and didn’t get to spend time together. One who was particularly scary and was holding a cigarette was disarmed with a friendly smile.
Now I am writing 5 months after the fact…
After a particularly terrifying walk in the dark that involved going to Greycoat Hospital (a school I got into) and green park… I got to St Pancras station.. at around 4:57am. Waiting with Raquel for our 6am train… I got porridge talked with Raquel, as it happens all black families are trash. Like truly. Goddamn… what the hell? Her family are worse than mine for sheer volume of numbers…there simply aren’t enough Griffin’s to create such damage. A fact for which I thank God. Basically human nature seems to not understand a world where if you tell 50% of the population, “obey, stay faithful and be quiet” and 50% of the population “fuck around… find out” we end up with chaos. Yet for generations we have believed in exceptionalism, where some people can break the rules because most people follow them… and the end result… the Griffin Family and Raquel’s family.
Arrival in Paris, calling my mum to say “J’arrive!” and then we set off! We bought “Ile de France” tickets. Essentially Oyster cards and topped it up with 6 tickets in Gare du Nord. Walked to the louvre, to see if we could get tickets “on the day” Boo… no you can’t its booked at least 3 weeks in advance…
Then we set out for teas, we went to 3 different Daman Frere’s tea shops and a Palais du The’s I bought 250g of “Jardin Tropical” then 100g of a Hibiscus Jardin. (Never again it was SOOOOOOOOO strong, you need a metric tonne of sugar to make it sweet.) At Damann freres my purchases of 3 berry teas were a complete bust and I bought Iyabo a set too. I kinda felt weird about it because I didn’t know her at the time, but now I know her honestly, I’m glad I did now because it was such small change, £3/4? But now I know her, I love her, she is the party… so I don’t remember when I got the headache, but damn. That was the a headache for the ages, it wasn’t due to lack of water. I had brought my bottle with me, it was August for heavens sake. But we went to Café Flores, (by this time I was more in my “vibes mood” tired and just happy to be there, having walked at least 20,000 steps. and we went to the Arc du Triumph as a touristy bit of Paris. (we took the metro so it was worth it…) walked from the Arc du Triumphe down the camp de Mars and to the final tea shop, passed the place Princess (now Queen) Diana died. And went back to Gare du Nord for our traditional “Popeye’s” dinner before the train back… which I’m sure I slept through. I then said goodbye to Raquel at St Pancras, walked to the train (which was faster than her who got the bus) and was home by 10:30pm UK time. It was a truly magical “day out”.
Grace and Courage
Annetta Mother Smith.