kja6
TPF Noob!
- Joined
- Aug 1, 2007
- Messages
- 59
- Reaction score
- 9
- Location
- Canadaustralia
- Can others edit my Photos
- Photos NOT OK to edit
Yes, I believe in fate, though I'm not religious.
Allow me to bore you with my first and only experience.
I'm a classical music fan and one of my favourite composers is Chopin. I was visiting Paris and thought I'd better pay him a visit at the Pere Lachaise Cemetary where he and other famous people are buried. If you've ever been, locating a specific headstone there is like finding a needle in a haystack. It had been about an hour-and-a-half and I was getting quite fed up with the search. Then, appearing out of nowhere was this nice French man in his... 70s? Since we are bilingual in Canada (English and French), I spoke to him in his native tongue and asked him if he knew where Chopin was. He seemed ecstatic that I was talking to him at all and he went on and on about other things. He did know where Chopin was located, but didn't take me directly to him. We went on this other path and he was inclined to show me where the inventor of the radio and the inventor of some kind of heart medication were buried. I was kind of getting frustrated with him as he was rambling on about others and I finally asked him again, "Chopin?" and he said, "Oui, oui".
Finally. Instead of taking me directly to Chopin, like he did the other two gents, he stopped short about 20 metres from the headstone and pointed to it and told me it was straight ahead, to the left, with all the flowers. I thanked him and started to walk towards Chopin's grave. I walked about... 20 feet before I turned back to look at the man to try to thank him again with a hand signal, but when I turned around, he was nowhere to be seen. There was no way he could've walked in any direction that quickly to be vanished from site. The only explanations I had were that he was either playing a joke on me and hid behind another headstone or that he was some kind of spirit sent to help me. Coincidentally, it was a religious day that day, as I was told - that being the "feast of the guardian angels".
It was all a bit spooky, and I couldn't fathom it. It stuck with me the rest of my stay in Paris, and even to this day.
And, yes, I finally got to visit Chopin.
Allow me to bore you with my first and only experience.
I'm a classical music fan and one of my favourite composers is Chopin. I was visiting Paris and thought I'd better pay him a visit at the Pere Lachaise Cemetary where he and other famous people are buried. If you've ever been, locating a specific headstone there is like finding a needle in a haystack. It had been about an hour-and-a-half and I was getting quite fed up with the search. Then, appearing out of nowhere was this nice French man in his... 70s? Since we are bilingual in Canada (English and French), I spoke to him in his native tongue and asked him if he knew where Chopin was. He seemed ecstatic that I was talking to him at all and he went on and on about other things. He did know where Chopin was located, but didn't take me directly to him. We went on this other path and he was inclined to show me where the inventor of the radio and the inventor of some kind of heart medication were buried. I was kind of getting frustrated with him as he was rambling on about others and I finally asked him again, "Chopin?" and he said, "Oui, oui".
Finally. Instead of taking me directly to Chopin, like he did the other two gents, he stopped short about 20 metres from the headstone and pointed to it and told me it was straight ahead, to the left, with all the flowers. I thanked him and started to walk towards Chopin's grave. I walked about... 20 feet before I turned back to look at the man to try to thank him again with a hand signal, but when I turned around, he was nowhere to be seen. There was no way he could've walked in any direction that quickly to be vanished from site. The only explanations I had were that he was either playing a joke on me and hid behind another headstone or that he was some kind of spirit sent to help me. Coincidentally, it was a religious day that day, as I was told - that being the "feast of the guardian angels".
It was all a bit spooky, and I couldn't fathom it. It stuck with me the rest of my stay in Paris, and even to this day.
And, yes, I finally got to visit Chopin.
![[No title]](/data/xfmg/thumbnail/38/38262-10a9668da9a2b36a92cddde57caf87bc.jpg?1619738547)
![[No title]](/data/xfmg/thumbnail/36/36303-10b1a386a9a00cf90fb7605d2d2c48c1.jpg?1619737497)
