Firstly Happy Easter to all! This weekend seems to be perfectly apt for the resurrection of my blog! After more than two months without a computer or internet access, I do, at last, feel like I’m back in the 21st Century. I’m now into my eighth month living in Paris and still disturbingly excitable about the whole thing. As springtime descends onto the city in true clichéd style I’m loving it more every day!
After a quiet family Christmas in Cirencester, the lure of a Parisian New Year celebration was too strong to ignore. Charlotte and I had previously exchanged cash with a man on the Champs Elysees, in what must have seemed like a particularly dodgy deal, but was in fact an innocent acquisition of tickets for the “Soiree Blanche” party at the Royal Pavilion. It appeared to be a suitably glamorous way to see in the New Year, and the whole idea was that everyone was to dress in white. In true French spirit however, Charlotte and I were amongst approximately ten of the guests who had actually dressed in white. It seems that the French don’t like being told what to do and are decidedly sceptical about any form of fancy dress! The fireworks and glamorous location meant that it was a good welcome to 2010 but a horrendous bout of flu, OK perhaps just a bad cold, prevented it being amazing. Nonetheless a new year had started and I was determined to make it a good one.
Since the beginning of February several people have come out for a visit. Firstly my jovial and very Scottish cousin/ aunt Diana came to Paris for a weekend with a group of friends. We went for a lovely lunch in a very traditional Parisian restaurant and laughed a lot. How reassuring to find somebody else in the family who errs on the side of slight madness!!! Continuing the Scottish theme, Jennifer continued taking advantage of my living in Paris by visiting from Glasgow for a second time! This time she brought a friend with her and I perfected my art of Paris tour-guiding! My final February visitor was one of my oldest friends from Cirencester: Julia. I don’t know if Julia has any Scottish ties but that’s really not important is it?! Either way, we had a really good few days: a perfect mix of seeing the obvious tourist sites (Eiffel Tower etc...), some more off track sites such as the catacombs, which wasn’t a very nice experience on a fairly hung-over Sunday morning (nobody mentioned the very long, claustrophobic, damp walk through piles of millions of leg bones and skulls) and some authentic Paris partying nights resulting in an unexpected, late night visit to some of Paris’ less desirable haunts!
After too many weeks of being plagued by a horrendous cold that wouldn’t shift for love nor money and a Iaptop that had effectively died on me, I decided to return to the UK for a few days of home comforts. Thankfully the train journey to London was distinctly less dramatic than the last and I arrived in England unscathed! I had a few hours to kill before my bus that was to take me all the way to Cirencester, so I met up with Norwegian friend Marita for a coffee and chin wag. It always takes me a while to realign myself with the cultural surroundings when I return home after a period abroad, and I found myself ‘Excusez-moi’-ing and 'Merci'-ing everyone in Starbucks much to the bemusement of the staff. Another highly forgettable journey along a snowy M4 (I’m not complaining, I prefer journeys to unremarkable!) took me back to the homeland, good ol’ Ciren where mum was waiting for me. It was nice to be home in Cirencester especially catching up with a couple of friends but even after a few days I was anxious to get back to my new home. Leaving my laptop in the trusty care of the parents, I headed off to swanky new Heathrow Terminal 5. At exactly the same time as my flight to Paris was a flight to Oslo, and yes, I was tempted to get on the wrong plane – all in the name of a potentially amusing blog post of course!
Into March and the visitors kept on coming. Continuing with the Scottish theme, next to touch down at Charles de Gaulle from Edinburgh was Ellie McJock . I’d like to say that I remember doing loads of fun things when she was here but unfortunately one incident sticks out rather more than any other. In a quest to save a few euros and have a laugh, McJock decided that it would be a hilarious idea to make me walk up the Eiffel tower. None of this lift malarkey but instead a mere 1665 steps complete with flirtatious builders and vertigo inducing gaps. All was fine and dandy until we came back down. Moving away from the tower for Ellie to take the standard tourist photograph, we noticed a man sitting on the barrier of the second level with his legs hanging over, next second he had jumped. Fortunately I managed to turn away and close my eyes before bearing witness to anything too distressing! Well I won’t be forgetting Ellie’s visit anytime soon! Other than the suicide I’m fairly confident we also had a great time, all the usual sites on the Natalie Wright tour of Paris which may well include several drinking establishments. The last person to come and pay me a visit was Kate, who took me on my maiden voyage to Disneyland. I was very sceptical about the saccharine happiness of giant mice and ducks skipping and singing but have to admit that within an hour of arriving I was singing ‘Zip a Dee Doo Dah’ and ‘It’s a Small World’. I even indulged in a spot of flirting with Mickey and Goofy! Roles were reversed as Kate, a seasoned Disneyworld expert, became the tour guide and took me under her happy Disney wing for the day. Before I get too carried away with this new found joy, let’s get back to Paris...
When not entertaining (mainly Scottish) guests, I’ve developed somewhat of a routine in my lifestyle. Throughout the first months of 2010, Charlotte and I have been very regular visitors to our favourite Thursday evening ‘Afterwork’ party in a club (Neo) on the Champs Elysees where we really became part of the furniture! I find very few things more satisfying having moved to a new country/city than walking into a place to be greeted like an old familiar regular. We became friends with the DJ, the bouncers, the managers, nigh on everybody in the place. Wonderful, until they decided to close a few weeks ago!! Now we need to find somewhere new to establish ourselves!! We have also continued partying downstairs in the basement, sometimes with a tiger, other times without. Something I would never expect to see in the UK and a definite fingers up to health and safety, the club in the basement occasionally brings in a young tiger (he was 8 months old last time he came) called Prince to boost numbers on a quiet Friday night! Uncaged and with a rope lead, he is fairly free to roam around the entrance hall and swipe at people he takes a disliking to at his leisure. He is very cute though!
Somewhat randomly, there have been a couple of music industry nights out recently, the first of which was in a club just off the Champs Elysees. When at 2am a tired and bitterly sober me was whinging to leave, Charlotte pointed out a group of interesting looking people. There was something about them which screamed come and talk to us, so, naturally, we marched up to them and introduced ourselves. They turned out to be well known singers/ DJs in France and they insisted that we sat on their table with them and played ridiculous French drinking games which I won’t even pretend to understand. The other industry night out was at the Bataclan, a big venue I had been aiming to go to for a long time. Helena and I had been invited by our friend Josh Weller who was performing there that night as part of a Universal music showcase. It was always going to be a good night as it was free champagne which is music to my ears!! In the 3 months since we last saw Josh play live, the change was almost indescribable. I was genuinely shocked by the level of performance, perhaps thanks in part to the big stage and equipment but either way, and the crowd seemed to agree with me, it was an impressive gig! More free champagne at the bar next door afterwards courtesy of Universal Music and another evening to make me ponder over working, somehow, in the music world. (Yes mum, I do still want to be a journalist.)
Finally, in a bid to leave no stone of Paris unturned, Charlotte and I created our “Wednesday afternoon culture days”. I would imagine that it will come as no shock to you that this is something that occurs every Wednesday afternoon, when we go to visit a place of interest, not necessarily on the main tourist route. We have been to museums, galleries, and cafes (they are of immense cultural importance in this city) and my favourite outing was our trip to the Edvard Munch exhibition. Since my trip to Oslo in December I have become, some might say, weirdly fascinated by many things Norwegian, I even followed a pair of Norwegian lesbians around the exhibition to try and listen in to them speaking the language!!! (And I failed miserably to understand.)
The Sunday Lunch Flunch tradition continues, not necessarily every Sunday, but the majority of the time, Helena and I meet up for an end of the week de-brief and gossip. We have also become regulars at Le Menhir restaurant, in varying sizes of groups. When Ellie was here, a group of ten of us met for dinner, of which there were nine different nationalities. I absolutely adore these kind of outings where the language swaps every few sentences and tongue in cheek xenophobia is aplenty! I’m also still babysitting a lot for Mr film star which has its moments, evermore surreal by the week. I am very happy that I have found bar work for the summer which means that I can stay in my beloved Paris until September and take full advantage of the hot summer days relaxing in the Tuileries Gardens or on the Paris Plage (fake beach!)
I’m aware that this has turned into a dissertation but I vow here and now to update my blog with shorter, regular posts from now on in. Unless nothing happens of course, in which case I’ll just have to make something up!!!
