Paris report May 07

I LOVE PARIS!!!! 😡 😡 😡 As usual this is mainly for my own records and largely irrelevant to most of you so ignore at will. Non-Paris entry soon to come (hopefully).

(I’ll spare you the boring details of the middle-of-the-night trip, the public transport et al.) So I arrived slightly delayed and got off at Gare du Nord and walked. My hotel was near Bastille and… I was in a walking mood. So I decided I’d try not to catch the métro all weekend. I walked past Gare de l’Est, along Canal St Martin and past the Père Lachaise to the hotel… had a quick nap on some bench in some park along the way and woke up with dreadful headache so… had another nap in nice soft hotel bed.

Once I woke up I went into town (“town” being… the central arrondissements. 1-6). I’d made a note of a few things I wanted to see over the weekend. Went shopping first for the stuff I needed (deodorant & eyeliner) then skipped two exhibitions cuz scary (Jörg Immendorff) and too many people (Dalida). Then went to Centre Pompidou… there was an exhib about Samuel Beckett which I found slightly discomforting (but I was in a weird mood) so I kinda rushed through it. I saw more of Airs de Paris (something about urban landscapes) and went through their permanent collection again since I’d paid anyway. But seen it all before of course.

Next up I went to Jardin du Luxembourg, where there was a photographic exhibition about the Sahel. Was quite nice. Had fries from Quick (fast food). Then went online to check up on Mika news and talk to people, then called my mum to rub in the fact that I was in Paris and she wasn’t. She reminded me of checking the back of Notre Dame for two clocks we had not yet noticed. Which I did, then walked around the islands some more, went online again, then walked back to the hotel. I was very very tired and almost died, but I managed.

Next day I first went to Père Lachaise cemetery, spent about an hour there taking lots of pics. It was very pretty. Did I mention the weather was rather marvellous all weekend? Oh and the receptionist at the hotel was a Placebo fan, so we chatted about sexy Brian for a while. 😀 Then I walked West towards the 3rd arr’t for an Andy Warhol exhib… however it was closed. Walked across the Marais, checked if there was anything interesting at the Musée du Judaisme (there wasn’t – Rembrandt – yawn!) so next I went to the Musée de la Poupée (doll museum) for a Barbie exhib. This was kinda average as targeted at kids, but the museum in general was very cute in its setting, and also kinda interesting (never bothered to go before… I mean… dolls?!).

Then I went online again and found out I had won the Mika competition (lucky lucky me) and also chatted for ages to people etc. Then walked from St Michel to Sèvres-Babylone to see the hotel where the book I am reading is set. Was interesting too cuz I’ve walked past there about 100 times (used to live very close) and never really paid much attention to the building. Which again goes to show that there is so so so so so so much more stuff to discover in that city. 😡 I could go 10 times a year until I die and still have more stuff to see! 😀

Then I walked down the Bvd Raspail cuz I’d remembered there was a David Lynch exhib at the Fondation Cartier. Found a cute street market along the way, but decided not to see the exhib in the end. So caught the métro back up towards the Seine cuz there was a Salon des Antiquaires advertised as “Pont Alexandre III” and I wanted to see if it was on the bridge or what. And when I got off the métro it was raining very much. This does not seem significant but apparently it was big enough to make it into the evening news cuz my mum asked me about it. :)) So I waited underground until it abated, then laughed viciously at all the wet people. :evil

The Salon des Antiquaires was on the quai de Seine, not on the bridge of course. So that was boring. But their big sign had been knocked over by the very short and violent rain shower. Next I walked to Jardin des Tuileries, where there were some rather large branches on the ground too. I would’ve loved to experience that rain shower first hand had I had a change of clothes. It would’ve been great fun. Anyway it turned all blue-skyed and warm again really quickly so I lay about and read for a while. Then had a most delicious panini for dinner and spent the rest of the evening drifting in between occasional onlineness and pleasant areas to sit (my feet and legs really hurt at this point): square Viviani, square du Vert Galant – reading, enjoying the sun, observing people… until it was time to catch the RER back towards CDG.

And that was the end of it. My last image of Place St Michel just before I walked down into the Métro station is still ingrained upon my mind, in all its beauty, the way it always is after my visits. No matter how often I’ve been, how many blisters I’ve acquired and how often I got wet, caught colds, had unpleasant arguments with friends, Paris will never ever lose its magic. 😡

Aaand I will go again before the end of June. Because I can. It remains to be seen who with… :wh