The flea market, where Kate got monkeys (but not fleas)

If anyone knows the root of the phrase "flea market" (and honestly, Sheila, I would be amazed if it's not you) please let me know, because I've never seen a flea in a flea market. Just tons, literally tons, of antique crap. Crap that people once valued highly and is now being sold alongside corkscrews and miscellaneous forks, 4€ for as much as you can fit in a bag.

The flea market was after class with A, who was a little unfocussed today. I've found that if I wait until he thinks he's finished the question, rather than correcting his errors as he makes them, he checks his answers himself and spots the mistakes himself - a far more fruitful learning process. I can imagine those wonderful teachers who read this blog - Hannah, for example - rolling their eyes at the fact that they learnt this years ago, but hey. I'm relatively new to this game.

After work I caught the tiniest bus in the world (seats: 20) to the station, and from the station a speedy little train to Paris where I met the girls at La Madeleine, a gloriously imposing church in the 8th. Mary had just thrown down 240€ on perfume for a friend of her mother's while wearing skinny jeans and the most broken down converse you've ever seen. I would have paid good money to see the shop assistant's face when this girl asked for a frighteningly expensive perfume. I would have laughed and laughed, if flies could laugh. As it was, we made our introductions, and at one point Kate put the bag on my head. It smelt of roses and paper, if you were interested, but if that's what 240€ smells like I'll just take the cash and sniff it.

On arrival all three of us were feeling a little hunger and we set off in search of some grub. As we were walking, I spotted an interesting storefront: Chick-can. Intriguing. On closer inspection, the food sounded great - a quarter roast chicken plus two hot sides for 12€. Bargain, but we weren't expecting much - this close to Concorde and the Champs d'Elysées, a bottle of water will set you back 2€ - but upon entering we found beautifully clean premises and a host who was enthusiastic and charming in equal measure - and both of those measures were enormous. He asked first if we spoke French or English, and when we proposed French he rattled off the menu and the way it was prepared slowly enough for us to understand but fast enough to make us feel as though we were absolutely winning at French. In essence, for your 12€ you get a quarter of a roast chicken - and you can see these chickens roasting behind the counter - in a sauce of your choice. In addition, we could choose two hot sides from between roasted baby new potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes, mashed potato, ratatouille or quinoa. Every single sauce sounded delicious, every side looked exquisite. Our host ladled our plates high with the food, instructed us to help ourselves to glasses of water that he'd placed in the fridge so that they'd be cool, and moved quickly on to explaining this marvelous prospect to a new set of customers.

The food - oh, gods, the food. The chicken was amazing. The sides were amazing. The water was, well, water, but it was chilled and therefore amazing. Never underestimate chilled water. Knowing how my mother loves a roast chicken, I'm planning on taking my parents there when they come to see me in July. There'll be high class meals too, but sometimes you need to get down and greasy and rip into some chicken with your hands. Do not, like me, wear a classy shirt, because that delicious sauce will make a break for freedom all over your shirt, and then you'll have to fight the urge to then eat your shirt. And that will endear you to absolutely no-one. So that's my Paris meal tip: Chick Can, 12 rue Vignon, 75009. Wear a t-shirt. Or a bib.

The afternoon was given over to a flea market in the northernmost reaches of Paris, where we had to walk a veritable gauntlet of shifty looking people offering us glasses, belts, shirts and phones. They had probably fallen off the back of a lorry (an English euphemism which means stolen), and so the chances of me buying any of the goods was slim. All the same, it's a trifle intimidating, and made me realise I should start asking to be paid by cheque. At the market, Kate haggled down a fellow from 40 to 30€, displaying a mastery of the girlish pout that has toppled nations and brought low the mighty. And saved her 10€, so that's pretty good. She bought the three monkeys: hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. I myself spotted several julep cups (a julep is a kind of cocktail; you can see I'm already planning my return to the Aberdeen scene) and a beautiful shaker which knocked in at 220€. Temptation tried to slip her hand in my back pocket, but for the moment I resisted.

Once we quit the market we made our way to Chatelet, where there are plenty of bars and cafés where one can sit and watch the world pass by. So we grabbed a table and did so. There is no greater pleasure, in any city, than to sit and be surrounded by the hurrying people, to watch them and make no move at all to join their hustle and bustle. A couple of drinks later we made our lazy way to St Lazare where I said goodbye to Kate (by pulling a bizarre face and banging my face against hers) and goodbye to Mary (she's my girlfriend. If I need to tell you how I said goodbye to my girlfriend you need to step away from the Internet).

A journey home and a careful avoidance of my takeaway heaven - with a liter of excellent Belgian beer coating my insides, and despite my enormous lunch, a kebab was looking exceedingly delicious - brings me to here, finishing up the second of two gigantic blogs.

Thank you always for reading. And Fiona, if you've got this far, you may now rest.

For everyone else, here's a Youtube entertainer that my girlfriend (a concept that is apparently utterly alien to my sister) has got me hooked on. She's fantastic, but this video did make me question a lot of things.

No, don't ask what things. Just watch the video.

Really. Don't ask.

Désolé, je suis en retard !

A little background for the title of this blog. Back when I was in school, I was a little late to a lot of classes. I liked - I still like - talking to educated people about educating things, and being in school just meant the educated people were in closer proximity than ever before.

However, it's also a useful segue, because I've missed not one but two blogs, and this isn't the first time. I know that a lot of visitors to this blog read one page, and only do that because I post links everywhere I have a social presence. I appreciate you coming and reading, and you doing so makes me happier than a tired writer with a book of clichés. I also know that there is a core of about 50 people who visit every day, who visit even when I don't ram the fact that I've written something down your social-media-fed mouth, who come because they like what I write.

To you I want to apologise, because it's not polite of me to tell you that there'll be a daily blog and then skip days without saying anything. I know most of you are hoopy froods and are not bothered in the slightest by my tardiness (and, indeed, are slightly embarrassed by my apology) but go figure; I did wrong, and I want to apologise.

My priest is smiling down at me from wherever he is now. He didn't die, he just got moved.

So what's been going in your life? Me? Well, my girlfriend (whom my sister didn't know existed until about ten minutes ago: note that my friends read my blog while my sister does not) came over on Thursday. She arrived very early and was absolutely shattered, so we pretty much just kipped the day away between lunch, dinner, and a game of chess. We were pretty much intellectual sloths. It's a good way to live, I can tell you that much.

Friday I dropped Mary off at the station at about 11 to meet Kate, and the two of them went off to explore Versailles - although I was invited, and would have loved to revisit that glorious chateau, I had students - and my students come first. C has made leaps and bounds, and we're racing through her textbook. When we run out of book I'm going to get her started on the next in the series; holding children back because the rest of the class is not as intelligent is simply pointless. It makes the other children feel better but the intelligent ones crazy, and I should know. I was the child running around class and hiding under tables in frustration at the pace of the lessons.

B is struggling, but at the same time we're working at a more advanced level and you need to put a lot more effort in to reach the next "plateau" of skill - time he's not putting in at the moment. That's the root, and I hope to get to the base of it before long. After the lesson, I made my way back into Paris for dinner with the girls. Their hostel (called Oops, and an absolute bargain - if you're in need of a place to stay in Paris on a budget, look them up) was well placed on the border between the Latin and the Chinese district (the gang battles, I imagine, must be spectacular) and so we went in search of Exotic Fayre, as Chaucer might have said. We found it, and then some. Kate, being cultured and having travelled extensively in Asia, mentioned - in passing - as she perused a menu that she'd not had a "pho" for a long time. A "pho" is a special dish, a soup with noodles, meat, and heavily scented. It sounded delicious, and so I pointed out the next restaurant, where the word "pho" was stamped in capitals across their awnings. She gave a glorious little squeal of delight and we entered.

Kate is a ball of fizzing positive energy who, in earlier cultures, would have been worshipped. This tells me only that society has moved backwards. In any case, we had huge, steaming plates of Asian food - pho for Kate and me and caramelised pork for Mary, which smelled utterly gorgeous. I had chicken spring rolls as well, which I discovered (to my dismay) had been cooked in the heart of the sun. Unable to swallow (oh god, the burning agony!) and unable to eject the food from my mouth (oh god, the embarrassment!) I breathed quickly through parted lips and prayed for an end to the pain. The end came in the form of the top layer of taste buds being stripped from my tongue.

Never let it be said that the gods do not have a sense of humour.

Following dinner we dawdled over our cups, the conversation turning this way and that. In Aberdeen I confess I was in somewhat of a hurry: dinner over? Let's drink coffee! Coffee drunk! Let's play a game! Game finished! Let's go to sleep! Here - I don't know. I'd like to think I've chilled out a little, despite the amount of coffee I drink doubling. Perhaps caffeine is really a depressant, and Starbucks have convinced us it's a stimulant to generate more business. Maybe.

I feel like this is enough for one blog, there's only so much you want to read in one go.

The belles of Notre Dame

So I saw this poster on the way home from today's travels:

"The number 1 site for extramarital affairs thought up by women."

And after uploading it to Facebook I decided that this was what I should write my year abroad project on - the fact that the French apparently invented the word "blasé" to describe how they feel about extramarital affairs. It should be interesting, and hopefully suitably culturally-centered. We can but hope.

To get to that point, let's go back to this morning. I though I was meeting Kate and Mary at 11, and not 10, which is why I was stepping out of the shower when my phone rang this morning. Kate wanted to know if I wouldn't mind meeting them at a different location - one that would be easier for me since I was already on the train.

(I definitely was not already on the train.)

I got dressed, grabbed my camera, and bolted out the door. A speed-walk to the station and a mere three-minute wait and I was on the train and on my way into town. Once again I'm stunned with glee that a ticket for all public transport in Paris on the weekend for young people is 3.75€. It's incredibly good value and stands in stark contrast to, say, First Aberdeen, who charge a little under that for a student day ticket. First Aberdeen are thieving whatnots, and it's an ongoing struggle to make them lower their prices even a smidgeon.

But that's Aberdeen's problem, and not yours. Onwards.

I arrived a mere five minutes after I was supposed to and snatched a moment with Mary before greeting Kate. Greeting is really too small a word for the huge bosie I gave her and she in return gave me. I felt ribs creak. They'd stowed their luggage at Gare de Lyon - the luggage storage at St. Lazare is now closed, for reasons currently outside the wit of man - so that's where we met, and from there we headed to Chatelet-les-Halles. A short hop on and then off the train again and we found ourselves strolling through the warm morning with blossom showering around us. To get from where we were - Chatelet - to where we wanted to be - Jardin du Luxembourg - we could have caught a train and sunk once again into the stinking underground. The system of trains in Paris is wonderful; the smell of sulphur, however, would make even a Satanist baulk. Instead we strolled across the river and took the opportunity to sit outside the cathedral and take some snaps.

I say we. I gave Kate the camera, since the last time I did so she got some cracking photos - and I got it back before she left with another 200 snaps to work through. They're almost all golden. Kate sings like an angel and takes photos like a pro. Being around her is jealousy-inducing to the highest order. All of the photos that follow are credited to her.

It also means that rather than being behind the camera all the time, I got to be in front of it. Very much in front of it, on one occasion.

A little too close for comfort perhaps.

We strolled in the direction of the Garden and along the way ducked into my favourite Parisian haunt. I'm pretty sure this is the third time in a week and is now bordering on an obsession, but Shakespeare and Company is the greatest English-language bookstore in Paris.

There's barely enough room to squeeze past books upon books, all ordered but not only on shelves but tables too. Books spilling out and words, just words, everywhere.

I love this shop.

We grabbed a quick bite to eat in a pizza and pasta place run by genuine Italians, which meant they understood English better than they understood French - don't know how to feel about that - and which made Mary roll her eyes just a little.

The reason Mary rolled her eyes is because she is essentially sensible, and if she were to have a food intolerance then she would avoid that food in particular. Since Kate has an intolerance to gluten and I have an intolerance to lactose, a pizza/pasta parlour is literally the worst place for us to be. Everything is made with dough and cheese. Everything.

Did we listen? Am I a sensible person?

Hello...friend

What do you think?

In any case, after our grub stop, we made it to the Garden. They looked incredible, with flowers in full bloom and small children setting boats free on the central pond. One of the children had a pirate boat, and I suspect I was not the only person feeling just a pang of jealousy. I mean look at it, it's a pirate boat. I wanted a pirate boat.

How much did I want a pirate boat? Enough to make me pull a very ugly face. How ugly? I can't say. It would make your eyes pop out, one-two, and then you'd never read this blog again.

We did a tour around the Garden, encountering a Giant Sequoia (that "only" reaches around 40m in Europe, according to the delightfully understated sign) and a woman doing sprint yoga.

By this I meant she would do a yoga stretch in the middle of the path and then carry on walking and then, as if she had received instructions from some other place, promptly did another one. She hopped, skipped, jumped and stretched around the circumference of the park, and by the time we parted ways we all felt absolutely exhausted. The girls had only an hour before their train, and so we wound our way back to Gare de Lyon, and stood outside it for a second.

Oooh...moody.

I have very strong memories of this place, and they all seem to center around this particular girl:

Pictured: Demon-spawn. And a blueberry muffin.

Your year abroad - I make a huge assumption in saying this, but I think many of you will be going on a year abroad - will expose you to new cultures in ways you could not possibly imagine. It will change the course of your life, and sometimes that course will collide with someone with whom you will click in every way. And sometimes these relationships won't last; you've only got a year, and so do they. Even with Skype, and aeroplanes, and Facebook, some things can't survive the distance.

So seize the opportunities that I know you'll get.

Pictured: Opportunity being seized.

Also: blueberry muffin.

And blog about it, so I can read your adventures.

Anyway, before the nostalgia set in, I was talking about Gare de Lyon and the girls. We had a quick drink and retrieved their luggage. Kate rushed in and assured us we needn't come in with her, which was transparently both untrue and crafted to give Mary and I another moment. She is a great friend, and I can't wait to get back to studying with her next year. I owe her a lot, and it may well be repaid in dinners.

We seized the moment, as if you need to be told.

On the way down to the Metro, the escalator was out of order and the train was at the platform. Kate dragged her suitcase down the stairs at some speed and she had almost managed the whole lot when we heard an awful crack. We leapt onto the train, manhandling the suitcase, and took stock of the damage. The handle had snapped right off the bag and so had a white tube that was previously hidden inside the handle. It seemed to be made of fibres, so I grabbed it to try to twist it and snap it completely. It was, indeed, made of fibres - fibres of glass.

Nasty, nasty little fibres of glass that were now stuck in my fingers and next to impossible to see because glass, of course, is transparent. Hilarious when this property results in children and small animals running into it, less fun when microscopic fibres of it are jammed in your fingertips.

In any case, with the judicious application of gloves we got the suitcase on the train, said our goodbyes, and parted. 

I hate parting.

So that's been my Saturday. It's only six now, but I don't foresee anything interesting coming up before midnight. A massive thank-you to thirdyearabroad.com whom I am sure are responsible for the vast majority of my readers, as well as running a site that got me really prepared for my own third year abroad.

That's all for today folks. I read something lovely the other day that I'd like to share with you:

"The evening news is the only television programme that opens with 'Good Evening' and the goes on to tell you why it's not."

It amused me, and I hope it's amused you too. Thanks for reading.

Doing the lobster

You know how sometimes you put things off because you know they'll be painful? Like going to the dentist, or getting your injections, or going to bed after spending a day in the sun without so much as a hat.

This informs the title of this post. My skin has the tight, pink sheen that is normally only associated with a freshly boiled crustacean. I am now giving off heat and, I suspect, would glow like an ember were I to turn out the lights in my little room. Was it worth it? At the moment, through cracked lips, I still say yes. When I get up tomorrow and slough off half of my skin in the shower you may get a different response, but for now:

God, Paris is a gorgeous city. Even when it's so hot I can barely walk, it's beautiful. You know that in Paris you can sit by the Seine and dangle your toes in the river? You can't do that with the Thames. Common wisdom is that you'd end up with more or less toes than you started with. More or less, mind, no chance of the number remaining the same.

But in Paris, in the shadow of the French Iron Lady, you can dip a toe in the water and only worry about the current carrying you away, screaming, before being shredded by the blades of one of the many tour boats the prowl the river.

The view over the Seine is equally beautiful, although it was disturbed today by the site of a clearly highly organised gang of conmen. They were running a scam that has various names and involve a large degree of sleight of hand - "Find the lady" being the most common of its names. Being something of an amateur magician it was hard not to be impressed with the misdirection they used, but at the same time the stooges were obvious - although clearly only to those watching. I saw one Spanish tourist lose 100€ in a minute, and when she started to become visibly irate the whole gang just up and melted away into the throng on the bridge. And I mean gang; I'd not spotted the spotter (qui custodiet ipsos custodes, you know) but he moved with the whole lot of them too. If you want to know more about this particular con just type "find the lady" or "three card monte" into Youtube and look forward to hours of fun.

Although it sounds patronising I'm going to say it anyway for the benefit of people like me; that is to say people who are intelligent enough to think they can outsmart these guys. Don't try. They are far better at it, and you cannot be everywhere at once. You might win once, but one of the gang will shortly have his fingers in your pockets because you showed the world where you keep your wallet when you got it out to pocket your winnings. The house always wins, no matter if it's Caesar's palace or a sweaty guy on the Pont d'Iéna. Do the really smart thing and walk straight on.

Aside from that, I took some touristy snaps - I do love the Eiffel Tower - and then strolled my weary bones home.

Reading, as always, is my constant joy as I walk. While my HTC has access to every song I've ever bought it's also got the life of a gadfly and loses 50% of its battery if I so much as look at it, so that negates any musical distraction. However, my +Amazon.com Kindle Touch, a much appreciated gift from my mother, has the staying power of a Duracell Bunny. I literally can't remember the last time I charged it, the thing's a beast, and it boasts a lot of interesting titles - although new releases still haven't come down in price, classics are ten a penny. At the moment I'm trying to sink my teeth into Flatland by Edwin Abbott and I confess it's doing my brain an injury. It deals with a totally two-dimensional world, and just trying to imagine that is making my grey matter fold in on itself. How do they eat? How do they have houses? Or trees? Both are mentioned by the narrator in the first chapter. I look forward to seeing how it further unfolds. Or doesn't, since in 2D space there are no folds.

Mind-flattening.

Forget Thorpe Park, Skype's where the scares are really at

For those who read regularly, it will be unnecessary to remind you that I had an interview yesterday. For those who've just arrived; welcome. I had an interview yesterday (backstory here) and I'm pretty confident. I'll be doing a breakdown later, purely for my own enjoyment (read: horror), but if you're interested it'll be appearing over on my PR blog later.

In brief: I think it went very well, but as there'll be a more in-depth look later, I'm going to focus on the fun stuff that happened later, as my interview is hardly interesting to you. I will mention, however, that Skype behaved perfectly almost all the way through, allowing me to explain myself and my ideas in two languages with no problem.

However - and I suspect gremlins, because it is the only possible explanation - at the point when my interviewers said "Okay, this is what we'd like you to do next..." Skype just lost it. No sound, frozen picture, and my heart did its best to escape through my throat. Thankfully Skype recovered after that slight wobble, which meant only a minute of repeating "Hello?" at different volumes and pitches. I say "only" a minute, but it seemed longer, in the same way that touching a red hot stove for "only" five seconds feels like a whole lot longer.

That thought courtesy of Einstein, by the way.

So: the first stage is complete. Now to demonstrate my style. Elsewhere. Onwards to Thursday.

The day was filled with strolling around the school, shaking hands and making sure there were no problems in translation. It was great to see all of my students looking slick and suited, although there were certainly some who looked uncomfortably constrained.

Lunch was excellent, as I was invited to sit with the companies in the dining hall on the third floor. There were waiters. There was wine. There were three courses and coffee. It was delicious, although the starter took some getting used to - it seemed to be a mix of pistachios, salmon, cream, balsamic vinegar all served in a champagne coupette. Weirdly it worked, but I don't know if I'd have ordered it given the choice.

After lunch we waddled back to work, and I spent the afternoon emailing fielding requests from students and polishing off the translation I started earlier this week. After that, a little more prep for the interview and then there was nothing left to do but sit nervously.

So that's what I did. At two minutes to six I was added, with a short message to tell me that the interview would be pushed back by ten minutes. No problem.

Ten minutes passed. Then two more.

"We don't seem to be able to call you," my interviewer typed.

Oh excellent. 

I tried ringing them and got through immediately. Apparently the internet here blocks incoming calls. Useful to know.

The interview continued from there, for the most part in English but with French interspersed. I'm confident and, as I said, I've now got a piece to write for Monday to show my style.

The rest of Thursday evening was spent in Chatêlet Les Halles, at a wonderfully Parisian little wine bar (La Trinquette, Rue des Gravilliers, 75003). I've talked about the the particular way in which the French run their bars and restaurants, and this was cheerfully, wonderfully stereotypical. We seized a bottle of well-priced red (honestly, I'm yet to find anywhere in Britain where a £20 bottle of wine could be as complex and wonderful as it is here) and - there is no other word for it - crushed ourselves into seats.

Before long (3 hours later, there's that pesky relativity again) we wobbled our way out, squeezing past patrons and serving staff, and parted ways. The RER A rushed me home and the cold air on the twenty minute walk home served to sober me up a little. A dish of pasta and pesto later I fell asleep.

You're not a real student until you wake up hugging an empty bowl of pesto pasta.

Culture shock

Culture shock is really the only way to describe coming face to face with Dalì. You see images online and thing, "Okay, that's weird. I don't get it. It draws me but I can't get my head round it. Next."

And then you see the actual painting and you get so close your nose practically touches the canvas. You can't help it. The colours are so rich and the images so vivid, so striking, that you can hardly help yourself. The exhibition features works from the entirety of Dalì's career, from the early cubist images before suddenly jack-knifing into surrealism. It is clear that he never looked back.

The exhibition is currently being shown at the Centre Pompidou (Metro, RER Chatelet-Les-Halles) and is worth your time and your money. The entrance is an egg, with a projected slideshow of the artist himself as you go through it. This bizarre beginning sets the tone for what you are about to see.

As I said, Dalì started with cubism. This is my favourite of this period. I like the angles, I like the expressions on the giants' faces and I like the colours. I'm pretty sure my friend Fanny is tearing her hair out at this, since she is an art historian and could talk about composition and what nots, but I just like the blue.

No sign yet of ants, but they're coming. Oh, they're coming.

Instead we have the feminine and, interestingly (to me only, I'm sure) the masculine's complete disregard for the same. The hat perched on his head forms a halo and the vein in his wrist seems very prominent - that, alongside his aloof nature, make me think that perhaps he's a saint.

I could just as easily be entirely wrong, but that's what I think. If you disagree, or even better if you agree, you can tell me as always on Twitter and in the comments below.

Onwards to the ants!

Dalì quickly moved into surrealism and the interplay of decay and love; atrophie et amour. His films, too, reflect this mindset, with new life springing from rotting corpses. Ants are throughout as a symbol of the decay that all things experience, and once you know that you seem them everywhere. Worse still, knowing that is what they signify means that the otherwise healthy figures on which one finds them become filled with dramatic irony; they don't realise it but we, the audience too. They are decaying.

Before long it was melting clocks and spindle-leggèd elephants as we moved towards the middle part of his life. Now we had telephones with lobsters for handsets and the Venus de Milo with drawers carved into her. It's at this point, I confess, that I started to lose my new found fondness for the man. It all seemed so very...silly, I suppose.

But this was swiftly followed by two exquisite artworks that I'd be glad to have in a future house. The first is the most relaxed Jesus ever :

Notice: no nails, no crown of thorns, unblemished back. You can't actually see it's Jesus. It could be anyone. For me this just incredible, and in its original form it's literally breathtaking, if only because it seems such a huge break from things like The Great Masturbator and The Metamorphosis of Narcissus, which are in and of themselves exquisite works. But this, for me, stands out.

This painting is my other favourite, because there is just so much going on within it. It's almost endless.

I mean just look at it. There's a face, a fruit bowl, skeletons centre-right reaching up to a faceless figure, a dog arching over all...I could sit in front of this painting for hours. I nearly did. It's utterly fantastic.

Regretfully I had a home to return to and a growling stomach to attend to, and so I have come back, collapsed into bed, and written this. I will now make an omelette.

And try not to think of what Dalì put in his eggs.

(Ants. The answer is ants. Brrrrr.)

Sometimes I am not proud of me

One of those times was today.

The BDE (student's association) organised a party last night in the Ice Bäar, a small nightclub above a Häagen Dazs ice-cream shop. Because why not. Like most bars, there was a post-work wind-down with snacks and free champage on offer after a 15€ entry fee.

First mistake of the evening was too liberally employing free market principles and increasing consumption because the commodity price was zero. Friedman would say it was completely natural, but I'm not sure I want his approval.

In any case, several - several is a word which here means somewhere between two and ten - glasses later the free bar closed and Parisian prices came in. Prices in Paris are mad. It was ten euros for a drink but, with some pretty lovely champagne tingling my belly, I threw caution to the winds and my wallet to the barman. I can't remember to whom I threw my dignity, but if anyone has it I'd appreciate it back.

The night progressed as you would expect a night in which I sunk 40 millilitres of vodka every twenty minutes for two hours to progress. It progressed incredibly well. I danced, I jumped, I got closer to my students through the shared experience of being quite drunk and at one point had my tie stolen by an interesting girl with smokey eyes. I got it back. I can't say how. I even jammed out Bohemian Rhapsody, backed by a Spaniard and two French people. Amazing.

The problem came when on the bus home. Movement is one of the hardest things to deal with in a highly intoxicated state, and I distinctly remember the bus being stopped a couple of times so that I could get off and take deep breaths. At one point I think I declared that I would walk and the bus need not wait, despite my only landmark being the arch of La Défense and the only thing I knew was that I lived about 6km away from it.

Thankfully I was escorted by wonderfully kind people and an understanding bus driver. The last twenty minutes are shrouded from my memory, but I woke up in my own bed and with all of my clothes strewn around me. I was awoken by my phone, which several minutes of searching and standing stock still while turning my head like an owl located itself in my fridge.

My fridge is almost always empty, so my phone was a nice reminder that being drunk makes me both hungry and stupid. I made it into work after lunch and wasn't needed until around four, which made me feel worse - dragging my miserably hungover, emptied self in to wallow in self-pity was pointless, since I could have wallowed at home and I could have done it in a fleecy dressing gown rather than jeans.

Still, having got rid of it by 4.30 and taught a student, I feel today has concluded on a higher point than that with which it opened. I'm going to drink some soup, eat a little bread, and sleep the remainder off.

P.S There's a photo of me from that night that demonstrates quite what a hideous mess I was. You may not see it. Ever.

The land of fairytales

There was no blog yesterday due to a migraine that sat right behind my left eye and threatened to pop it clean out of its socket. That may not actually be how migraines work - I'm no Dr House - but that's certainly how it felt, and I went to bed with a heavy heart. The next day I was due to go to Disney, but with pain that severe I knew I'd have to cancel - and bringing two friends down from Le Havre and then abandoning them would have been awfully rude. Thankfully, with my alarm (summer storm today, completely surreal but very pleasant to wake to) came clarity and renewed vigour; energy, not agony, coursed through my brain. I had breakfast, I got dressed, and I checked the weather.

"Ressentie" means "feels like". "-10ºC" means "You ought to wear a coat, dumbass"

I confess a small problem of mine is that I sometimes overestimate my tolerance for things. These things include, but are not limited to, alcohol, cheese and the cold. As a result, I put an undershirt on, buttoned another over the top, threw on a suit jacket and attached a gift to it and made my way into the cold. The bus arrive quickly, and although it felt nippy, I assumed it would warm up - the sun would shine, the cloud would burn off, and Disneyland would twinkle and sparkle in the light.

Being wrong once is bad luck. Being wrong twice is indicative, but being wrong three times is a good sign that you are not as smart a cookie as you'd like to think. The short version, for those who believe that brevity is the soul of wit, it was exceedingly cold and, despite having got back 90 minutes ago, I have only just regained sufficient fine motor ability to tap this out.

I've also taken on another two students because their father called me when I was tired and freezing, and it was easier to just agree than to turn him down and then explain why. So my week now looks like this:

Not pictured: free time

So that's my week ahead. Frightening. But exciting! New students are younger still, 7 and 9 (I think, the connection was abysmal, if it turns out they're 70 and 90 it'll be interesting for a different set of reasons) so I can foresee this being a real challenge. I'm going to aim for 50-50 English-French teaching and will need to start looking at more detailed lesson plans to really hold small children's attention. If anyone has any advice, I'd really appreciate it.

So: my friends, it seems, slept incredibly badly - no more than five hours sleep between the pair of them. We had to make an emergency stop at Starbuck's before a brisk walk to the RER station Auber. The RER A goes pretty much directly through Paris East-West, and although it's faster than the Metro, it still took us around 45 minutes to get out to Marne-la-Valée and DisneyLand Resort Paris.

It started snowing on the way, big, thick, perfect flakes of snow. This was to become a recurrent theme.

We arrived and were at once struck by how cold it was. At no point did we swear, because Disney never has swearing. Even when lions are being thrown to their deaths by Jeremy Irons (warning: all the sads), and you'd think that at least merits an f-word. Minimum. So there was no swearing at all, all day, even when mentioning how extraordinarily, finger-blackening, blood-freezingly cold it was. We made a game effort and went around every part of the park, tagging the Teacups and Indiana Jones on the way round. We were hampered in our efforts to get onto the more exciting rides because other people were willing to stand in line for 80 minutes to get on them, and we don't have that sort of determination. We were all far too cold.

We broke for lunch in a gigantic theatre and half-watched several of the incredible shorts Disney/Pixar have made. If you've not seen them yet, then here's a lovely little one from Wall-E to get you started.

We all know that feeling.

In any case, by five in the afternoon we were just about ready to crash - trotting around on no sleep in the freezing cold had ground us steadily down, and we made for the train station. Before long we were zooming back through the snow, falling even heavier now, and dragging our weary selves into the station. I said goodbye to my friends, who looked as dead on their feet as me, and made my way by metro and then by bus back home.

The bus, being a bus sent by Satan, stopped half a mile from my flat. That's not far, but in the state of mind where all one wants to do is sit in the warm and drink tea that half mile stretched far, far ahead of me. And blew snow in my face.

In any case, I've made it home. My laundry is on, my alarm is set, and my 7-day week starts again in 10 hours, so if anyone needs me, I'll be the one passed out in bed and not snoring. 

I hope.

The day of rest

Yea, right. I can understand taking a day off if you've created a universe and everything in it from scratch in six days but since I haven't, I've been busy today. I got up early enough to go for a run, have breakfast and walk up to my student's house. The hill was less surprising today, but on the other hand I probably shouldn't have run before hand. Rookie mistake.

I took my camera because, as I said, I had planned to go museum-hunting. I left my card at home because I have a curious love of souvenirs, a remainder from a childhood desire to buy the cheap rubbers and pencils on offer at Hever Castle. We always went to Hever Castle.

In any case, that meant I had only the cash from my tutoring that morning to last me through the day. After that I would be stranded, and the walk home is a long one, so the first thing I did was buy my all day ticket. Young people - thank you, French state, for still believing in my youth - can get a three-zone day pass, valid on all forms of transport, for 3.65€ on the weekends and on bank holidays (jours fériés). During the week it's a lot pricier.

So I headed in, armed with my camera and 3.65€ lighter. In Paris you can pretty much throw a stone and hit a museum, and although I'd planned certain locations, I threw that plan to the winds and picked the first one I walked past. It was the Musée Guimet (site in French only), and good lord, was it beautiful.

Nearly completely Asian sculpture with heavy emphasis on religious icons, the heavy mass of stone really reflecting the solidity of the Buddha. Christianity has a frail icon, and that's the point - Christ broken and reborn is the root of Christianity. Buddha, on the other hand, is the solid antithesis of all that's bad in the world - he attained enlightenment through meditation and a middle path between self-indulgence and self-mortification. He seems kind of a solid dude.

There were also plenty of Hindu deities, with their many heads and arms, cast in bronze or gold. Unlike the Buddha they had sustained some damage over time, but the carving is still exquisite - though still nowhere near the utter mastery attained by Michelangelo. I mean, look at this:

Look at the folds of cloth, at the ribs, at the freaking veins. Two years. I couldn't do that in two lifetimes.

But I digress. There were two floors of incredible art and I highly recommend it. There are no pictures, because it felt strangely disrespectful. There was also a Cambodian Buddha who looked frighteningly human, despite being cast in bronze. Very unsettling.

I was heading towards Notre Dame when another museum caught my eye. The quai Branly is a very different sort of museum to the Guiment, very darkly lit, but also more interactive. I have to say that the at first the lack of light irritated me, but once my eyes adjusted to the gloom I found it really helped focus on the exhibits. It also highlighted the arrogant people who read the "no flash" sign in three languages, with a symbol, and decided it didn't apply to them. I have no time for that sort of person and so I shall move swiftly on.

There were artifacts from every ancient culture in the building, and after a while I started getting museum fatigue, All of this information wore me down, and the knowledge that we wiped out most of these civilisations because at the time we thought it the right thing to do got me down. I took a couple of photos, and I wanted to share this one with you.

Because he scared the bejeesus out of me, and I like to share. Look into his eyes.

 Deeper.

Oh yes. There are eyes there. There's a cross on the crown, but it's like the light of the angler fish. Luring you in before gobbling you up. Once you've looked, it's all over. Helpless. Drowning.

I tore my eyes away at the last moment. It may just have been one of the French cub scouts - boy, is it weird that they have cub scouts - but I'm sure I heard a scream of rage and frustration. Suddenly revitalised by my brush with Satan up there, I quit the building and my stomach growled - I always get hungry after brushing with Satan - so I turned my feet towards a friendly looking ristorante. 

The first impression was not good. I sat down and asked for a coffee and the waitress looked at me very cooly. 

"We're not a café, you know. We only do food."

I was astonished. I was astonished because the couple sitting next to me were drinking coffee.

"I am going to order something later," I said. "I just need a coffee for the moment."

Clearly my good looks and easy charm convinced her, as she gave me a sunny grin and whisked herself away to get my coffee. The menu looked inviting and reasonably priced for the area in which I found myself and, having been without an oven for four months now, saw pizza and craved it immediately. Calzone is one of my favourites, and I ordered it without hesitation. I also got a carafe (50cl) of red wine to go with it.

My calzone arrived. Nice dough, tasty cheese and ham and WOAH, WHAT THE WHAT.

Orange goo had started leaking from my delicious calzone. An egg yolk had been popped into my calzone before it had been sealed. Why? Why would anyone add egg to a calzone? I like eggs, don't get me wrong. I was planning on having some for breakfast tomorrow. But on a pizza?

So did I complain? Did I stand up, throw down my napkin and roar "This is unacceptable! Eggs do not belong in calzones! Scramble this guy, poach his brother and fry his sister and I shall munch them all the live-long day but in my calzone? You go too far, sir!"

Of course I didn't. I'm English. I'm polite and besides, like I said: I like eggs. It wasn't bad. My dessert, however, was on another plane. Aside from the pronunciation issue - why did I assume anyone but us would read c-o-l-o-n-e-l  as kernel? Very awkward two minutes, but it arrived. A delicious, light and refreshing lime sorbet that had then been liberally doused with vodka.

We're talking pretty much equal volumes here.

I also got a straw, because that way it's easier to suck up the melted sorbet/vodka mix at the end.

I'm pretty sure there are nightclubs in the UK where sucking 30ml of ice cold vodka through a straw is considered an end-of-night-thing. I was having lunch. 

The reason why the French don't do much after lunch is becoming clearer.

With the bill paid I made my way homeward, my jollity increased by my excellent lunch. The whole meal came in at 28.50€ and so I recommend Dell Angelo, 6 avenue Rapp, as somewhere to take a date or have lunch. Fantastic. Have a Colonel.

Just one, though.

If you'd like to see the rest of the pictures from today's jaunt, click here.

Oh. I also saw two policemen on inline skates. Weirdly intimidating.

Mon Martre? Ton Martre? Everybody's Martre!

Awkwardly wedged in joke aside, I had a really good day today. My body woke me up at 8, which is kind of cool - although I don't think I'll be ditching my alarm clock any time soon. Far too neurotic to rely on my own body.

In any case, getting up nice and early gave me an opportunity for an exceedingly long and luxurious shower and a browse of this week's news. I read a little Sherlock Holmes as part of a lesson plan - my life is awesome - and made crêpes. It's the weekend, and I am firmly of the opinion that calories consumed over the weekend absolutely do not count. You will see further evidence of my faith in this along the way.

In any case, I thought I was doing rather well when I strolled out at 11 to make my way into the city. On the way out, however, I passed a Dutch friend of mine who had been up for two hours already and had been training solidly on his bike for those two hours. It would be grating if he wasn't such a nice guy.

I also got to read Kate's new blog post, after a hiatus of far too long. My friend Mary is also blogging, so for a uniquely American point of view I recommend her new blog too. Final recommendation is a webcomic that I think is absolutely amazing called Looking For Group. There are lots and lots of pages, and they're hilarious and filled with great nerdy pop culture references. If you're confused about where to begin, then I can only offer the advice of the King of Hearts:

"Begin at the beginning," the King said gravely, "and go on until you reach the end: then stop."

Excellent advice, even if it comes from a playing card.

I digress again; you must forgive these flights of fancy. I made my way into Paris, going first by bus to La Défense and from there taking the RER to the Arc de Triomphe. A stroll along the Champs d'Elysée with only a little window shopping and an awful lot of pictures brought me to the great wheel at Concorde and Cleopatra's Needle, tipped with gold, blazed in the cold winter light. After a great slew of pictures (which I shall try to edit and refine tonight) I made my way to Montmartre. It looked glorious, and the Sacré-Coeur cathedral which perches atop it and commands astonishing views across Paris is a perennial beauty. I took the stairs up and the funicular down, which bizarrely seemed to be the contrary view - coming down I had the little carriage to myself but walked past a long queue of people apparently unwilling to march up the steps. There are 300, but in the freezing cold I was glad of the increased blood flow. I was so pleased, in fact, that I stopped for a solid three-hour lunch.

Lunch consisted of a half-litre of average red, an excellent stew of beef and rice and a cheese plate.

Let me share the cheese plate with you. I can only share the image, but I wish I could have shared it with you there and then, because I'm of the opinion there was half a kilo of cheese on that plate.

Since you weren't there, my friends, I had to make the best of it. It is worth pointing out at this point that I have a mild lactose intolerance. It is not as bad as some people get it, but as I left I could feel my bloated belly straining at my belt and, fearful of buttons pinging off and removing the eye of some innocent tourist, I hastily made my excuses and left, a little merrier for the wine and the small bill. As a result I recommend L'été en Pente Douce, 8 rue Paul Albert, if you fancy an excellent meal at the top of Montmartre. Just make sure, if you order cheese, that you've a friend to share it with. Or a lactose intolerant enemy.

A quick trip home and I found that an internship whose deadline I'd missed had been re-opened, so I've spent the evening recording and re-recording myself, because I like perfection. And finally, finally! I sat down and started writing this. I began at the beginning, as the King recommended, and I have gone on until I reached the end.

So I'll stop.

P.S Here are some photos from today.

Exponential views!

My blog will soon pass three thousand (!) hits, and I would like to thank everyone who reads regularly for making me feel like the most important person on the internet. I'm 99.9% sure I'm not, but it feels pretty good to believe so. Therefore - thank you.

I arrived back in France yesterday after a very odd Eurostar journey. We were well into France, perhaps an hour away from Paris, when the most awful din started up. It sounded like the noise that occurs when you drive your car over a newly gritted road, but since I was on a train I could not for the life of me work out what the noise was. It was seriously unsettling, and the baby seated on its father's lap evidently agreed and began bawling its lungs out.

I was struggling to get back into French mode and was hesitating a little at the ticket window when a chap stepped so close to me that I could feel his beard and asked in French if I was going to take much longer. In French, but with a British accent. A British person who had clearly been away for so long that he had forgotten common courtesies. I confess I was a little sharp with the man, who huffed and told me that he was in a hurry.

Had I then dawdled and passed the time conversing with the man behind the window about the unknowable nature of God I daresay karma would have forgiven me but I resisted. I completed my transaction with appropriate haste and made my way down to the station, standing to one side on the escalator for this be-whiskered oik pass at some speed. Despite his alacrity he was,
 sadly - so sadly! - just a little too late for the train. There was another along in three minutes, and he twitched and paced for 180 seconds. I would have liked to know what  the terrible hurry was, but like many of the mysteries we glance in the lives of others it shall always remain so - a mystery.

It is pleasant, in any case, to be back.

Last tango in Paris

I really like making friends. I like the way we all bounce around life and our friends introduce us to friends we would never have otherwise met.

Such is the case with Paula.

Paula is from the United States and has been mentioned here before, but in brief - she is a person with an enormous personality and a continually bubbly outlook on life. Last night was her last night in Paris, and so she and I went out for dinner.

I confess that things didn't go exactly to plan - which is why I write this at 11:30 ante-meridiem, rather than post-cibum. It began with Paula turning up, as is her wont, a little late, although since this time it was a mere 40 minutes I think I should be quite thankful. We met at the Gare de l'Est, and strolled in the light drizzle that swirled about us to the restaurant, with a brief detour through a homeless kitchen.

The restaurant we went to is called Les Enfants Perdus. A google will give you their site, but unfortunately the link for the menu is currently broken. You can find it at 9 Rue de Récollets in the 10th arondissement, only about five minutes from the station.

When we arrived, the first thing we noticed was the size - it is not large. The bar is extremely small and was staffed by a tall and impressively be-whiskered man while two waiters rushed about in the French style. I believe that at French restaurant schools waiters are taught that every inch of space must be utilised, and consequently the three small rooms that made up the restaurant were thronged with people. Squeezing myself and Paula in was a struggle, but we made it. We had reserved a table, and just as well - two couples were turned away as we arrived.

We ordered very, very slowly. The service was excellent, if perhaps a little over-attentive - but only a little. I gave her a small gift, as a souvenir of Paris - I'm quite she has no others - and we finally ordered. Paula decided to be brave and ordered foie gras while I picked salmon crumbed with sesame seeds. It was served with a sort of vegetable that was utterly delicious while Paula's came with duck pâté and caramelised red onions and solid slides of toast. My salmon was absolutely delicious, the slight saltiness of the fish combining with the sesame and vegetable to make a fantastic mouthful. From the look on Paula's face, her bravery had paid off, although I had to lend a hand with the duck, of which there was a much larger portion.

We had also ordered a bottle of wine, and before the starters arrived the proprétaire, the owner, came over and - having apparently been told we were speaking English - launched into an explanation of the wine we had chosen. Thomas did not sound like your average French restaurant owner, and that's because he isn't - he's an ex-pat from Chicago. Thomas is an absolutely fantastic guy, and he explained that the wine we'd picked was still very natural. Paula and I looked at each other and placed our fate in his hands; the wines are all very reasonably priced and so we asked him to surprise us. He did not let us down, and came back with an absolutely exquisite Marsannay from 2009. If you have one, keep hold of it, because I imagine in three years it'll be even better. As it was it went incredibly well with both the starter and the main.

The main came after a wait of around thirty minutes, which suited us perfectly - neither Paula or I like to rush our food, and our meal took on a distinctly Parisian bent: before long we had covered religion, politics, touched on science, travel and were finishing our plates and moving towards the nature of free will when I noticed that the last train home left in five minutes, a third of a bottle of excellent wine still remained and the bill had yet to be paid.

What could have quickly degenerated into disaster was saved by the friend Paula was staying with, a Greek called Efi who speaks four languages and is studying law. And is astonishingly pretty, which makes no difference one way or another but merely proves that some people have all the luck. She kindly let me spend the night, although we still managed to stay up until three just talking.

We rose again at half past six, dressed quickly, Efi and Paula saying goodbye and clearly unwilling to let go - a last hug was followed by another and another. It will be interesting to see if Efi and I become friends, and would deliver us in a beautifully cyclical manner to the beginning of this piece.

The answer to yesterday's riddle was five minutes past three; the reason clockwise is the direction it is is because it is the same motion traced by a sundial in the northern hemisphere. Had the clock been invented in Australia and the same mechanism been used, clockwise would be what we think of as anti-clockwise. I do hope that made sense, I prefer to explain with the aid of gestures, but I have faith in your imaginations.

Today's riddle is: What place in England is called Hill Hill Hill?

Words, words, words, I'm so sick of words

Although actually, unlike poor Eliza, I'm actually jolly keen on words and even more so on their roots. Where words come from is a source of constant fascination, and I'm really rather hoping that I can find some etymology courses when I return to university.

A small note of thanks at the top of the page to Third Year Abroad, who are the best resource on the entirety of the web if you are hoping to spend some time abroad during your degree. I discovered them far too late, and they were still brilliant. Discover them now if you've not gone anywhere yet!

With that in mind, I shall offer a cryptic clue with etymological roots. It will (hopefully) delight and perplex you, and if it does not, you can simply skip right past it. Answers will be offered the next day, and I shall mention anyone who gets the answers.

Today has been a productive day, but not enormously stimulating. We have 1,500 books to mail out, and since I am a lot cheaper than the outside company we use for the task of sticking labels and stamping envelopes, I have been sat in front of a gradually diminishing pile of envelopes all day. It's not the most exciting job in the world, but it left my mind free to wander, which is never unpleasant. It's also quite pleasant to see one's work as a physical thing; finishing today the number of envelopes I'd stamped and stuck made a pile that rose up to my shoulders, or the stomach of a normal sized man.

I also printed all of my posts out for my colleague, who tells me I'm amusing, but also said that there were some references she didn't get, some humour she couldn't quite figure out. It's quite strange to see that even in 40 years, what is "current" has made huge leaps.

It's also been a day full of planning; on my lunch breaks I discovered that an awful lot of excellent PR firms offer apprenticeship schemes for graduates. It's really exciting to line up what I want to do and to know what the process is like, and I can start researching the firms in which I want to work.

Nerdy, but with any luck there could be a job at the end.

The weekend is ahead, and I'm planning on heading into Paris, finding an excellent restaurant and eating with Orlando. Leave a comment if you know any particularly excellent restaurants, and if you don't know Paris, here's a gorgeous timelapse video to enlighten you about the City of Lights. Nota bene the twin Eiffel Towers at 2:14, which are an absolute tourist trap but well worth seeing.

Finally, my cryptic and etymological conundrum which is a star of film: Victorious people (feminine) young goatherd.

It took me twenty minutes to work that one out. I hope you're quicker.

Making mistakes

Last night and today were not the pinnacle of my stay here in France. It started well; a drink with my old friend Rachael and a very long chat about everything we've done and planned to do. It's great to have a friend with whom one can pick up a conversation after years of not seeing one another. She convinced me that being in Paris meant I simply had to go out and enjoy myself.

I gave in. She is a good friend and was very insistent, so I hurried home, dumped various bags in my room, noted that I had nothing in my fridge and would need to get something the next day (more on that cunning plan later) and hurried back out. I strolled down to the station in good spirits, wandered through the open barriers - public transport was free in the capital on NYE - and was soon in the limits of Paris.

It was not until today, when I read up on French NYE traditions that I discovered that the majority of people stay in, have a large and decadent meal with friends, and go to bed in the wee small hours. The only people who go out are the people who like to celebrate in the English mode; that is, getting absolutely drunk out of one's tree and then starting fights.

I had decided to head towards the Eiffel Tower, presuming that it would be a little crowded but otherwise accessible. Both of these assumptions were wrong. Simply getting on a train required the vigorous use of elbows and the umbrella I had with me. The rest of my fellow passengers then very carefully said nothing as a group of young people lit up a couple of joints and smoked out the entire carriage.

The cheerful manner in which the French ignore regulations has been mentioned in this blog before, and in general I find it amusing and quite charming. However, when two or three of your fellow travelers ask you to desist, and when the third is actually cradling a child, then it is my opinion that you ought to - if not because it is illegal, then because you have been politely asked. Instead, there were torrents of abuse and lit joints waved. Again, small child being cradled at this time. Utterly incredible.

Getting out at Trocadero was hell for me; I am not happy in extremely enclosed spaces and I do not like the sensation of being forced along anywhere, especially when the crush is so great that breathing becomes difficult. The press of people was suffocating and the stink of other's fear was sharp, and on the faces of my neighbours I saw grim determination, I saw fear, and I saw anger as men tried to stop their wives or girlfriends being crushed.

The Champs de Mars was slightly better for being in the open air. The "light show" from the tower was not even worthy of Blackpool and it was with a heavy heart that I turned my feet towards home. The crush to get back was worse still, and fights started on carriages with barely enough room to breathe. Imagine, a babe still in its mother's arms, father and a friend trying to form a barrier around them, and fists flying not inches away. The entire journey was the most fraught, the most claustrophobic, the most awful journey by public transport I have ever had the misfortune to take.

Paris, je t'aime, but if I come back for NYE ever again I'm getting some friends together, having a massive dinner, and essentially trying to forget this ridiculous, ugly, wasted evening of my life.

Oh. And all the shops are closed today.

The moral of the story is - no matter how expensive the tickets, no matter how convincing your friends are, spend NYE with people you love. Especially when they'll make you a fry up the next day.

The tripartite nature of bad luck.

Firstly: this is a giganto-blog, and by all means dip in and out. I broken it up with pictures to make for snack-sized morsels of writings, but if you feel like going at it American style, by all means tuck in and get it all over your face.



An enormously long day which, at 3am, has still not finished. This might be seen as evidence that I am suffering for some sin that I have committed or some serious karmic backlash.

Despite the path of my life being strewn with cowpats from the devil's own satanic herd, and the excited and impassioned speech of 8 drunken Venezuelans that is providing the soundtrack to this blog, it's been a delightful day. Warmer than expected, a solid dose of excellent food, and I got to crack out my camera and take touristy pictures of the Eiffel Tower.

I'd like to pretend I did it ironically, but in fact I really like the Eiffel Tower, not least because it's been used in a con trick by a man named Victor Lustig, who - long story short - sold it to an enterprising American who planned to turn a profit on the Iron Lady by scrapping it. He did this not once, but twice.

To sell the Eiffel Tower once would be a trick of wondrous proportions. To sell it twice, the same method, to the same nationality, is worthy of note in every book of morals under a warning about avarice. What a marvelous man. What a wonderful trick.

But I've jumped ahead. My student and I finally completed his descriptive writing; he's come up with some excellent ideas and an analogy that's absolutely smashing. I don't know how much more I'll say about it, and I'm afraid we shan't hear much more from him for a little while. He's going off to Germany for the holidays - and so I shall be quite without funds for several weeks. On the other hand, I shall be having a lovely week of paid leave with my delightful family:

I'm seriously excited by this.

But not by the distance that separates us.

I headed into town at about quarter to one, catching the bus in, and didn't manage to make it to the Champs de Mars until 2. The traffic was a nightmare; short of tentacles and my old classmates critiquing this blog, it could not have been more horrible. I do not like cramped spaces, I do not like armpits in my face and I do not like the capricious system that the French metro uses to judge the length of time to keep the doors open. I'd like to say it's an inverse-proportional law, but that would imply some kind of...process. And it's not. It's just capricious. And nearly chopped off someone's hand. Capricious and vicious.

In any case, my friends and I managed to rendez-vous at the Champs de Mars - cue the touristy pics above - and then essentially strolled about. We had a wander over to St Michel Notre Dame, where there was a tiny little market which featured both corsets and garters - curious garb, considering the way Notre Dame loomed over us - and made our way to the Palais du Luxembourg, which eagle-eyed readers will remember I've visited a couple of times before. This time, we had come for the gardens, and made it just in time for a stern member of the gendarme to point sternly to a sign that told us that the gardens closed at half past four.

By the sheerest of coincidences, that was exactly the time. Bizarre. We retired to a nearby café, where a very stroppy waiter - where are these people found? - told me off for having cards. No gambling, no card games, not even an illustration of an exciting statistical principal. There was a cat behind the bar, however, because while gambling and magic is anathema to the French spirit having a cat in a drinks preparation area is absolutely a-okay. 

It's a shame, because this was otherwise a lovely little café, with delicious rillettes sandwiches and milkshakes. The staff are otherwise friendly and attentive, and the cat is quite sweet. It was marred only by a pompous and over-officious little tit behind the bar. 

From this café, we went to dinner at a place called Café Indiana, which is apparently a south-western American style restaurant. It's also sort of racist, apparently, but I can't for the life of me see why. There are portraits of Native Americans on the walls, and the symbol is the stereotype of a Native American :

But otherwise, I'm not really sure how it's racist. Perhaps a friendly American passing by this blog will post an explanation.

In any case, the food was delicious and hugely portioned; my friend Mary attacked a plate of ribs and wings with such gusto that I felt sure that she hadn't eaten in a week. No photos, but imagine, if you will, an otherwise sweet and cherubic face coated in barbecue sauce and smiles. Kate, who was sitting opposite, had the same meal but managed to keep her face quite spotless. I have no idea how.

For myself I had fajitas, which in Indiana are apparently served with rice as well as the normal bits and pieces. I didn't know, but now I do, I shall be adding it to all of my fajitas. Gives it a more solid feel. I couldn't face the whole thing - I probably shouldn't have had the gigantic rillettes sandwich previously mentioned - but Kate was kind enough to relieve me of my burden. Paula, who's also known as Lea, arrived at last - she protested that she was Hispanic, and therefore an hour behind us. She had the same as me, and as it arrived she looked at it, and at me, and pulled this face:

But she managed nonetheless, and did rather better than I did. We finished with desserts - caiprinha for me - and sorted out the bill. A curiosity, by the by, of this restaurant was that the food came with almost alarming alacrity. The bill may as well have come by post. At any rate, we settled up as Paula explained that in Spanish to eat and leave without paying is called "dead dogging." 

(In British English, dogging is generally frowned upon. Dead dogging more so. I did not tell her this. She is pure and lovely, despite her weakness for Belgian cake.)

At this point, things went a little bit Pete Tong.

Last week, these same friends of mine had made the same journey and, before taking the train, we were all convinced that we'd seen two trains that departed later on the departure board. Certain in our misapprehension, we dawdled in the restaurant, unwilling to face the rain. 

You will note the prefix "mis-"

We arrived at St Lazare in good time for the train that we expected to leave at ten to ten. As it happened, that train arrived at ten to ten, and then sat calmly in the station until twenty to nine the next morning. It seemed that my friends were stranded in Paris.

I can't say I know what the others thought in that moment, but I will conjecture that Kate was annoyed at herself more than anything. She and I are both slightly obsessive about checking things and arriving in good time, so to be undone by what she felt was a failing on her part to be her normal self was, I imagine, a little frustrating. Paula sprung immediately into action, calling friends she was staying with to see if room could be found. All of this with all four of us a little pregnant with food babies. It could have been the Christmas story all over again.

Mary asked for fifty cents to use the loos. The French may have invented sang-froid, but I believe Mary has perfected it. Within fifteen minutes she had expertly (aside from her first attempt to ring her father at his office on a Saturday) wrangled sufficient cash to stump up for a night in Paris. For my part, I recommended the Hotel Cosy, which is a stroll of about five minutes from Nation and absolutely brilliant. I stayed there last week, and the beds are wonderful, the rooms are - as one might expect - cosy as anything and the café next door serves an extremely decent breakfast. The floor is made of stripped wood and the walls are painted calming colours, and each room has its own little character. It cost the girls 55€ each, and that's for a room with a washbasin. A room with a shower and toilet was 70€. It's amazing value, especially when the girls payed 50€ for a room in a hostel that was not, by all accounts, too pleasant.

Kate flopped into bed like a human-shaped water balloon. She didn't look 100%, and so Mary and I headed downstairs into the little café next door for a drink and a chat. There's no doubt that Paris is having an effect on us; we made one drink each last about an hour and a half and talked about the desperation of creativity, the agony of editing and the half-expressed dreams of awards and recognition. It was terribly Parisian.

On the other hand, she was drinking a pina colada with a glowstick in it, so perhaps we've not achieved total assimilation yet. We also talked about the physics of magic in writing, and family, and influences. I am constantly surprised that our colonial cousins forbid drinking until the age of 21, but it would go some way to explaining the three wrong turnings Mary took between the café and the hotel, a distance of perhaps ten metres. She is a curious girl, simultaneously bubbly and spiky, and I always enjoy talking to her. Two snaps of her and I follow; in both, my face is slightly obscured. A shame, but life isn't all wine and roses. If you'd like to read what she has to say, she's got a blog too: http://marysabroadadventure.blogspot.fr/ 

In any event, we wound our merry way back to the hotel and I caught the last train back. One short slog later and finally, finally, I was home. To the sound of salsa. 

Gardens - Train - A party until 5am

I know that science doesn't accept anecdotal evidence, but I feel like this is sufficiently compelling.