Earlier this week myself and the Agitos In My Logo got up very very early INDEED to go on a day trip to PARIS, there to go and see the ACTUAL PARALYMPICS!
It was all very exciting, also delightful, also GRATE. After an entirely pleasant journey on the Eurostar we rolled into Gare De Nord and found ourselves almost immediately confronted by a celebrity - for LO! The Paralympic Phryge was casually hanging around in the station, happy to have their photograph taken with anybody who happened to pass by. Including US!
With that completed to everybody's satisfaction we zoomed off to Gare de Lyon and then strolled round to The Bercy Arena, where we were due to watch the Wheelchair Basketball. It was a lovely sunny day and everybody seemed to be in a good mood, even the native Parisians who were MARKEDLY less grumpy than usual. It was all very similar to 2012 when an outbreak of GOODWILL spread across crusty old London Town, and reports were even heard of people chatting on the tube. It was fab!
After a while it was time to go in and we rattled through the queue, pausing only to say "Is that David Milliband" when we realised that Actual David Milliband was just ahead of us. Once inside we got sat down and THOROUGHLY enjoyed two games of Wheelchair Basketball - Japan vs USA women and Germany vs Canada men - which were both BRILLO. It was also quite EXHAUSTING as, apart from the break between the two matches, they did not allow a single second to go by without ENTERTAINMENT. There are GAPS between each of the four quarters of the game plus very brief stoppages for timeouts etc, and so these were all filled by either a roving host who kept getting everyone to SHOUT things, songs played that we had to sing along with (although these were mostly recent French pop songs so approx half the audience had never heard them before), dancers doing dance routines on the court, match commentators doing GAGS, and/or shots of people in the audience dancing, shouting or anything like that. It was all quite exciting but as someone whose experience of in-game entertainment doesn't extend much further than The Mick George Skip Challenge (kicking a football into a skip - literally) it got a bit KNACKERING!
In between the matches we bought some MERCH and also some Alcohol-free beer, which we drank on one of the nicest Smoking Terraces I have ever been on. We also got to see Official Officials sticking the Official Scores for the games on the Official Scoreboard, which felt VERY exciting. The whole thing was BRILLIANT - we were actually THERE!
Once the matches were over we left and went for a walk along the Seine, heading towards Notre Dame. It is a constant truth that Paris is REALLY BIG, and this BIGNESS is ALWAYS even bigger than you think it's going to be. London is also REALLY BIG but the bit in the middle, where all the famous SITES are, is pretty much all walkable, whereas Paris has everything spread out MILES apart so the MAP has to be smaller scale to fit everything in. We thus had a lengthy hike but it was worth it when we got there to see the Cathedral and the big exhibition outside explaining how they were mending it.
By now we were Quite Tired and so headed back via the RER again, which the French had cunningly hidden on a bridge - Paris was much more welcoming this time than I think it's ever been before when I've been there, but the public transport system was still a MENTAL MINEFIELD of incomprehensibility, including actually FINDING it in the first place! Eventually we DID get to the right platform and zoomed back to Gare de Nord where we were alarmed to find not a drop of BEER to be had anywhere. It was weird - there were no bars in the station, and the shops round about had no beer for sale either. We went into an actual French Supermarket and there was NO BEER! In a supermarket! IN FRANCE!!!
It was all very peculiar but somehow we bravely got through it and - eventually, after quite a lot of delays - we got onto the Eurostar and headed home. It was an utterly magical and wonderful day - we were there!!
There's a bloke in a brass band on a barge going past the crowds during breaks in the rowing events, who is very much a member of the Graying Hair and Glasses Brigade. Imagine Our Host if he grew a Van Dyke, wore a beret and braces, and played the tricky trumpet bits in the Pirates of the Caribbean theme. What's French for doppelganger? posted 8/9/2024 by I only say what I see!
