Saturday, May 24, 2008

How I spent my time in Paris, mk 1

Cousin Alix noted that despite the fact that he's the one who's French, I probably know Paris city better than he does. This was reinforced by the fact that when he said *Let's meet at Madeleine*, I actually went to the church, whereas when we finally met up on the boulevard, he said he didn't know there was a church! And since this was my third visit, I've pretty much done all the usual touristy things like the Louvre, Musee d'Orsay, Notre Dame, Eiffel Tower etc etc. So how did I fill my time this time?

Well the first few days I was all alone. *sniff* This was reinforced most strikingly to me when I was having a quick dinner on my first Thursday when my glass of wine arrived before my dinner. Seated on the terasse...I pretty much had nothing to do except drink my wine and look at the other patrons. Not that there were many because it was quite late. This was when I thought I should take up smoking.

OH MY GAWD!!! Je ne fume jamais!!!! And I've never contemplated it either!!!

I did actually think that if I were a smoker (as the people around me were), then I'd have something to do other than sit there and drink by myself. Luckily the waiter came with my wonderful quiche and salade and I tucked in rather than lit up. I returned to my lovely (very) little room and took some night shots of from my balcony and collapsing.

Luckily, I had been set some tasks to complete in Paris before Pooey arrived to keep me company. This set off the Great Shoe Hunt. Pooey went to Barcelona and put a hole in the ballerines that we bought last time. Even I was horrified! But since they were bought in Galeries Lafayette, I went there to see if we could buy a new pair or something similar from the same brand. They did not! And a bit of questioning made it pretty clear they didn't have anything else from the brand other than a pair of pretty grubby houndstooth patterned shoes. They were cute but it was pretty obvious many people had tried them on. Well, that just wouldn't do so I went to Printemps to see if Lafayette's great rival had them. They didn't have them either! And so it was with great disappointment that I had to inform Pooey I had failed in my task. To soften the blow, I bought her a bag of schoko-bons (hi Lydia!) and we set about planning what to do during her short weekend.

But that's for the next entry ;)

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