Mainly Paris... some other stuff

Category: Life & Me | 5 Comments | Posted 22:28

OMFG this thing is so slow so slow so slow. My mum is supposed to have ISDN... but even if I block both her phonelines to get the full 128k ( don't tell her) it still feels like 28k!! Seriously, I can't believe it! And it's not just cuz I am used to broadband, there must be sth wrong with this. *sigh* Couldn't resist installing Yahoo tho. (well, is downloading now... 25%....) BTW I keep getting the crappiest spam comments... no email, no URL, no link in the actual comment, just one plain text sentence... how stupid are those people?! *lol*

Anyway. I am in Lux and have decided to do a quick diary entry about Paris, mainly to remind myself what we did... cuz we were discussing what we did last year and could only remember about half and I said "no problem, I have it all in my diary so I can tell you when we get home"... so ja. Sorry if this is boring for most of you but ja - my webspace etc. Skip it if you want.

So it was fun. Always is fun cuz Paris is the most amazing place ever, as I keep repeating over and over. So... I arrived Sunday 12.30ish, an hour earlier than expected because I drive like a madwoman (as everyone knows)... so we settled in, bought a "What's On" and decided what we wanted to go see. Wasn't that much that interested us actually (far less than last year)...

So Sunday we went to see a photo exhibition at the Catacombes, then saw the actual Catacombes themselves (basically vast underground galleries where they dumped the bones of all their dead in the 18th & 19th centuries because there was no space left in the cemeteries... really quite impressive. I took pics, will show when I get home)... then we were gonna go see an exhibition about the liberation of Paris (60yrs ago this summer so it's been all over the place), but we realised we were gonna be late to meet Caroline (friend of mine with whom we were gonna have dinner) so we skipped that and just went to the Montparnasse cemetery to see some graves I'd missed last time (Gainsbourg and Baudelaire for those who are interested, which I expect will be... nobody).

Ja so then dinner with Caroline which was very much fun. Corean restaurant. Lots of girly talk (tho my mum is hardly a girl but according to Caro she is "sooo cool and soooo much fun") and other stuff. Quite a bit of alcohol consumed too. Caro showed us the very very cute flat she has in the Marais which costs about 3 times what mine did (the one I had in Paris, not the one we have now).

Monday then... ah ja, we did like a guided tour of the Ile St.Louis and its secret little courts and gardens and staircases and other cool stuff. The guide was a bit of a prick but it was very interesting. We learnt lots of new things! Then in the afternoon we went to see lots of fun photo exhibitions about Peru, Burma, India (had nice Indian tea) and paintings by a Taiwanese artist... then I went in search of the Protège Moi single (Placebo you freaks), but they didn't have it... instead it started raining so we got frustrated (and wet) and went home to the hotel and had a rest. Then the usual... dinner, walking around Paris in the dark for a while etc.

Tuesday... two liberation of Paris exhibitions (ja that was a bit much for one day I admit) and a veeery cool art exhib called Pain (Bread) Couture with creations by Jean-Paul Gaultier made out of bread and dough, as well as danish pastries and baguettes "designed" by him (which you could buy and eat - the croissants were delicious!!!). Um I think that was it. Tuesday night... mainly walking around, we saw the cute sparkling Eiffel Tower (yeah still from the millenium celebrations - they kept it on and my mum had never seen it. Will show you film) and had a quick bite.

Wednesday my mum went to her beloved Galeries Lafayettes while I met up with Caroline again and we went for a walk along the Canal de l'Ourcq which wasn't THAT interesting but was fun chatting anyway, and I bought two wonderful items of clothing (lol not sure what to call them. One frilly aquamarine shirt and one quit long chinese... thing. Could be dress, or thin coat, or long top).

Then met up with my mum... and half an hour later realised I still had Caroline's keys!! (she'd given them to me cuz she had no bag) She had no mobile on her and no idea where to find us... and we didn't know where she'd be by this time either... so all we could do was walk to her flat again, hope that she'd be there and if not, give the key to the caretaker or sth. We were quite worried - she'd had nothing with her, only her tube card and a little bit of money, and had an appointment at the doctor's a little later. Um yeah... just as we reached her flat, my phone went and it was her from her landline, so I immediately went "oh so you managed to get in??" and she was like "um yeah we had to break the lock" and I went "oh. We're right outside your door". Great timing. *cough*

After that little adventure we went to see another exhibition (photographs by Henri Cartier-Bresson & others inspired by the surrealist movement)... and then drove home. The end. Oh yeah my Lara has been acting a bit weird lately (she kinda has the hiccups) but she brought us home safe. Let's hope she'll take me back to the UK too... then I'll have someone look after her.

My mum's too cute, I was giggling earlier while reading squiZZsite and she went "so what you doing?? I never laugh when I'm online" and I was like "well you don't read my friends' diaries..." LOL. And then she came up to me (I was on my own site by then) and she went "wow, so I can access all of that too if I know how??" and I was like "ummm, yes!?" and she went "oh cool. I wouldn't mind seeing your face from time to time" (the I love Mark pic you know) and I was like " yeah but this is like my personal diary, you're not allowed to read that anyway" and she went "oh, why, do you slag me off in there?" and I went "um, well, it has occurred in the past..." so she went "pffft, well I don't wanna see your face anyway"

Ja I think that's pretty much it. Tomorrow I will go buy my mobile.. and meet up with Martine... and visit my horsey... and have dinner with Gaby... and do some other stuff but can't remember now. This PC is slow and annoying. Ah and Swiss keyboards suck. Damn this is one hell of a long entry. Was "quick" the word I used? Ah well. I'm off. Hope I didn't bore you too much. (and if I did - screw you, I don't bloody care!!!)