July 28/09 Doing Paris

No not that Paris.

Last Friday I booked my flight over to Paris for September. Yesterday I finally settled on an apartment to rent at a pretty damn good prize. For some visuals, I’ll post some photos. For about 85 Euros a night, I have an apartment, dishwasher – not that I need that, washer, and free WI FI, something very essential for me.

Now going to Paris may not seem that adventurous, especially after my official “Pandemic Tour” where I travelled around the world, literally. But it is.

Image by Kostas, Athens.

The last time I was in Paris, I was detoxing. I was actually detoxing all over Europe, mostly  in Brussels, but also Paris, Glasgow, and Amsterdam.

Feeling strung out,  I longed to be back at home. Europe to me looked as if someone photoshopped all the colour out. My Belgian friend, who kept very different hours than myself,  snored so loudly, that I was desperate to be alone. This is why I took off from Glasgow to Paris leaving my friend to return to Brussels.

In Paris, I was depressed, and lonely. I lacked the energy to really do anything. I distinctly remember puffing on a cigarette and thinking as if it were nothing that I were in Paris, “Oh fuck maybe I’ll take a walk by the Seine” as if I had nothing better to do.

During my drugs and hooker-with-a-passport days, I travelled a lot in Europe, so much that it all seemed very ordinary for me. It was during this trip I realized traveling was just as much of a drug/obsession for me. It didn’t matter where I ran off too, I could not escape how I felt in my skin.

The take home message is if you are going to quit all drugs and alcohol, don’t do it two weeks prior to a 7 week stay in Europe. It is not recommended.

A lot has changed since then, and I look forward to over-writing those memories with new ones.

I will visit my friends. Both were seronegative when we first met,  now two have managed to seroconvert over the last couple of years. Today they will be better able to understand why I’ve made some of the self-care choices I’ve made.

My friends from Brussels will come down  for the weekend and we are going to see the famous French performer Mylène Farmer. She’s a lot like the Madonna French world. And as with Madonna, people either love her or hate her. It will be a lot of fun, and finally I’ll get to see le Stade de France, where Dieux de Stade get to play, the very sizzling homoerotic calendar boys of the French soccer team.

This trip also marks my first post-rehab trip on my own. This is why I’m doing it right this time; an upgrade to Club Class , my home in Paris for 10 days, a car waiting for me at the airport, and lots to do.

One thing I’ve learned over the last two-years travel is to be more adventurous. I never explored, and now I love to. I pick out even tacky tourist stuff sometimes, or I may take a train up to the beaches of Normandy one day. There are many things to do.

I’m really looking forward erasing those old somber memories of France, and replacing them much more glamourous ones.
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