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.

Moving about again

I am in my new (new) and (I pray and I beg) permanent office!

The workmen finished off today, and I now have a gloriously open space, with a table for meetings and lessons as well as shelves for books and DVDs. I also have a blank wall, on which I could put posters or project English-language video clips. There will be Blackadder, Ab Fab, Fawlty Towers and the Office before my time here is out.

I arrived this morning feeling utterly washed out; I've not been sleeping particularly well recently and apparently staying up until you almost fall asleep is not the cure I thought it was. However, calls in rapid succession from my supervisor and my co-worker had my brain turning over like the finely-tuned engine it is. My supervisor needed a very boring task done in Excel, so I made a macro and watched with glee as my boring task got a lot easier. Macros are exceedingly cool little things, and if you use Excel a lot I recommend you learn how to use them.

I also had a small translation to do and a copy-edit to do on someone else's translation. A small nightmare, because the translator had translated the present tense in French to the present tense in English. This doesn't sound even vaguely nightmare-like, but in French you can describe events that happened in the past with the present tense - the same way you do when you tell a story in the pub:

"So I'm in the club and this guy comes up to me, he starts talking to me and flirting with me and I'm like..."

Unfortunately, it's not suitable for written text. Thus for half an hour I went through an otherwise perfect translation making "is" into "was" and "have" into "had" and "explodes" into "exploded". I actually really enjoyed the text, which is lucky, because there are another 12 chapters to come.

That brought me to 5 o'clock (which I almost wrote as 1700h, my French ambushes me in unlikely places) and my French lesson with Raphaël, who's my favourite French teacher. He loves tangents as much as I do and we have a good rapport, which is really cheering. We were doing the passive tense, which is old hat for me, but since there were only three of us we worked together, and I tried to tease the right answers out of my friends - which to their credit they hardly needed, leaping to the correct response like gazelle.

After that, I went back to see my supervisor, where we worked out a few kinks in the copy-edit, talked about some more work she had for me, and how I can improve my written style and grammar. Before I knew it was 8pm, and she kindly offered me an hour off tomorrow. I've taken it in the morning, which means I will be staying in bed until the glorious hour of 9am.

I'm telling you. This is the stuff that dreams are made of.

For dinner I have accidentally bought a baguette that could be considered a loaf. Take a butcher's at this bad boy:

Jonathan im Deutschland - Fifth Day

We woke up late today, our bodies clinging to the last vestiges of sleep. These early starts were conflicting with the weight of human belief, which is that holidays are for lying about in bed. We finally left at ten and were soon on the autobahn, heading to Cologne. There's a little cathedral in Cologne. Well, maybe not little. In fact, it's so huge that I may well need to spend the rest of this paragraph explaining its size.

The cathedral is a work of extraordinary architecture. You can climb to the top of this tower to look out across the city, and I say you because asking me to climb that high via a helical staircase while other people come down the same staircase is a waste of breath.

The thing is, I have absolutely no fear of going up. Getting me down, however, might require a parachute. Even a few chaps with a wee trampoline.

The point is going up is easy. Coming back down without becoming a messy stain is a little more tricky.

In any case, it's a huge tower, and since Ali is kind and sensitive to my hatred of seeing nothing but air between me and concrete she did not even suggest we venture up.

For that I am indebted to her.

She's also driven me round and let me live in her living room (which I maintain is the purpose of a living room) but this is more important.

We went in after circling the building to find Mass in full swing and the only people being allowed into the church proper were the faithful. I was tempted to fake it, but there were other things to do, and I'd had my fill of being angrily shouted at in German last night. So instead we wandered. We wandered to the little train that takes people through the town to the Schokoladenmuseum.

In English: the Chocolate Museum.

Pause for a moment. Rest your weary eyeballs from their continual race across the electronic page and drink in those words. Chocolate. Museum. With a display by Lindt. It was utterly beautiful. The smell that assaults you the moment you mount the steps up to the building is glorious, and you swim against the tide of the chocolate smell until you enter the building and stand, soaking in it. Entry for adults is €8, but with that smell ensnaring your senses you'd gnaw off your own arm if they asked for it.

We roamed through the halls, drinking in the scent and the history - the story - of the humble cocoa bean. Did you know that the name of the cocoa tree is theobroma cacoa, or food of the gods? I didn't. Now I do, and so do you.

The exhibition also didn't shy away from the fact that cocoa workers are gratuitously and hideously exploited. Approximately 75% of all cocoa harvesters will never taste their finished product. They subsist on little wages and have to include their children in the harvest. The situation is getting better, with co-ops and Fairtrade organisations, but still - there's some way to go.

After that depressing episode, we went to the chocolate room, which seemed to have been transplanted from Willy Wonka's factory. I am convinced that with a top hat and a cane I could have breezed through the locked doors and found the chocolate river. And then sailed it.

Right here we have a lovely lady standing by a facsimile of a cocoa tree from which flowed a little chocolate river. Behind is the gorgeous Rheine. I didn't get enough pictures, but all I can do is implore you to visit if you ever find yourself in Cologne. It is money well spent.

Plus, the shop at the end will ensure your kids don't get any inheritance. Chocolate everything, everywhere, in every variety you could imagine and some you'd need to drop a tab before you could even imagine them. Such utter, total, glorious cocoa beauty.

Go. Go now. If you find the chocolate river, for God's sake tell me.

Speaking of God - but we'll get to that in just a second. First: lunch. Steak was on my mind, and we found a passable steakhouse in the cathedral's main plaza. It was excellent, although the Polish waitress who spoke only German made ordering hilariously difficult.  We did it, we ate, we paid. I was so happy to be back in a restaurant that had a normal system that I overtipped enormously. The tipping may have been helped by the Jäger I tilted down my throat. I couldn't say why, but I've been lusting after just a little of it all week.

We headed back out, with the aim of getting back into the cathedral in the hope that Mass had ended and we could fully explore the gigantic structure. Instead, we walked into a pillow fight.

Well, not quite. As we walked back towards the building, we saw little white feathers floating above us. Had angels descended? Unlikely. Had someone hit a seagull with a baseball bat? Also unlikely, but being students in Aberdeen a small part of us wished it to be so. The small part that had been robbed of a bacon sandwich at half past eight wished and hoped it, but no.

As we got closer to the source of the feathers, we heard joyous shouting. And then we rounded the corner. The longer version I recorded will come later, but for the moment here's a little clip of what we saw:

Utter, wonderful, chaos.

And a fitting end to my week here in Germany. Tomorrow I go back to France, but I will miss this place, the language, and the incredible scenery. I need to travel more.

But then I suppose we all do.

Jonathan im Deutschland - Third Day

Today dawned grey. I looked out across a beautiful vista that was simply a mass of grey. Things did not look hopeful for our early morning journey to Frankfurt, or The Fort of the Franks, the barbarians (the bearded ones) who would go on to make Frankreich - or in English, Frank-land. Except we dropped the -land, and the hard k, and ended up with France. 

Etymology lesson over for today. Onwards and upwards!

A short drive, two trains (a train station is no place to stand about for fifteen minutes, especially when it's so cold you can actually feel your toes tingling as they cling onto sensation) and a change later we found ourselves in Frankfurt. Our first stop was for liquid fuel, and to my enormous surprise my German was sufficient to order a cup of coffee, a cup of tea and a waffle.

Do not underestimate the ease with which my ego can be stroked. The mere fact that I ordered in German and was understood was enough to put a spring in my step and an easy, winning smile on my face. I imagine I was utterly insufferable. As we sat with hot drinks we bent our heads to planning, having acquired a plan of the city in the tourist information centre for a mere fifty cents.

(I also acquired an interesting book in French about Frankfurt, which the lady sold me in French. Because she speaks French, English and German and instantly won my eternal respect.)

The plan was to head out of the town centre and in the pursuit of knowledge and museums. We puzzled our way through the U-bahn (underground trains which, puzzlingly, convert themselves into trams with no warning.) system and set out an itinerary. We were so intensely involved in the planning, in fact, that my waffle that I'd left warming over my coffee sagged and sunk into it. Fishing a caramel waffle out of a cup of hot coffee is not an exercise I recommend to anyone.

With our bodies refueled we set off like jet planes except slower and with legs. Our first stop was the Explora science museum. It's not a science museum like the one in London, it's just a wee thing hidden away ten minutes from a U-bahn stop. It's over four levels, each floor with something fascinating for the eyes or the ears. A path is laid out, and you go up to the top floor first. There are these lovely images, which use mirrors to construct an image of the painter of the images that surround the mirrors.

It's a bit complicated when I explain it, but the images should help explain what I mean - for example, on the left here we've got Picasso in the mirrored pyramid with paintings in his style around it. I couldn't work out how the image got in there, so perhaps someone with a bigger brain than me can figure it out and leave a comment to let me know.

I also really like this one, which is - well, it's obvious who.

There were also a load of holograms, some of which were seriously unsettling and some of which were simply surprising.

We also agreed that clowns, all clowns, could go fuck themselves, and further that any adult who thought children would not be emotionally scarred by clown-doctors could join the clowns in auto-adoration.

I really don't like clowns.

After the museum we headed back towards the old town. Our stomachs were gurgling and hunger was setting in - Ali and are people who need to be fed regularly or we become snappy and grumpy. I know people who can play video games all day and need nothing more than water for sustenance but I am not one of those people. I am a person for whom food is an addiction and the withdrawal pangs more than I can face.

We were momentarily distracted from the onset of starvation by a cathedral. It takes a lot to take my mind off my next meal, but this building was sufficient. The cathedral is astonishing. It is a work that has been in progress since the 14th century. That's unbelievable. It looks astonishing, and although it's impossible to capture such a mass of stone in a photograph, I've given it a go. 

It's absolutely incredible, both outside and inside. The inside is enormous, with two organs and an incredible mix of artwork. I say mix because it's not every day you have ancient sculpture:

One of the thieves at Jesus' side will be going to heaven.
Odds are it's not the chap with the most clothes on.

With this quite frankly disturbing interpretation of the crucifixion, although it does raise interesting ideas about the nature of Christ, vis-à-vis his humanity versus his divinity.

Or at least it does to nerds like me. To everyone else maybe not.

The middle skull has a crown of thorns, just in case the viewer is not as obsessed with Christ-mythology as me.

However, even the incredible works of humanity could only do so much to stave off the pangs of hunger, and we descended once more into the bowels of the earth in search of food.

We found it. Oh, god did we find it.

We found a little place that served me a burger that I ate (ate is the normal verb, but demolished, devoured, destroyed would better describe the action) with haste, while Ali had a club sandwich for which even the most homesick of Americans would shred his or her passport.

Lunch took a goodly long time, and it was 4pm before we left. Both Ali and I were excited for our next stop; the Natural History Museum. It can be found opposite the Goethe University and is a mere 4€ for students. Plus, dinosaurs. 

MOTHER

FREAKING

DINOSAURS

I like dinosaurs. They were terrible thunder lizards and this guy was the king of the terrible thunder lizards.

Saying that, I also like Economics, French, etymology, physics, mathematics and apparently now German, so I'm kind of slutty when it comes to giving my attention to things.

Knowledge is there to be picked up and learnt. It loves to be learnt. Get it inside you.

Alright, enough silliness. Onwards to the exciting time we spent in the natural history museum...

Or didn't. It was half past four when we arrived, and the museum would close at five.

We turned ourselves around and headed back towards the station to catch our train, but before we did, we stopped off at Willy-Brandt-Platz.

Stop sniggering at the back there.

In...the Platz, there is a giant European symbol. This was good for me, because I love Europe. Europe is sexy and full of different languages and you don't need to change your money. It's probably infantile to be pleased by this, but I can take money earned in Paris and spend it in Frankfurt and at no point will an exchange earn commission for changing my money.

I like that. I like a lot of other things about Europe, but that's the thing that struck me today.

Note that one of the stars is broken. Notice how I make no political comment at all here, because this is a fun blog about my third year abroad and also because a broken light is literally meaningless, unless you need to see your way to your bathroom or you've forgotten it's broken and you bruise your foot trying to turn it on.

Don't ask me why you'd turn a light on with your foot, because I agree that it's insane.

Another two trains, another brief car journey, and we're here. And I've written all this to you and uploaded photos from the day; if you're interested in seeing them, just click here.

Europe. I love you. Frankfurt, I'm going to be in you again tomorrow. We saw something by the Europe symbol that means we'll be back in the fort of the Franks tomorrow. To find out what it is, you should probably follow me on twitter.

Rouen

What a day.

I'm going to start off by saying that it was an incredibly long day and my head is all over the place. Thank you for sticking with me until the end.

So: I awoke this morning at 6, threw coffee at my coffeepot, threw the coffeepot at the stove, turned it on, and wrapped myself in a dressing gown. I had turned off the heat last night and going from warm duvet to cold room was proving a challenge. The smell of the coffee helped.

My coffee brewed, I stepped briefly into the shower to encourage my frozen blood to recirculate. Wrapped in a towel with that elixir of life clutched tightly in my hand, I must have looked quite the ridiculous sight - but no matter. I dressed casually - I wore a suit without a waistcoat or a tie, which barely counts as dressed - and made my way into the morning, guidebook, sudoko book and camera all crammed into my little bag. From my little flat it is a short bus ride to La Défense, and from La Défense a hop on and a hop off the RER to Auber. From Auber a walk (briefer still) to St Lazare and there, yawning and bleary-eyed in the crisp morning sunshine, I boarded my train.

And fell asleep.

I can almost hear my mother's horrified gasp. The rest are eagerly waiting to see in what new way I have made a fool of myself. In what new and exciting adventures did I partake, willing or not?

I am sorry to say no such story will follow. Having carefully planned every aspect of my travel, I knew that the terminus was Rouen and, as such, I would be gently ushered off the train at my destination. As it happened I woke in good time, and set out on my journey newly refreshed and eager to face the day. I had a short wait before my travelling companion arrived.

Mary, whose blog you may have seen gracing these pages had offered herself as one half of this two-man fellowship, and so I settled myself into the little bar at the station, took had a coffee, and bent my brain to sudokos. 

Before long the hour arrived, and Mary along with it. We exchanged kisses, because we're almost French, and discussed the weather, because some habits even months abroad cannot break. With gloom in the sky but joy in our hearts (and the hefty and glorious +Lonely Planet guide to France as our comfort) we stepped forward into Rouen and into one of the most picturesque, one of the friendliest, one of the nicest towns I've ever had the privilege of entering.

We started down the hill and turned at the sight of the Palais de Justice, a building that seemed like a cathedral but was in fact the law courts. Looking up we spotted gargoyles and grotesques, and though I wanted to capture them all this cheeky chappy was the most photogenic:

It is at this point that I must confess a flaw of mine. I like teaching, and what poor Mary did not know is that I am consequently a hideous companion. I rambled at length on every subject of which I have some little knowledge and, being the philomath/polymath/sponge that I am, those subjects are numerous. She bore my badgering with patience and had the good manners to seem interested in what I am sure were uninteresting trivia, and so for that (and for many other things) I am indebted to her.

Onwards!

Past the Palais we turned right and were strolling down Rue des Carmes when we exclaimed at the same time. I had just seen the sky-scraping turrets of Cathédrale Notre Dame while Mary, facing the other direction, had caught sight of the Gros Horloge, the gorgeous clock set in a bridge over a street that was only just coming alive. 

We examined it in detail and Mary informed me that the orb at the top represented the phase of the moon. "Waning gibbous." she said, by means of explanation, and I nodded sagely. We passed the door to go in but it was resolutely closed. The sign posted beside it said that visitors could tour from 10 and yet the portal remained obstinately unopened. We strolled under the bridge, stopping to examine the figure of Christ the Shepard carved over our heads, and roamed around the town for a little bit before making our way back to Notre Dame.

I love churches. I love cathedrals. I love that there are monuments to the glory of men, monuments to the ability of an idea to drive us to greater and greater heights. There is no more solid reminder that we are small creatures whose dreams are bigger than they have any right to be. There is no more beautiful souvenir of the truth that we are greatest when we work together.

Hand carved statues. Hand carved.

There is nothing like an electric light to bring ugliness to anything.

On the other hand, the crucifix that forms the centre of this and all churches is an explicit and violent reminder of the centre of the faith; of the sacrifice that a bloodthirsty god demanded as the wages of sin and that a perfect being gave for love. As I have said before, the story is a fascinating one, and if buildings like this were its only output then I could not love it more. 

But they're not.

It was here that I took a picture of which I am immensely proud, and which I am sharing with you without any form of touching up . I would very much like to know your thoughts.

How can it be improved? Nothing is perfect, least of all this, and so I'd really appreciate input from anyone with an opinion on this.

From the Cathedral we made our way to l'Eglise Jeanne d'Arc, although admittedly by a circuitous route which took us halfway across the bridge into Rouen Central, a nice enough place, I daresay, but hardly what we'd come to see. An abrupt about turn and a check over the map in the Guide (p.195, for those keeping score at home) found us at the church. 

L'Eglise Jeanne d'Arc

We nosed around it and then, as the sun broke gloriously through, basked like lizards and allowed our conversation to flow like the Seine we'd so recently crossed and recrossed. People passed around us like a time-lapse film and out of the corner of my eye I saw someone lock up the church. Even vergers need a two hour lunch in France.We decided to follow her good example and stopped at Les Maraîchers, another excellent tip from the Guide, where we were served by attentive and friendly staff who smilingly coaxed French from our uncertain lips. Mary had scallops and I turbot, both exquisite. Alongside these fish dishes - the region being famous for these fruits of the sea - we had a bottle of Riesling (2009). I had a dessert on top; sliced apples in a calvados sauce - exquisite. We finished the rest of the bottle and, having paid and waved goodbye, made our way to the church.It would be hard to find two Catholic churches in such physical proximity whose design was so far apart. From the inside it seemed that we were inside an upturned boat, the ribs stretching high above us to form the keel. The stained glass on the north wall faced windows shaped like abstract fishes on the south and the congregation were to be seated in a wide arc around the sanctuary, rather than the standard cruciform layout. It was beautiful again, but in a vibrant, colourful way. Notre Dame fixated on the sacrifice; here, at least, was the message of hope and new life.Making our way back past the Gros Horloge we saw the door open but a sign advising us that the tours were full. Disheartened, we inquired as to when we should come back, and were told that we would need wait only a few minutes. This we did and when the tower was less clogged with people the gentleman behind the counter - having sussed our accents - asked if we would like the guide in English or in French.We glanced at each other. This was a test, and I suspect neither of us would have admitted to trepidation in the face of explanations only in French. "Français," we said, and he handed us the guides and sent us on our way up the tower.The tower has hundreds of steps and five floors. At various points you are invited to punch a number into your audioguide and press it to your ear whereupon a charming Frenchman talks you through what you can see in front of you. The material is presented clearly and is utterly engrossing, allowing you to almost (almost!) forget the steepness of the staircases and the tightness of the helix.(Staircases that wind upwards in a column are helical, not spiral. A spiral staircase would be a gigantic waste of energy and money. To understand why for yourself, draw a spiral on a piece of paper. Starting at the centre, cut around the line, and then pull the shape you've cut downwards. You now have a spiral staircase and understand why supporting it would be an architectural nightmare.)Mounting stair upon stair and with my legs turning to jelly, we were introduced to the original mechanism, the internal cogs and finally the bells at the very top of the tower. Like Notre Dame, the solid mass of stuff seemed to bend my reality around it, and I was almost grateful to step out onto the parapet for some air.I say almost because heights give me a giddy feeling in the back of my brain. I am not scared of being high up, you know. I am simply terrified of suddenly being high up and falling, and even that's not as terrifying as stopping suddenly. Neither heights nor falling will kill you. It's the sudden deceleration caused by your body going from speedy to zero in fractions of a second that will splatter your brains across the pavement.In any case, the view was gorgeous:

Though admittedly easily distracted by birds.

And the company offered a charming counterpoint to the unchanging buildings.

From there - well, there's an awful lot more to say, but this is a very heavy post already, so perhaps I'll tell what happened next tomorrow.

Oh, and in the UK it's past midnight, so happy Mother's Day to any and all mothers reading this, and especially my own.

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.

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.