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Ahhhh Sunday in Paris: Despite the over-cast skies and the impending downpour, we still awake once again, in our favourite (well,one of our favorite) cities. It is 9:00 before I break mon reve and we both hustle downstairs to join Robin for coffee and breakfast. John B joins us shortly there after and we have a brief de-brief over croissants and a second coffee about our wonderful yet somewhat language laden dinner the night before. Some at the table spoke little (no!) English, others spoke only halting French. But all seemed to communicate our various and different ideas and points of view effectively and with passion. Of course, the wine helped as well!

We have been invited to dejeune chez Isabelle et Bernard, along with Isabelle's two daughters Claire and Aude. I wander up to Monparnasse and have a quick walk through the weekend Marche du Creation, essentially an arts and crafts fair tended to by local artists; some good, some excellent, some truely atrociaous. Both Johns and Robin pick me up and we walk the wet 10 block-20 minute route to Isabelle's. Lunch of smoked salmon to start, blanquette de veau pour le plat, a full cheese course (but of course!) and une tarte au citron avec mereingue await us. And of course the requistite bottles of wine. How rude of us to rush off back to the hotel to pick up our bags and grab a cab for our 3 pm train to Lyon as I am sure we could have lingered over another mouthful of tarte and encore du vin.

The rain is truely pelting now as our cab driver bobs and weaves against the Sunday Parisian traffic towards la Gare de Lyon. We arrive with some short time to spare and get comfortably ensconced in our seats, a bottle of water, and some reading material at the ready as we pull out of the station. The train to Lyon is certainly on time; in fact verging on 30 seconds early. It is a good thing that we did not waste any time with extended goodbyes over lunch! We are surrounded by what appear to be extremely polite and genteel Francais: a handsome young couple with their 7 year old seated in a 4-seater in front of us with a well coiffed eldery woman of 70+ years who appears to have no concern about sharing her 2 hour train ride with this family. An older coulple to their right, sweater vests and glasses, engrossed for the entire trip in their puzzles and Paris Matches. Single stylish guy to our left and a young couple, also stylish and talkative directly behind us, munching, eating and kissing their way to Lyon. All politely whispering so as not to interrupt their fellow guests. The first half hour all spend with furtive eyes, checking out the travellers, trying to figure out our collective stories.And wow...we certainly are travelling fast! Soon some eyes are closed, books and magazines opened, ipods and earbuds engaged and yes, even a laptop opened and a followsummer blog updated.

We arrive on time: the 480 kilometers, roughly the same distance between Toronto and Montreal, is traveled in less than 2 hours...incroyable! Why can't we figure out a functioning and practical yet affordable train system in Canada? The rain continues on and off as we exit the train with many similiar tourists coming to Lyon for La Fete des Lumieres. People-jams ensue as we try to grab the escalator up to the upper platforms and hall; all hopefully exiting at the taxi stand or close by, to whisk us to our hotel. We stumble out to a notice that all of the Pres'quile is closed for la Fete: no taxis to be found and especially at the taxi queu. We decide to hoof it. Our first attempt deposits us on the wrong side of the Gare Parrache; we turn around and retrace our steps through the pouring rain and end up in a square that has one of Lyon's Marche de Noels. The first stall is flying the Canadian flag and is fashioned after a Suger Shack. We feel a little better. We drag our bags onwards, onwards towards the Sofitel and some 25 minutes later, wet feet and runny noses, we arrive at the Hotel and our comfy room.

We barely have time to turn around when it is time to head out to our 7:00 p.m. (early) dinner reservation at a restaurant that Greg had researched on the New York Times called Le Petit Flore: a bouchon typique de Lyon. The Lyonnais take their dining very seriously, and a month earlier when I had called to make a reservation, they offered me 7:00 p.m. or nothing. As the restaurant has good reviews and a guarantee of authentic Lyonais food, we decided to take it. The streets around Place Bellecour are teeming with thousands of people out enjoying not only the Fete installations but also the many Christmas lights that have been hung in the myriad of interconnecting streets throughout the centre-ville. We figure out the Lyon metro system and head off to dinner. The restaurant, when we arrive, is charming to look at, and the menu seems authentic. Greg plays it safe, but I decide to live on the edge, and order veal foot salad to start, and andouillette (sausage – per my dictionnaire) as my main, having read in a review of the place how good (and authentic) they are. The salad is – think of a jello salad where the jello is oddly shaped, some of it gristly, and not sweet or flavoured at all, but instead in a mayonnaise based dressing. The andouillette has an odd smell – like a cow pie. (Later, back at the hotel, I google andouillette and discover that it is a sausage made of tripe and chitterlings.) One of the odder dinners I've eaten in my life. If eaten is the right word. Oh well – nobody can ever say I haven't tried it.

We head into the night, deciding to walk all the way back to our hotel, only 2 stops away on the metro. The street has wonderful lights in the trees, and an atmosphere of festivity. There is no sense of menace, despite the huge crowds. We wander along, oohing and ahhing at some of the installations until we find ourselves in the Place Jacobin, where I recognize scenes from La Dolce Vita playing on the fronts of the buildings that line the square. This is the first “show” we have encountered in the Fete – and it is completely fun. The movie is of course deconstructed and lasts maybe 7 or 8 minutes, shifting shapes and sizes and moving around the square and onto the fountain in the centre and back. The imagination at work is amazing – as is the lighting technology, using multiple projectors mounted in a number of different places around the square. We have read that the entire additional electricity bill to power the lights for the Fete is less than 3,000 Euros for the entire 4 nights – so not only is the technology complex yet completely seamless, it is also very efficient.

We make our way back to Bellecour, 1 block from our hotel, and discover that the ferris wheel in the square is being used as a giant canvas for a show called a night at the museum, projecting masterpieces from various Lyon' museums into the night. We watch only for a minute – we are both tired, and this will be here for 2 more nights.

John sleeps through the night until almost 8 in the morning, unheard of for him. (Thank goodness for earplugs). Greg continues to be awakened by the rowdy Friday night bar-hoppers on the rue Delambre and also from the other guests, and passes a less restorative evening. In the morning, we take petit dejeuner in the hotel, and are joined by our friends from London, John and Robin, who have escaped to Paris for the weekend. After much coffee and conversation as we waited out the torrential rain (the man on the desk promised it would stop, and stop it did), we head to our favourite shopping street in Paris, the Rue des Francs Bourgeois. The 4 of us amble, John B. looking into every patisserie and chocolate shop we pass, wishing he could partake. And we pass as many patisseries as we do clothes stores and shoe shops. Robin, Greg and John M. are more interested in clothes shopping, but nothing appeals. After the Place des Vosges and a delicious lunch just outside the Place, served by a charming but overwhelmed waitress in a restaurant highly recommended by a shopkeeper from whom John and Robin bought new numbers for the front of their house, we head back into the Place to continue our shopping expedition. We head north on a less charming street that is filled with discount shops – the sort of stores you go to after you've seen what the expensive shops are carrying, and you're ready to buy but not to pay those prices. And a bit of buying occurred – John B. some dress shirts for work, John M. a new duffel coat comme celui porte par tous les jeunes hommes a Paris. Having gone a little bit north, we turn west, walking along pleasant but non-descript boulevards that bring us into les Grands Boulevards. We watch in wonderment the Christmas lights on the front of Galeries Lafayette (going full tilt in broad daylight, as over-the-top as they could possibly be, in complete contradistinction from the charm and intelligence of the windows at Le Bon Marche. Into the Place de la Madeleine we go, for wonderful mustards at the Maison Maille and for amazing chocolate and macaroons at Fauchon.

Then a quick trip home on the metro and naps before we reassemble for dinner at Le Petit Zinc, a classic Parisien restaurant in a beautiful art nouveau space. We are met there by John and Francois, friends of ours who live in Paris, and by Isabelle and Bernard, friends of Robin and John's, who also live in Paris. Everyone is in a festive mood, not just for the sake of being together, but with the approach of Isabelle's and Greg's birthdays. Truly a festive evening, a crazy mix of Franclish spoken throughout. Hours pass as though minutes, and into the night we finally pour. We stand in the street, all of us amazed at how warm it is (the pharmacy signs all say that it is +12, warm enough to be in fall coats without scaves or hats) and say our goodnights. Greg and I walk home together, reflecting on the day's events, enjoying being together, enjoying being outside in this most beautiful of cities, amazed at how quiet the streets are as soon one gets away from the big boulevards. 20 truly enjoyable minutes later, we arrive at our hotel as midnight descends.

CDG is as always, CDG: the Friday morning sun and crisp December air only point out, at least to me, the incredible ugliness of the building. A grunting security guard, stamping our passports as we quickly glide through customs, is the only detriment to our arrival. Bienvenue en France?! Our priority bags come up quickly and we walk a bit to grab the RER into Paris. Easy. No crowds, no hustle bustle. What gives? The only annoyances are the travelling bands of accordian players pumping out 'Over the Rainbow' and 'La Vie en Rose' for ready-money and the not paying or not paying attention tourists and hard-core locals alike. We schlep easily through the metro and continue on towards the Hotel Delambre in Montparnasse, check in (our room is not ready yet), leave our bags and stroll the neighbourhood in search of direction and some lunch. A disappointing and very quick walk-through the Marche de Noel de Montparnasse leaves us even hungrier and unfortunately feeling a little jeg-lagged. We settle for a somewhat pedistrian lunch special at a local brasserie called A Saint Malo, wander the block and a half back to the hotel, check in and do a quick unpack and have a lovely snooze for an hour or so.

We learn that all of the museums in Paris are closed because the workers are on strike for higher wages. Only in France, we think to ourselves. At least the metro isn't en greve.

After lunch, we amble through streets redolent of artists (think Picasso and Rodin) into les quartiers bourgeois (think the Eiffel Tower and Le Bon Marche). We buy new bow ties for our tuxes, and after gazing in astonishment at the wondrous Christmas windows of Le Bon Marche, which make anything we've seen back home look distinctly 3rd-rate, we take the metro to Le Marais to see the Christmas lights at Hotel de Ville (disappointing). After a late afternoon beer in a bar that we always seem to end up in whenever we are in Paris, we head to the Champs Elysee to see the Christmas lights – and are not disappointed at all. They are magnificent: the whole street is done up to the 9s, with shooting stars to boot. We stroll all the way to the Arch de Triomphe, then take the metro back to our hotel and grab some dinner before crashing and burning at about 9 p.m.

Emails, phone calls and a defective driver's seat belt add to the overall last minute panic as we finish a frantic pack and load the newly-returned body shopped car (someone went through a red light and right into John - no damage to John, but lots to the car) for the drive to the airport and our overnight flight to Paris. We have left ample time for traffic and any delay; so much so that, as is always the case when you leave lots of time, we arrive at the airport within 20 minutes and have over 2.5 hours to amble, catch a casual dinner, a trip-toast in the Maple Leaf Lounge and get settled in for our flight.

No issues to report. How unusual. The check-in gate at Air Canada is functional, polite, verging on fun. No issues getting through screening. Everyone seems in high spirits. I must admit that we are somewhat suspect of all of this, waiting for the hammer to fall. But it does not. The plane is barely 3/4 full, we get comfortable, watch some 30 Rock, take our little blue pills and wake up over France to sun, orange juice, and coffee.

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