Day 30 - Celine Dion in Paris!!!

So, this trip that is now coming to an end was all planned out months ago.

In fact, it was completely planned and booked before I even left for my impromptu trip to Tibet and Nepal a few months ago.

And then, on March 30th I saw an article on CNN.

Celine Dion, after 6 years away from the music scene because of medical issues, was launching a 12 show engagement in Paris in September.

Hmmm… I’ll be in Paris in September…

Would she be playing on the one and only night I’d be in Paris?

I checked the dates and, amazingly, she indeed had a show on that same night.

And that night is tonight!

But first we had to get to Paris…

Istanbul to Paris

Despite only arriving in Istanbul just yesterday afternoon, we were headed straight back to the airport early this morning.

Yup, another morning flight.

Oh joy!

We headed out the door at 6:30 this morning into the rain and cool temperatures of the city.

It wasn’t even 5 minutes into our walk to the subway station that I saw a cat under a park bench.

That’s a good omen.

And then there was another one just plunked on top of the metro’s card reader snoozing away.

Surely today was going to be a good day!

An hour plus metro line saw us arriving back at the airport at just after 8am.

Of course the first thing we checked was the departure board and, hooray, unlike yesterday our flight wasn’t delayed.

The flight today was just shy of four hours and, with a one hour time zone change, we arrived in Paris in the early afternoon.

Navigating the Paris Metro

We landed at 1pm this afternoon but, of course, it would still take us awhile to get to our hostel.

Like most airports, Charles de Gaulle airport is located a good hour outside of the city.

Luckily there are multiple ways to get into town using the various Paris metro options.

I routed out my map on Google Maps and we were on our way.

Or at least we thought.

Turns out Paris, inexplicitly, does not have tap payments on their subways, trains, and buses.

So instead of simply tapping my credit card on the RFID reader I had to go old school and figure out how to buy a ticket from the machine.

If I could find a machine…

Twice on our way into town I was walking around a station with my head cut off looking for a damn machine.

Why is this so hard?!?

Eventually we got it all figured out but, man, that took way longer than it should have.

By 3pm we had finally arrived at our hostel for the night.

The area we’re staying in is outside the main touristy part of the city.

No Eiffel Tower sighting here but rather a quaint little neighbourhood very reminiscent of what I’ve seen in London.

It didn’t matter though cause I wasn’t here to see the Eiffel Tower.

I was here for Celine Dion!

The hunt for dinner

Can’t go see a concert on an empty stomach though.

Only I was going to the concert while Nathan was doing his own thing tonight but I thought we could at least grab some dinner together somewhere nice.

After all, this would be our last meal of our trip and, traditionally, I like to do something nice.

We wanted to find something close by to where we were staying rather than going into the downtown core since I didn’t have a huge window of time to eat before I needed to head over to the arena.

I searched “French dinner” on Google Maps and the first result which showed various pictures of French food was just a short walk away.

Perfect!

And then we saw the sign stenciled into the restaurant’s window “Restauration possible a partir de 19h30”.

Yes the place was open for business but wouldn’t be serving food until 7:30pm.

Noooooooo!

Turns out that the French don’t really have dinner this early.

Sure there were kebab joints and plenty of boulangeries with all sorts of pastries that I couldn’t eat but no French food was to be found.

Our dreams of us enjoying a final meal together on this trip were dashed.

Instead I headed over to the arena earlier figuring there’d be plenty of places to eat around there since there was a show happening tonight.

More hunting for dinner

At 6pm, after a half hour bus ride, I was walking the streets near the arena where Celine would be playing tonight.

Despite the show not starting for 2 more hours, the streets were bustling.

After 15 minutes of walking past fast food places and packed brasseries only serving drinks, I finally found a restaurant with the two words I was looking for on it.

Tartare and carpaccio.

The restaurant was literally right across from the arena so naturally it was also packed but I took my place in line and a short while later the hostess showed me to a patio table.

Even though it was just me, I was still going all out for this dinner.

First off, how about some alcohol?

How about one for each hand?

A pornstar martini in the left and a nice glass of white wine in the right.

For dinner I started with a marinated trout carpaccio and finished with a roast chicken with new potatoes.

I loved that I had more than enough time to just sit back and savour my meal while taking in the joyous atmosphere surrounding me.

The price tag on the dinner was €73 which works out to about $117.

Yeah, that was a tad pricy but, hey, it’s my last night and, dammit, I wanted to do it right.

Besides, compared to what I paid for the concert ticket, that was small potatoes…

Celine Dion

Okay let’s get this outta the way right away…

This concert ticket, which I bought on StubHub, cost me $550.

It’s an outrageous amount of money to pay for a concert and it’s not like I’m even the biggest Celine Dion fan.

I did it because it was a special event but mostly because of serendipity.

The fact that she was playing on the one and only night I would also be in Paris was, to me, serendipitous.

As I sat at my keyboard way back in April with a mouse hovering over the “Purchase” button that thought kept coming to me.

It was serendipity – it was meant to be.

So, I forked over the $550 and now, here I was, entering the arena.

Myself and over 30,000 others took to our seats and waited for the show to begin.

This was her 5th show and, despite a 8pm start time, she’d been starting late each time.

I mean, honestly, if anyone is allowed to be fashionably late it’s her cause unlike all the so-called divas out there, she is one of the only true divas.

And in true diva form there was no opening act.

Just Celine.

And then, at 8:30, the lights dimmed and Celine hit the stage.

The mix of songs were mostly French but, of course, she hit her English classics as well.

The highlight was definitely after her first break/wardrobe change when she came out to My Heart Will Go On.

It was as if the entire arena were singing along with her and you could feel the pure emotions the song evoked.

A few times throughout the night Celine would talk mostly in French between her songs and what I sensed was that there were alot of emotions going on for her as well as the road for her to get here couldn’t have been easy.

Along with her original songs she also did a rendition of Sweet Dreams by the Eurythmics and ended her setlist with a haunting operatic song.

At 10:30 she was saying her thank yous and goodbyes.

Of course, we all knew that wasn’t the true end of the show.

For 5 minutes the crowd clapped and chanted “Celine, Celine” to entice her back to stage.

She came back for an encore of two songs – All By Myself and another French song to close out the show.

At 10:50 the show was officially over as the house lights came on and everyone started to file for the exits.

I took alot of videos and you can find them all in the Photo Gallery at the bottom of this blog.

Of course, me being me, I got lost on my way back to the transit hub where my bus back was waiting for me.

But eventually I made it back to my hostel as the clock was just hitting after midnight.

What an amazing show.

What a iconic adventure.

And, what a great way to close out an wonderful trip.