Saturday, June 02, 2007

I Love Paris In The Springtime


I am SO late with this blog entry. However I do have an (almost) water-tight excuse for being so slack and lazy. But that's for the next entry, so let us spin the wheel of time back a few weeks to the beginning of May, when my fabulous friend (Jade) and I made a splash in Paris! We immersed ourselves in some high culture, including a trip to see The Mona Lisa. If you haven't had the honour of seeing this classic, I would perhaps advise you not to bother :) I was disappointed. She was ugly and the painting was really, really small. They say that size doesn't matter, however in this case, they are sadly mistaken - an extra feet feet might have given her a facelift of sorts. At this stage most of you are probably thinking that I am a cultureless neanderthal, so I will move swiftly onwards with the tale lest I offend your sensibilities further.

We found ourselves on the well-trodden tourist trail with an unmissable trip to the Eiffel Tower, (it would have been rude not to), and we patronised a few Parisian bars and cafes, ending up one night in a wonderfully seedy jazz / funk club which had thick smoky air and bourgeoise decor - no less than one would expect from a French nightclub. We had a hilarious night meeting (and then avoiding) random French men, who continued to pursue us even though they knew we couldn't understand a word. Although, by the end of the night I HAD picked up enough dialect to have a conversation with a Moroccan man about cous cous. We giggled our way home after our taxi driver inquired whether or not I speak Swaheli, and we drank red wine with the hotel night watch man into the small hours of the morning.



Needless to say, good fun was had by all, and I am planning to go back soon, just to sample some more rare fillet steak, which is something English restaurants just can't seem to get right. The problem is that they err on the side of caution, whereas the French have no qualms about serving their beef with a pulse, and not the bean kind of pulse either. We're talking cow that's still kicking.