Le Maillon Faible

Bonjour Paris!

Such a welcome relief after Friday night's forgettable debacle...

Mom was certainly cheerful and happy to see me again after all these whiles. I was somewhat surprised to find her waiting for me at Charles De Gaulle with one of my French second-cousin twice-removed (heh heh... go figure that one). Claude seemed to be delighted to chauffeur us around town, and he drove us straight to our hotel at the Le Méridien Etoile, after passing by Champs-Elysées and Arc de Triomphe on a nice and bright Saturday afternoon. And all the while I was cursing myself under my breath because I was missing such an incredible opportunity to take snapshots of Paris, as I had forgetfully and regrettably left BOTH my camera and my phone in Freiburg. *sigh* Some things were just not meant to be.

And here's another funny thing: It wasn't until I looked at my itinerary during check-in that I realised I had booked myself into Le Méridien Montparnasse -- wrong hotel, but same management, on the other side of the Seine river! Well, to cut the story short, I'd say that the staff at Le Méridien Etoile were indeed very professional and well-trained to handle guests with such situations like mine, and happily arranged to have me checked-in to the adjoining room next to mom's suite without so much as a hassle (and they didn't charge me extra to cancel my reservations at Montparnasse, cool huh?). On another thought, it was definitely a blessing in disguise that mom and Claude turned up at the airport to pick me up :P

Oh... and guess what? On Sunday morning, the concierge, Jacques, thoughtfully got me to pass mom a 'Fête des Mères' card (that's Happy Mother's Day). I had earlier asked him to purchase some nice white Calla Lilies and to put them in a crystal vase for mom on our breakfast table, but I completely forgot about getting her a card to go with the flowers. What made it really nice was that Jacques personally hand-wrote the words "Le Jour De la Maman Heureuse". Haha... I have never learnt to speak French, but my attempt to pronouce those words after learning what they meant (and after a quick articulation-tip from Jacques who animatedly showed where to place my tongue and when to curve my lips) drew some delightful smiles from the tables around us.


OK... by now you must be wondering what have all these got to do with tonight's blog title 'Le Maillon Faible'? Well... it's another one of my Deutschlandserfahrung that I wanted to experience (which this time, by the way, ironically happened in France): When mom and I returned from the pre-wedding reception on Saturday evening, we sat together on a very comfortable sofa in her drawing room, sipped some nice lemon tea, and turned on the TV to France 3 to watch Eurovision Song Contest, Helsinki, 2007! Mom predicted that the group from Serbia would win -- they did, they are this year's champion. Mom was just dissappointed that Madame Royal didn't become France's next president -- a statement mom made that I (still) couldn't connect with what it's got to do with the Eurovision Song Contest. Anyway, I, on the other hand, was hoping for Finland's Hanna Pakarinen, because she reminded me of Evanescence, but that was not to be.

So what about Le Maillon Faible? Haha... well, after the complete rounds of votings from all of Europe, Turkey, and Israel, all 24 finalists last night got points -- that is, all except for Ireland and the United Kingdom which totals remained at 0 points. And thus, they are... The Weakest Links!