I Spent my Birthday in Paris

Hiya! Today is the last day of July; my birthday month. As a sort of birthday treat, I flew to Paris for the weekend -a spur of the moment decision that saw me travel solo.

Mr. Grey stayed home to ‘hold the fort down’ his favourite phrase 🙂 Jan was off to LA for the weekend. So off I went by my jolly self to rekindle my romance with the city of love.

For my birthday, Mr. Grey bought me the Canon 50m lens that I’ve wanted secretly for a while, so I took this along to practice my photography and take some beautiful scenic shots of Paris.

As luck would have it, it happened to be July 14th, the French National Day “Jour de Bastille”, a festive time all over France. Most of Paris was cordoned off with matching bands and countless other patriotic celebrations.

To add to the festive mood, France was playing the World Cup finals that very weekend; the excitement was palpable -what a time to have been in Paris!

The French pride was strong, as well it should be. They did end up doing well in the finals, beating Croatia 4 to 2 thus clinching the title once again.

I love the idea of capturing travel memories whenever I travel. Over the years, I have established relationships with photographers in parts of Europe because I think it’s important to capture and preserve memories of precious times for those days when we need reminders. I won’t always fly, and I’d like a reminder when that time comes to an end.

So I met up with this lovely photographer whose name is Anastasia and off we went to adventure and make memories. We ended up shooting 7 series, the first of which I’m sharing with you here in this blogpost. Together with her husband Frederico, Anastasia is one of Paris’ top photographer and I was so very lucky to book her on time.

Famous tourist sites like the Tour D’Eiffel was cordoned off for the Bastille Day celebrations, as was the Champs Elysées; I didn’t mind at all because there are other parts of Paris and also, I’ve already been and taken several pictures to remember the trips by. I’m also sure I’ll go again and again so I will still get more pictures there with Anastasia.

Birthdays bring up lots of introspection and I have sure had my share. Am I happy? Am I content? Am I living fully? Am I working towards achieving everything I want to achieve? I still have a long list of things I’d like to do, will I ever get to them? Am I running out of time or is there still time enough?

What an absurd thought; of course there’s time enough to try everything! The book can still be written, as the song can still be sang. I can still pick up the acoustic and pull some strings. And I really must make it to India; it is my bucket-list travel destination afterall…