Then he started fiddling with the console, actually... that was adorable... he had this sort of head lamp thing and these magnifying spectacle attachments and if anyone else in the known universe had ever worn that in front of me I would have teased mercilessly, as it was I only teased a little. But eventually I ran out of trashy magazines, put them away neatly, and decided it was time to find a book in that behemoth of a library we've got. So I was going through all that and what do I find? That's right, 500 Year Diary. Of course I'd never invade the Doctor's privacy like that (...right?) but I didn't immediately know what it was so I cracked it open to find out and then I had to scan a page or two before I understood. So what do I discover? I've been going on and on about how I've never properly been to Paris and he's gone with someone called Romana. Now obviously this isn't exactly cause for jealousy or anything, but... no I wasn't jealous. Not at all.
So I went back to the console room, 500 Year Diary in hand, and tapped my foot on the grated floor until he came sliding out from under the console looking his adorably dorkiest.
"What?" he asked and then got all wide eyed at what I was holding in my hand. "Did you read that?"
That was when I started to feel a bit guilty, "Umm, no. Not really. Okay, I read maybe two pages but I didn't know it was your diary or anything, I just thought it was this massive volume of... I dunno."
The Doctor frowned a bit drawing his eyebrows together in the way that he does but then just as quickly grinned one of those grins and I ventured to smile too. "I suppose... I wouldn't really mind, I just- I haven't seen that thing in years, decades probably."
"Well," I cleared my throat, "on the two pages I read it mentions something about Paris and someone called Romana, and- does the Mona Lisa really not have eyebrows?"
He seemed very amused over that and in the end he decided that if I really wanted to go to Paris then we'd go to Paris, and if we were going to Paris (and I had a killer outfit waiting in the wings) then why not kill two birds with one stone.
We went to the Exposition Universelle in 1900 Paris.
I'd never been to a World's Fair before. Unsurprisingly really seeing as though the fad apparently died out around the forties, but it was brilliant. There were all kinds of inventions there, things that were common place now, well, in my time, and others that just looked downright archaic. But everyone was so impressed and in awe that it was hard to see them as anything other than ingenious. They talked about the first talking film, they introduced Campbell's soup, and publicised the escalator. But the Doctor's favourite bit was, unsurprisingly, the massive telescope that he told me was still the largest telescope in the world in my time. I didn't tell him so, but I thought it was quite cool too, though hardly bite sized.
After we'd had our fill of the fair the Doctor decided that if we were in Paris we had to have a meal, so we went to this posh restaurant (after a spin back to the TARDIS though cause even the Doctor had the common sense to change into the great tux of doom) that was supposed to be a very good example of the Belle Epoque, which we were apparently in. I hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast (which was about twelve hours ago at this point, but I was wearing a corset so...). It all felt a bit like Gigi and I said so. The Doctor pretended to have no idea what I was talking about but later I heard him humming 'The Night they Invented Champagne'. I gave him this expression.
Afterwards we walked around a little more. It really was beautiful and everything I had hoped that it would be. But then the Doctor got a 'hankering' for a crêpe so we jumped into the TARDIS and popped forward about a hundred years before stopping at a crêperie at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower. We both got chocolate and banana, and I ate the whole thing looking up at the Tower. It looked exactly the same as it had in 1900, except maybe the hydraulic lifts were a bit newer. We finished the crêpes and then he sighed and asked if I wanted to go up. I did. So we did.
As we looked out over Paris, I asked him if he'd ever been up before and he said he did once, with Romana. I didn't ask who she was.
Just before we went back to the TARDIS a little boy with a balloon tied to his wrist came up to us and asked us if we were in a film, it took me far too long to realise he meant cause I was still all dolled up for 1900. The Doctor said that we were and to hold on for the special effects. Then we went into the TARDIS and took off.
Until next time.
1 comment:
Ah! Paris. Finally. :)
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