Wine, friendship, crème brulee and dinner on the Seine! COMPLETED About This Page:

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Wine, friendship, crème brulee and dinner on the Seine!

Dates: Saturday 22 – Monday 24 March
Adventurers: Me, Cheryl (41) and DH Mark (48)
Destinations: Paris
Resorts: staying with Hazel (see below) at their home on the outskirts of Paris
Meets: Hazel (thomhazel) and her family
Celebration: a bittersweet one – seeing Hazel and her family for one last time before they move out to Australia in July. Then we won’t see them until the end of the year…

I absolutely love the PassPorter boards. A strange way to start a trip report perhaps, but it’s how this trip started. Hazel and I “met” on here, when she happened to mention that she was dropping off her pets prior to their holiday at a place near Maidstone, which is where we live. We started chatting, and it transpired that she’s quite often over in Kent, stocking up on things she can’t get in France, where she lives, so we made arrangements to meet, and Mark and I first met Hazel and her daughter Gemma in Canterbury in November 2012. We had a great time with them, and made a promise to stay in touch, and meet up again.

I think the next time I saw them, and this time it was the whole family, was February, just as they were setting out on a trip to Disney World. The state had changed the legislation, and for a very brief period (and I’m talking literally weeks here), UK drivers had to get an international driving licence. It was insane, as usually those are only needed for languages that the police can’t read, like perhaps Arabic, the various forms of Chinese or Japanese. Anyway, the only place you can get one is at a post office, and the only post office you could go to in the whole of the county of Kent (our equivalent of a state) was (you got it! ) Maidstone, so I walked into town, as we have parking where I work, and I knew their cars would be loaded up with stuff for their vacation. I showed them where the post office was, then they dropped me back home.

The next time we met was in June, when Melanie, her mum and Meri came over to Paris. We took a long weekend (Paris and PassPorters), and spent a day at Disneyland Paris, dining with Hazel and Graeme on the Friday night at Walt’s, An American Restaurant, before heading to Versailles the next day, and the local café with the legendary crème brulee.

At the time, Hazel mentioned to us that we should come over and stay, as Gemma would be heading to university in a couple of months’ time, and I liked the idea, but it really didn’t get much further than an idea at that stage.

We talked, and stayed in touch, with Hazel and Gemma visiting on the way back from their Disney trip in the summer, then meeting up with Hazel for lunch when we went to Paris for the day in December. At that point, we knew that there was a possibility, which was a pretty strong one, that she would be moving to Australia for work sometime in the summer of 2014, so we started talking a bit more seriously about coming out to spend the weekend with them.

We met up with Hazel a couple of times in January, and she was able to confirm that the weekend of 22-23 March was free for us to come and stay. I think it’s fair to say that this was about the only weekend she had free in between all her literal flying around, mainly to Australia for work.

I decided to wait until the credit card month rolled over, as we had all the Christmas spend on the existing one, so as soon as it was done, I went ahead and booked our tickets on the Eurostar. I had been looking at all sorts of options, including going out on the Friday afternoon from Ashford. Ironically, of the two stations in Kent, Ebbsfleet has a lot more trains going to Paris and Brussels, but not on a weekday afternoon. The last train out is something like midday, whereas there is one from Ashford late in the afternoon. In the end, it came down to money. It turned out that one of the Saturday morning trains out of Ebbsfleet was cheaper, so we opted for that one. I didn’t want the really early one, given it was a Saturday, so I went for the 7:42am one. As it was, we’d need to be at the station around 7:00am, so would be leaving the house about 6:30am. That’s plenty early enough for me!

When I came to book, standard premier class was only another £30 ($50) for the two of us, above the standard class rate. Standard premier gives you bigger seats, you also get complimentary newspapers and magazines on board, and a light meal and drinks served at your seat. For the extra money, it sounded good to me.

On the way back, we weren’t quite so lucky, but don’t feel bad for us, as I managed to secure one of Eurostar’s cheapest deals, scoring our standard seats for just £34.50 ($55) each, so there was no way standard premier would be a deal on top of that, as that would’ve cost a lot more. We’re leaving on the Monday at 1:04pm, returning just over an hour later, because of the time difference. Hazel assured me both train times would be fine, and they’d be able to pick us up from the station on the Saturday, with Graeme able to drop us back on the Monday.

So what are our plans for the weekend itself? Well, the one thing that Hazel told us about when we had lunch in the café in Paris in December was that she wanted to take another dinner cruise on the River Seine. She and Graeme had already done it once, and absolutely loved it, although she warned us that it wasn’t cheap, and my goodness it wasn’t. It came to €330 for each couple, which is a modest $445. I trust Hazel and if she says it’s worth it, then it is. I really can’t wait! So those are our plans for the Saturday night.

The other must-do for us was a return visit to their wonderful local café, because of course we have to sample their amazing crème brulee. I did say to Hazel that she needed to check if they did take away, because then we’d have one there, and take one with us! We’re heading there for Sunday lunch.

Apart from those plans, I do know that shell-on prawns are on the menu for lunch on the Saturday at Hazel’s from discussions we’ve already had. To be honest, we may need a sleep in the afternoon, as the dinner cruise doesn’t start until 8:30pm, and we’ll have had an early start that morning. After all, with the amount we’re paying, we want to make sure we stay awake for it!

The only other thing I did say to Hazel that I would like to see is Bois de Boulogne, as we’d talked about going there when Melanie came over, but we never made it, and it does look like an amazing place.

I have to say I am so excited by this trip, and I know from various messages from Hazel, that she is too! I cannot wait to get back to spend the weekend with her and her family, and see one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

Footnote:

Just to say that I’m still excited by this trip, but the weather really is not playing ball at all. I know that most people reading this will still think this is exceptional, given the winter you’ve had on the other side of the pond, but we’re only looking at temperatures in the low 50s and we’ve had a really warm spell with temperatures up into the low 60s in the last couple of weeks, so that’s going to be a bit of a shock, especially as Hazel and I are planning on dresses for Saturday night. Add to that, the forecast is saying rain, so the weather really isn’t helping us at all. Still, at least it will be Paris and with good friends.

I really do need this trip as well. Some of you may already know, but I had a cyst removed from my head on Wednesday afternoon. I went through the same process and had three removed in about 2000, but I don’t remember it being as painful as this time. I can’t wash my hair until Saturday, so I’ve warned Hazel a hairdryer will be required, although I am terrified of washing my hair while there are stitches in my head! Of course sleeping isn’t great right now either, so I do need this get away, especially as things are mad at work right now too.

One other thing to say – the trip report may not go up as quickly as usual, as my laptop died on Monday morning for no reason. I haven’t loaded anything new on it, changed anything etc., but it wouldn’t load things, so I restarted it and it wouldn’t restart. They’ve concluded the hard drive is fried and it’s now away for repairs until early next week, so I won’t be travelling with it and that will definitely slow down writing up the trip report, so please bear with me on that…