Ok, so let me start off by being extremely blunt, I Have Never Wanted to Visit Paris.
But I had accumulated too many unused “Vacation Days” at work & was ordered to take some time off, so I combed the internet for cheap tickets to anywhere outside of the middle-east, the Indian sub-continent & Asia. I found a website based in Greece, which offered me extremely cheap tickets to Paris, not being my destination of choice I continued to search. After not having found a better deal anywhere else or for any other city in Europe, I decided that Paris it was. If for nothing else, at least to try the croissants.
For this particular trip, I decided to ditch the heavy DSLR & opted for my newer, more compact Fujifilm X-T20. One day prior to my flight, for reasons I can’t explain, I ran over to my local Fujifilm dealer & bought a silver Fujinon XF 23mm F2 R WR prime lens. I didn’t have much time to test the lens or to read reviews, but considering the excellent bargain I received, I decided to go for it anyways. I carried the Fujinon XF 18-55mm f/2.8-4 with me, just in case.
So, in the middle of February 2020, armed with my camera gear, a few clothes & my $300 return ticket, I boarded a Middle Eastern Airlines (MEA) flight bound for Paris via Beirut, with no particular excitement about setting foot in France.
Before I carry on any further, it needs to be mentioned that all of the MEA connections I took on this trip departed & arrived on schedule or at least pretty close to it. The layovers at Beirut were not too long & the airport itself is decent enough for these short stopovers. But I did not like the way I was treated by some of the airport security staff in Beirut. Having frequently flown bigger carriers such as Emirates Airlines & Qatar Airways, I know what the standard decorum needs to be & in Beirut, they fell far below that.
Anyway, my arrival into Charles De Gaul was quiet uneventful & the exit out of the airport was a smooth process. And soon I was on a cab headed to my Airbnb in the clean western suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt. I felt my first real ping of excitement when I passed the famous French tennis court of Roland-Garros. For an admirer of the sport, this arena is hallowed ground & I was quite pleased to lay eyes on it.
The Airbnb that I’d booked did not disappoint in any way, shape, or form. It was a stylishly renovated apartment under the roof of an old Parisian building. The elevator to the top floor was extremely tiny, but I & my bags made it through in one go. Oh, & joy of joys, the first thing I noticed inside the apartment was a croissant waiting for me. I somewhat settled in, freshened up & of course, devoured that delicious croissant.
That evening, I was quite keen on testing the new Fujinon I had acquired the previous day, pulled out the backpack, loaded the camera, grabbed a croissant & made my way to the most visited tourist trap in the world, The Eiffel Tower.
Ok, so I must admit, The Eiffel Tower is much more captivating to look at when you stand right in front of it. The sheer size & presence of the structure is worth the hype that is built around it. But like so many others, Eiffel has become a victim of its own success. The streets are swarm of hawkers trying to pawn off overly priced trinkets, tourists taking selfies & brightly lit quirky vehicles that take tourists for a ride. The over crowding in the area does take away some of the charm, but I guess it also helps drive an economy.
I pulled out the camera & decided to shoot for some time. With the sun completely retired for the day, I had to call upon my nighttime shooting skills (of which I have plenty), but the Fuji X-T20 behaved much like a distracted child. I just could not get it to focus on the objects that it needed to. The bright flashing lights of the Eiffel kept pulling the autofocus away from any subject that is placed in front of it. Although setting the focus to manual might have solved this problem, I found that extremely annoying, as the area was very crowded & the structure of the shots kept changing. The X-T20’s autofocus is usually very effective during the day time, but at nights I found it a little hard to control, but I managed.
I spent the next few days & evenings exploring the city with my camera & of course a croissant. A long stroll along the banks of the Seine with music in the air can be enough to warm the soul. The brightly lit beautiful little bistros that are on almost every little street corner echo with inaudible chatter.
