PARIS 2006!


So then... 8 days, 8 idiots with skateboards, 3 hotel rooms, 1 lost ticket, 1 lost wallet, 2 25 euro fines, several overpriced beers, 5 hours of footage and hundreds of photos. That was the trip that was - Paris. Everyone had an amazing time, everyone threw their toys out of the pram at some point as well! The CMS (cotch, merk and spit) crew was made up of this lot:


...as well as Tom, who took the photo above, here he is look.



I happened to take far too any photos this time, so this thing is going to be arranged into days so that it makes some kind of sense... here goes.

Day 1

Early start at Newbs train station, no photos of people, just bags.


Is there ever a wrong time and place for Strongbow Jon?


Loving the London Underground, as ever.


Talk of meeting at Southbank and skating before the train was being thrown around... we sacked it off and went for drinks instead.


Serin turned up


...and then Jason and Ross from Party Team, together with Brewer and Tom from Gnargore!


Jon and I were a right pair of billy-no-mates on the Eurostar due to the others being on the other end of the train! So we ended up in the buffet, art-fagging it up.




Look! We're at Gare du Nord!




The scene of the crime... spot the wallet anyone?


The 'view' from our room. Not bad for £13 a night!


After throwing everything in our rooms, we swiftly went out for a street skate - no spots in mind, just head in a random direction and see where we end up. Within minutes we found Bastille!


We had a bit of a hack around there, then went on to find a spot by the Seine, then 'stumbled' upon a floodlit Bercy. The place was desterted at night, perfect for filming some lines!


Jason did nollie back tails like this



Day 2

At the very top of our spot wish-list was the colourful blocks at Marie d'Ivry, so first thing next morning, that's where we went! It's alot harder to skate than it looks, but seemingly not if you're Serin. Frontside 360 out of the wave.




I posed in front of a big yellow thing.


...as did Tom!


Ross broke his Kingpin pretty early on... gutted!


...then it rained, double gutted.




After a bit of time out, we headed on to the banks at Place d'Italie, and skated there until it got dark.


Serin and I were stoked on seeing a champion! (If you've been to Barcelona, you'll know, and love this place)


In fact, I was this stoked


Serin somehow ended up doing this to his foot, just like he did in Barca... it's still a mystery.


Upon returning to the Hotel, it turned out that Serin, Jon and Phil's room was to be the 'cotch room' for the rest of the trip. For the benefit of pretty much everyone 'cotch' is chill. Cotch room/chill room, or "we're gonna do some bad cotching tonight". Gettit? Good.




Paris is fuck... apparently.


Ross spilt gammy (Gamay) all over Serin's bed



This stuff. What a waste.



Day 3

After a late one we stumbled out of our Hotel on a local mission to find a skatepark near us that looked really good in the photos we had seen.




...in reality, it was shit.

...but we had fun with it anyway, the bumps in the background turned out to be the best bit of the whole park.

Then I got a phone call from Paul no less, and we went to meet him at Gare du Nord. Probably one of the more surreal moments of the trip!


Serin crooked a hubba near the Eiffel Tower.


While I posed in front of it.


Later on, we all went out on our first night on the lash. We met up with Ash and Reuben from the other hostel... it looked like a bit of a sketchy area, but it turned out to be an amazing night, cheers guys!


Snazzy shirt crew.


Oh-em-gee... Serin talks to "The Go! Team are amazing"


Did someone say karaoke?


...ah, yes they did.


Guess the song... go on.


Eurognargoreforwardmotionstreetbeers.com


After all that, we 'somehow' ended up here, ahem




"Brewer, stop being such a spoil...


The walk home took about 2 and a half hours, Paris is a pretty big place believe it or not!


A surpise find, a bike! Alas, the back wheel was bent, so nobody got very far on it.


So Serin stole (merked) this instead.


Er...



Day 4

After getting to bed at 6am, we didnt end up back out the next day until about 3. First stop was Palais de Tokyo, where we all randomly got searched for drugs by the police! Nothing like a good old search to make you feel like you've done something wrong. No pictures of that one though, sorry!

Back at 'that tower'


We then trekked up to La Defense to skate a bunch of street spots there. The place is huge, like a massive shopping/commercial district. Think Canary Wharf in London, without the instant busts and 6 month bans. Skated there right until it got dark, then played around with the settings on my camera:






After this, we then headed back to Bercy, where we skated until about 4 in the morning. Ross aka 'Drainer' used a whole battery on Jon's vx filming a line, Phil 'Euroscotch' somehow learned switch hardflips, then did them on the first of the big stairs! Then we skated all the way back to our Hotel, cruising the street with no people around was one of the best moments of the trip.


Day 5

While most of us slept in, Tom, Jason and I decided to go up the Eiffel Tower. "When in Paris"!
Upon getting there, it pissed it down. Rad.


The tower is pretty immense from the bottom looking up.


We looked at the queues for the lifts up to the second floor. "Fuck that", We took the stairs!


About halfway up things got a bit scary.


More stairs....


We died by time we got to the top!


The views from the second level were amazing though, made the climb up all worth it!




Mymymyspace!




There was an epic queue to get to the top of the tower, so we sacked that bit of it off.


...as well as the lift to get back down! So we took the stairs again.


Went for a quick cruise over the bridge...


Jason was stoked on his mini tower!


Later on we picked up the others at the hotel, then skated the sundial quarter pipe thing at Les Halles. Amazing fun spot+nice weather+friends+intruiged people = good session!
Brewer did a pivot


And I did a back disaster


Other people also did stuff.

We flirted with the idea of getting on a boat party that night, but lack of money meant we plumped for the 'getting pissed back at the hotel' option. We met canadians. "You guys really got owned in South Park didn't you?" hahaha....


Day 6

We had been to most of the spots we really wanted to by this point, so thought a return trip to Marie d'Ivry was in order. In between random showers, we managed to film a few things, before getting water lobbed at us from above!

We all went for massive pizzas, as we had eaten nothing but baguettes and pain au chocolates all week. Feeling refreshed, we had another late night filming session at Bercy.
Serin and Phil ollied the big 4. It was very big.


Phil heelflipped the two


...and Ross OMG-flipped the 3!


I think it's fair to say we all had pretty messed up sleeping patterns by this point.


Day 7

Somehow, and I really can't remember how, we ended up back at Bercy. (Seriously, why did we go back again?) Not so good as there are actually people there during the day.


This random guy kept hassling Brewer for photos and a game of S-K-A-T-E. Being the pro he is, ol'Brewski was happy to oblige.


After getting confused by the RER system (dont go on it, it's fucked), we hopped on the metro to find a bowl that we saw in our trutsy internet spot map.


More street cruising. Paris has the nicest sidewalks - smooth for days and no-one about on them. Amazing.


The bowl in question wasn't really a bowl. More of an odd shaped flatbank. Still mega-fun though.


Jon (Cardiel) 5050'd the big bit.


Even Brewer got his tranny on!


...as well as eating oreos.


As it was our last night in Paris, we all hooked up with the Canadians from the other night, as well as a couple of Norwiegans for a night out in Bastille! As per, it started off the cheap way - in the hotel with some 40's!






I belive the conversation before this photo went along the lines of "We're more streetbeers than streetbeers". Evidently.






Much to our delight, we found an Irish pub! 'Only' 6 euros a beer there too (thats really cheap for Paris)!

They loved us in there "we'll stay open until you leave!", AND they played any song we requested! We all had a golly good singalong like idoits - even our Canadian friends were loving it!




"Is that Brewer, Tomgnargore, Neil and WFTW off the forum?"


After getting denied at this club called MAX, we stumbled around Bastille for a bit.


Almost merked another bike. This one wasn't having any of it though.


Brew fell over.


...luckily trusty Danika was there to save the day!


This pretty much sums up what Jon thought of Paris!


"Serin, I'm really, really, really drunk...!"



Day 8

This was to be the day we travelled all the way back to sunny England. Sadly my camera battery gave up the previous night, but I managed to sneak one more photo out of it before it died.
The girls left us a lovely note as they left at 6am the poor things!


As you can imagine, the rest of the day involved: Tube to Gare du Nord, train back to Waterloo, tube to Paddington, then finally a train back to Newbury. Felt absolutely shattered on the return, but super glad I went on this trip. It was amazing fun. Thanks to Tom, Brewer, Jon, Serin, Phil, Ross and Jason, you guys were all class! Cheers to Ruben and Ash for the quality monday night! And to all of you we met out there, hope to catch you again soon!

On a final note, look out for the footage, coming to the Gnargore and Forward Motion videos soon(ish)!

Inabizzle.