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).