A Brush With The Lebanese Pop Elite

This week's escapades include: a chance meeting with pop's premier Lebanese star; Renault babies (for the record my favourite is Kangoo!); A cocktail-fuelled 4.30am walk through central Paris; an over-zealous attempt at gripping the German language and playing cache-cache (hide and seek) in the walk in wardrobe of an Oscar nominated actor.

Due, either to concern for my failing health, or else just getting peed off with my constant coughing, my landlady kindly left some medication for me on the table one morning. Within 36hours of taking it, my horrible cold was almost a mere memory! So, malady out of the way, it was time for a bit more exploring and consequential hilarity. On Friday, I innocently popped out to the shops and ended up strolling aimlessly down the Champs Elysées. I decided to indulge in a perousal of the CDs and DVDs in Virgin Megastore and then things went a bit mad/random. There I was looking for 'Bienvenue chez les ch'tis' (in order to prepare for the imminent trip to Bergues to consolidate the Wright-Docherty amitié) when I became aware of a lot of security beefcakes in the building. Intrigued as ever, I thought I'd enquire and they told me that Mika was coming in to do a signing. I could've nodded, smiled and then left, but with no plans for the rest of the afternoon it suddenly seemed of paramount importance that I meet him! So I bought the CD and joined the throng of Froggy Mika fans. After far too long standing in a hot, sweating mob, I had my moment with Mika himself. "What intelligent conversation did I instigate?" I hear you cry. Well, obviously I panicked and talked tea. But it was a lovely conversation about the merits of English tea nonetheless, and then he signed my CD, shook my hand and I toddled off feeling strangely satisfied by my afternoon's accomplishment! To top it off, on Sunday night he did an interview on the TF1 national news, and there was some footage from the signing in which I was visible! Yesss, my French TV debut after only a fortnight in the country!!

Keen to share my latest pop story, I met Helena and Henri on Friday night at Place Monge in the 5th arrondissement. We started off having a really sophisticated drink in a lovely square but things quickly went downhill. I think the pivotal moment was when the week's most pressing question appeared to be
"would you rather kiss someone really gorgeous with swine flu or someone really ugly without?!"
However, the real downfall was our relocation to a rowdy Irish bar - as full of character as it was full of characters....
Now there are family members reading so let's just say that over the course of the next 5 hours or so, firstly in the Irish pub and then in a basement club, a couple of beverages were consumed! Bumping into my flatmate Misha, we became a group of 4 and, in the words of HH, we "ripped up the dancefloor and showed the French how it's done!".
Talking to a pair of German guys in the club it was inevitable that I insisted on demonstrating my German prowess and hit them with my favourite line
"Ich habe meine hausaufgaben gegessen". (I have eaten my homework).
Sadly, I was quite proud of this at the time, but I don't think the Germans were!
Having no idea whatsoever how the night buses work around here we all decided to walk home. I have to admit that this part of the night (OK morning it was 4.30am) is fairly sketchy. But I do remember getting particularly excited at the sight of Notre Dame and thus bursting into song (Garou of course!) And I do believe that we all sang for most of the walk home!

Lastly, on Sunday morning I crossed the Seine to do my first stint of babysitting of the year. All I can say is that the children's father is fairly well know in France (not so much internationally!) and it was , therefore, another slightly surreal experience. An open film script on the coffee table, and a walk-in wardrobe brimming with designer labels. Alas my role for the day was to play hide and seek and star wars lego (incidently, the 6 year old told me I was "une championne du lego" maybe I can use that in future!) The boys were actually fairly sweet (as far as children go) and very well behaved so I wasn't too scared when the dad came home and asked me if I'd give them some English lessons some time!

So there we go, another week in my Parisian life gone by, and not without its fair share of laughter and the ubiquitous level of the surreal that I seem unable to shun! Unfortunately work starts on Friday and so I fear things may become less exciting soon, but hell that leaves me 4 days to find myself in more ridiculous situations... Bring it on!