Paris Day 8 - Weak Coffee and British Food

There is something to be said for a nice long holiday.  Breaking out of your regular routine.  Forgetting about all the stresses and problems of your every day life.  Having a good excuse to eat a large dessert with every meal "well, I am on holiday!".  Actually having time to acclimatise to a new city before you go back.  All good things for the psyche.

It is with this mindset that I write this, my final blog post on Paris.  Eight days doesn't really sound much like a long holiday in the grand scheme of things.  It's barely more than a week.  But it does seem to be long enough for my brain to switch into "well, I guess this is our life now, better get used to all this shit" mode.  Something to do with things being familiar so it can stop processing more visual data than it has to I thinks.  Meaning my brain is all nice and relaxed.

I do, of course, have some further views on the Parisian life though.  One is this.

In my first few days I'd see rivers of water running down the side of the street and I'd thought "oh, there must be some water work or construction nearby" and ignore it.  But, after the 20th or 30th time I begun to wonder where it was coming from.  So off I scurried.

Nope, it's just pissing out of the ground like mental.  I guess if you are a Parisian, this must be all normal.  To the rest of us, it's a little odd.  The drainage system in this city must be a big ol' bag o wank.

One day, I became a little bored.  I'd ran out of food to stuff into my face.  So I went back to the cafe from Amelie and actually managed to get a table this time.  Then I found this little gem on the menu.

Who orders Weak Coffee?  It just sounds terrible.  To you non-native English speakers.  It'd liken it to ordering a Bland Sandwich.  Why would you?  Plus, that's some damn expensive coffee.

My return wasn't all expensive shitty coffee and disappointment at renovations though.  I found the market that is next door to Amelies apartment.

Some git had decided to park his shitty silver car infront of it.  But, you get the idea.  There was a distinct lack of grumpy crazy French greengrocers though.

On another day, I went on a quest for more food and just look at what I found.

Marks & Sparks.  Happiness.  I bought much good food.  Plus lots and lots of GOOD English cheese.  I may have also received a little pleasure in the fact that the only cheese I have bought in France is English made.  I think this would infuriate a lot of Parisian people.

All in all though.  It has been a good trip.  I've managed to avoid most of the tourists, haven't worked or really thought about work and have pretended that I'm living in Paris for a short period.  Job done.

Look, sunshine and practically no tourists (other than the one taking the picture annoying all the other people behind me).

Paris Day 5 - Plastic Men and Eclairs

I find that with every trip there is something that sticks with me.  Usually this is something that I see repeatedly, everywhere I go.  For Paris, it shall be these two humanlike gurning simudolls with soulless eyes.  I do not know what they are (perhaps advertising an umbrella company) or why they are plastered all over the city.  From their pose, I would assume that they are a comedy double act.  But why would they be advertising a single website.  Yes, I could go to this website and find out, but where would be the fun in that?  Either way, I hate their stupid plastic faces.

Most of my time has been spent wandering the city, eating food and drinking coffee.  The same as I did in my first few days here and just about exactly what I wanted to do.  So, I am happy.  I have also been doing a little more sightseeing.

Look, the lovely Eiffel Tower and some clouds!  But I unfortunately kept running into this.

Other tourists!!  So I gave up that sight seeing crap pretty quickly.

Although I did go on a movie tour of the city.  First off I picked my favourite of all the French films, Amelie.

This is the cafe she worked in.  Nice you may think, but it was surprisingly naff in the real life.  I have been told that they have some memorabilia in the toilets.  I didn't make it that far in so I shall likely revisit.  Hopefully when it's less packed.

This is the doorway from Last Tango in Paris.  Hidden under a bridge, sat there being all underwhelming and equally naff.  So, not to much of a successful movie tour.  I just don't think anything can compare to the Ghostbusters tour of New York.  I mean, what could?

Although I did find myself near this bookshop (as featured in Midnight in Paris) but then tourists.

So, I gave up and ate a chocolate eclair instead.  This was the correct course of action.

Otherwise, I marveled at how close the metro stops are here.

Those lights in the tunnel down there.  That's the next stop.  Why would you build then so close?

Then I spent some time sat in the park.

I watched the back of this guys head.  He watched the back of the statues head.  Job done.

Is this a command?  Should we Puzzle Michele Wilson?

Paris Day 2 - Drawn Boobs and Over-excitement

Day one of any trip is always a bit rough.  You have to deal with that whole "journey to the place you are going" thing, airports, lugging luggage around, finding out where the feck you are going and not knowing the customs and ways of the place you have arrived in (like having a bag in a supermarket is a crime in Paris).  Plus, there are burger twats to deal with.

But, on day two of the trip you can relax, you don't need to be anywhere or carry anything and the arseholes of the first day turn out to be aberrations.  You find yourself liking more and finding all the things that you like within a city.

For Paris, the first one I noticed is the metro stop announcements.  There's a little man having a little conversation with himself at every stop.  He first asks 'Republique??', with a very inquisitive tone and a shoulder shrug, he's just not sure where he is!  Then he answers himself with a firm 'Republique!' and a stern nod of the head, yes, he is definitely at that stop!  Perfectly mirror the conversation that goes on in every tourists head.

I also love these seats I found in a metro station.

They're very gripping and feel like you're getting a nice postieroir hug, like an egg in a spoon, it just fits perfectly.  Although there is a bump at the front (henceforth known as the Todger Botherer) and, as a male of the species, you have to sit down very carefully or be very confident in the placement of your Gentlemans Excuse Me.

After the fun metro experiences, I did a little sight seeing.

Look, it's a statue, that's the sight seeing done for the day.

I mostly spent the day wandering around aimlessly, stopping in coffee shops and grazing my way around Paris, stopping off for little nibbles of food whenever possible.  This is exactly what I needed.

I did find an organic massage place though.

Well, I'm at least assuming Bio means the same here as it does in Germany.  Does that mean that the masseurs have had stringent testing to make sure no pesticides were used in their growth?  If one of them has a headache and has to take a paracetamol, does that mean they cannot work that day?

I did very briefly contemplate a massage.  I mean, I am here to relax after all and what better way than a professional massage?  But then, I don't believe this was a regular massage place.  The three little drawings in the corner gave it away.

"Just boobs.  That's all I want to draw.  I do not care about faces, bodies or any limbs, just boobs!!!".  I quickly moved on.

I ended up by a canal at some point and found a boat going through a lock.  Now, this is not an amazing event in and of itself, but there are those times when your tourist brain goes into autopilot and I found myself taking a picture (along with the other 20 tourists on the bridge).  It's a boat going under a bridge, nothing exciting, not really worthy of a photo.  Look.

I mean, it's nice enough, hardly amazing though.  But, when I got home, I was having a look at the picture and became nosy about the types of people who were on this boat.  So I zoomed in.

Just some regular folks, all enjoying a boat ride down the canal.  Wait, what's that couple in the middle there doing.

That guy seems rather excited.

"BEST FUCKING THING EVER TO HAPPEN IN MY LIFE EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

His wife seems a little less impressed, so I can only assume he's a bit mental.  I've never seen anybody that excited to pass under a bridge on a boat.

Now, as this is my blog, it would not be complete without a picture of some food.  Therefore, here is a pancake sandwich.

Yes, that is as good as it sounds.

Plus, here's be a coffee that I drunk.

I know you were all wondering if I'd drunk any coffee all day.

Paris Day 1 - Lost Luggage and Zip Ties

I am a fan of a late take off.  The days of me saving €20 and flying at 6.50am are just plain gone.  I'm far too old and cranky for such nonsense.  So I booked my flight to Paris with Air France.  A real, proper, honest airline and flew at 12.50pm.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  First I had to go to that den of misery that is the airport. Although on this occasion, it was fortunately Tegel.  Which, for you non Berliners, means that I have to travel less, a whole hour less in fact.  So, when I arrived, I was all bright, breezy and happy.  Smiling away, wandering around the terminal to find myself an empty gate and sit as far away from all other humans as I could.

As you can see, I didn't get so far.  What you cannot see, or rather smell, is that the entire terminal had an aroma like a bad combination of sweaty arse and bad feet (having now typed that, I don't know of a good combination, so I'm not sure why I specified it was bad).  But, I was only sat there for a painful 45 minutes, during which time my brain adjusted to filter out my perception of the smell, but my nose still complained and stung with each intake of breath.  I'll make it up to my nose.

Boarding was bland as boardings always are.  I was put next to the worlds most fidgety row partner (he was literally in constant movement for the whole flight, even if it was just a finger jiggling away).  It wasn't long before I noticed that the seat was a little odd though.  For one, it had this thing.

I'm sure smoking on planes has been banned for a very long time now (even in France).  How old is this plane I'm flying in?  Is it in it's 30's?  That surely is too old for a plane.  Plus, look at this marvel.

My first thought was, Oh my!  Is that a cup holder!  The amount of times I've had to get up with a full cup of coffee and needed to simultaneously juggle the cup whilst trying to close the tray and then squeeze myself out of the way.  This is amazing!  Why doesn't every flight have this?

Then I noticed it was square.  I've never seen a square cup on a flight.  I mean, you could put a round cup in there, but it's not going to be super stable.  This is a flight after all, unstable is what they do.  

Although, maybe it's to hold an additional ash tray for when you've filled up the arm one.

But, after all this nonsensical thought, I arrived in Paris (please say all mentions of Paris in this blog with a full on French Pareeeee).

This giant ball of fire in sky surprised the tits out of me.  It was supposed to be all rainy and crap here.

After some baggage shenanigans (they routed the entire planes Paris baggage to the 'connecting flights' section, whether people were connecting or not, resulting in one and a half hours of lost baggage crap) I was on my way to the city.

I arrived, found my AirBnB apartment and discovered it has this rather nice windy staircase.

After some relaxation, I ventured out for a wander and every French person who got within 2 meters of me shouted at me for not speaking French.  Well, maybe not literally, that is at least that's how it felt though.  The stereotype that French people are twats if you ask them if they speak English is a true one (or if you ask them if they speak German too).  Even if you make as much of an effort in French as you can.

But, fuck it, I went and bought a burger.

To be honest, it was overpriced and shit.  But they can't be all winners.

I stumbled out of the burger place with disgust and carried on looking around my neighbourhood.  Lots of pretty European buildings, nice bars and cafes and such.  Nothing worth mentioning in detail.  I ended up going shopping for a few supplies for the apartment though.  I walked into the local grocery store and I was immediately accosted by a burly doorman upon trying to enter.  It seems I had committed the ultimate crime of having a bag.  How terrible of me.  He was stood there, menacingly, with lots of tiny little white zip ties, attaching them to the zips of everyone who came in, lest they slip a gruyere into their bag and try to steal it.

A silly solution if you ask me.