Rosie Goes to See James at the Welcome to Sunnydale Convention in Paris - Part 1
Here is the first part of my Ramble from Paris. You may well notice the distinct lack of a certain person in this bit...!
Friday
(There’s no James in this part, so if you want to get to the good stuff, hang fire a bit - I'm still writing Saturday!)
I have been to Paris twice before, in fact the very first time I went abroad it was to Paris with my mum when I was about 15 and then again on a school art trip when I was 17 - so almost 30 years since I had last been there! I practically had to start off for Heathrow the night before as my flight was so early - I had to get up at about 2.45am! But it all worked out fine (though they made me check my bag) and we were on time getting into Charles de Gaul airport. The plane seemed to be trundling round and round the terminal buildings for ages, stopping and starting - it was like the pilot was looking for a parking space! I had researched the various ways to get into Paris and being a cheapskate, the best way was by the ‘Roissybus’ which took you straight into the centre of the city and it was easy to find and get on. Quite a nice journey actually - saw a few sights on the way in including the Moulin Rouge with its red windmill, though it appears to be empty. The bus was one of those long bendy jobs, but that didn’t stop it taking some tiny streets where traffic going the other way seemed to be passing within a hairsbreadth of my window. How we didn’t scrape anything I don’t know!
The bus terminated at L’Opera at around 10.30 am leaving me with quite a few hours to kill. I was a little hampered by having my small suitcase with me, but it has wheels so I set off towards the river as I was hoping to go to the Musee D’Orsy where all the Impressionist paintings are. Going down the long straight road that took me to the Tuillerie Gardens, an odd little incident where a woman picked up something in front of me, a gold ring and seemed to think it was mine. I knew it wasn’t so just brushed on past and didn’t really think anything of it. I went across the gardens to the footbridge over the Seine and just as I walked onto the bridge, another woman bent down in front of me and did exactly the same thing! Apparently picked up a gold ring and asked if it was mine. So it was obviously a scam but I wasn’t sure exactly how it works and I noticed this one quicker and saw the not-very-sleight of hand she pulled off so again I said “Non!” and walked on. I did turn to see what she did next and saw her talking to another woman probably having tried the same thing. I shrugged and walked on, admiring the bridge as it’s covered in padlocks locked to the railings with couple’s names on and halfway across, what should happen, but ANOTHER woman bending down in front of me! I didn’t even break stride this time and just said “I don’t wear gold!” as I walked on past. I was a bit pissed actually as having my suitcase with me and my camera handy obviously screamed “tourist” to all the local scammers, but there was nothing else I could do. And when I saw the fourth woman bend down in front of me as I was coming off the bridge I snapped at her “NO! You’re the bloody fourth one to try it! No!” and stomped off towards the museum, keeping a very jaundiced eye on everyone coming towards me!
When I got to the museum, it had quite a long, but fast moving line to get in, but as I got further along there was a sign that said that no large bags were allowed in the building so that meant I couldn’t even go in! That made me grumpy and added to the fact that I was dying to go to the loo and had been hoping to use the facilities once inside I was not a happy bunny! Having tried the train station for a toilet I had to admit defeat and stomped off back over the bridge, deciding I would go and see if there was any chance of getting into the Musee D’Orangerie. I think the scammers must have recognised me as none of them tried it on the way back over, but, having crossed over to the gardens again to do the short walk to the orangery I had a guy come up behind me and start to ask if I had dropped.... I didn’t even let him finish and turned on him with a sharp slash of my hand and snarled “NO! Stop it! Just bloody stop it. Enough! Merde!!” and stalked on my way. Then I got the giggles as it was actually quite funny how many of them were trying and I wondered how many more were going to see me as a potential mark. (That was the last one actually - you would think they would try and spread out a bit rather than being obviously all working the same bridge!) Then it started raining...!
The Orangery had a very short line and though they were searching bags and putting you through a metal detector a guy in front of me had a wheelie suitcase too, and they let us in. I had a nice big trolley to put all my stuff on so I was able to leave everything in the cloakroom, go and buy my ticket and then make a dash for the loo!
The main reason for the Orangery is the two oval galleries that hold 8 of Monet’s huge water lily paintings - they were designed for that purpose, but there are quite a few other impressionists’ paintings in the downstairs galleries, so I went there first. You could photograph without flash down there so having done one circuit to have a first look; I went round again and took pictures. Some gorgeous Renoirs, a couple of Cézannes (who I have a soft spot for after doing a project on him for my A level art in school) another Monet and a whole exhibition of an artist I had not heard of before but whose paintings were great - all swirly and full of movement! You could get right up close to them too and see all the brush strokes in detail.
Then it was time to go and see the water lilies. Nothing prepares you for the sheer size and scale of the paintings. The beautiful oval gallery with its diffused lighting is home to four paintings - two long ones down each side, about 6 feet high and at least 40 feet long, and two shorter ones at the two ends. Then you go through to another identical gallery with another 4 huge paintings. There’s a large oval seat in each of the centres so you can just sit and look at one area and then move round a bit and look at the next painting. It was glorious! The size and the colours just blow you away and the more you look the more real they seem to become. I was probably in the first gallery for about 20 minutes , same again for the second one and then another maybe 10/15 minutes back in the first one again as they were my favourites. (and I kept changing my mind about which one I liked best!) No photography allowed, which I didn’t really mind as no camera could do justice to them - even the official guides and postcards just looked flat and the colours wrong.
So feeling more uplifted and cheerful I went back out (it had stopped raining!) and sat for a bit overlooking the Place de Concord having a snack (and waving off a different set of persistent scammers with their petitions!) before tackling the Metro system to get me to the hotel in the south east of the city at the Place de Charenton. I tackled the self service ticket machine and found out how to change it to English so bought my ticket feeling rather pleased with myself. The train was quick and easy and I was soon at my stop. It was a short walk to the hotel and I had arrived just right to check in and leave myself some time to go and find some food. The room had a fridge, microwave, sink and all kitchen utensils which was great so I decided to go exploring for food a bit and down the road I found a shopping arcade with a supermarket (or supermarche! Its amazing how much of my school girl French came back to me with regards to the names of things - I was prowling about the shop muttering “where’s the sucre?” and the like, though my sentence construction was sadly lacking - I did come absolute bottom in French every single year I was taking it and I failed my CSE (the easier version of an ‘O’ level) with a mark so bad it was ungraded!) I bought tasty things like cheese, pate and crackers to have over the weekend and then decided, what the heck, when in Paris...nothing like throwing yourself in - let’s try and figure out the self service machines in French! I was studying it and was helped by the gentleman next in the line, and the lady in charge of the machines who had no English, but a good line in hand gestures showed me I had to scan my carrier bag too as it cost 4 cents. Scanning and paying was dead easy regardless of the language (though I was told firmly “Non!” about putting my items in the bag before I had scanned them all, not quite sure why!) and it was good fun giving it a go. In fact there is even a perfect Doctor Who quote to sum it up, from the ninth Doctor “Time travel is like visiting Paris. You can’t just read the guide book; you’ve got to throw yourself in. Eat the food, use the wrong verbs, get charged double and end up kissing complete strangers! Or is that just me??” And I did most of that, except (luckily) getting charged double - after all I was soon doing the kissing greetings with lots of people I had only just met!
Registration for the con was from 5.30pm so I set off to arrive there at around 4.30. There was a short line outside and having asked “Buffy?” of a group of girls I knew I was in the right place! I quickly made friends with the four girls who all had good English in varying degrees and they were impressed that I had come from England for the con and about how much I had seen James before! All of them were young, in their early twenties and total newbies and that was the same for the majority of the attendees - so most of them had started watching Buffy as children and had grown up with it. They were all very excited to finally have a Buffy con in France. I made friends mostly with a girl called Isabella, but she was known as what sounded like “Ocean” pronounced “Ozzy Ann” and I spent a lot of time with her over the weekend. Eventually they started letting us in to register and they had it all correct with what photos I was having (and they had put me with two on each day as I had wanted!) and that I was going to Saturday’s meet and greet with James. Going into the space, it wasn’t very big at all; there were 3 or 4 vendors and the table for buying extra photos and the like. I talked with one of the organisers who spoke English and she told me that it was a small convention, there was only about 200 attendees so it was going to be pretty intimate - so that was good news! DeeDee and Sheila arrived (they had spent the day at Disneyland!) and then we just hung out and talked with people and made new friends. There was a cocktail party for those with the “slayer” passes, in the hall where the talks would be and so we could see the seating arrangements and no one was going to be very far away from the stage. The party wasn’t actually very good, soft drinks in plastic cups and crispy things to nibble, no guests in attendance, though the organisers assured us they were all there! - but it was all interesting and gave us a chance to find out more details for the following day. DeeDee, Sheila and I wanted to go and eat after, but as DeeDee uses a wheelchair most of the time, we were rather thwarted as every restaurant near by had a large step up. We ended up having a takeaway kebab sandwich with chips (and even there, there was a step so poor DeeDee had to wait outside! France is not very disabled friendly!) which we ate back at the hotel and had a good old gossip and catch up! The con was staring at 9am, so we needed to be up and ready - though we were questioning if James was going to make it for that early - certainly was going to be a first if he did!