Mark and I accidentally landed in Paris on July 13, the day before Bastille Day. I was so focused on travel restriction requirements and updates that I only noticed it after buying our plane tickets to France.

“How about exploring Paris for a few days just the two of us?” I asked Mark before coming to Canada. “May as well… July 14 is Bastille Day—kind of like Canada Day but for France.”

“Oh, so it’s cancelled because of COVID?”

“As a matter of fact, it’s happening this year.”

“Now I definitely want to go to Paris!”

It suddenly dawned on me that I had never travelled with Mark alone. Sure, I spent hours pushing his stroller in Buenos Aires while Feng was working at the hotel and Feng took him to Copacabana Beach alone many, many times while I was getting food, but we always meet up somewhere at one point.

But Mark is eight now, he’s more responsible and less exhausting.

For instance, when I told him that he should definitely sleep for at least four hours in the plane instead of doing a movie marathon, he actually listened to me—he wanted to be rested enough for Paris.  

On Bastille Day, we started at Le Louvre. It was “only” cloudy, a major improvement considering it had been pouring rain the day before. Mark wanted to see the Eiffel Tower, so I suggested walking along the Seine River and just… well, go with the flow.

We didn’t make it to the Eiffel Tower. At the pont Alexandre III I spotted a tank parked in front of the esplanade des Invalides. “OK, you may want to check this out…”

Turned out it was just a tank but many military choppers, aircraft and vehicles from tanks to firefighter trucks for everyone to enjoy, and dozens of armed forces members handing out stickers, helping people into helicopters, sharing equipment specs.

I sighed.

“I have the feeling this is not exactly your thing,” a soldier joked when he saw the look on my face and the Pink Floyd t-shirts we were both wearing.

No shit. But Mark was in awe and to be fair, it’s rare to get the chance to step into a chopper or a tank, so whatever. Plus, chances of him signing up for the army were slim. “Guns kill people,” I remind him when the Foreign Legion handed him a real gun. “Yeah, pretty scary,” Mark agreed.

It was pretty fun to see very Parisian-chic women taking selfies in front of helicopters and overheard conversations were priceless. “One more tank and we go!” “Honey, don’t forget to clean your hands after holding the machine gun…”

We eventually left around 7 p.m. to rest for a few hours at the hotel before the 11 p.m. fireworks.

As usual for such events, the key is to find a good spot without coming hours early. We got lucky, our area wasn’t too crowded and the fireworks show was great.

The subway trip back to the hotel was epic, though—how did we even all fit into the cars???