Staying Socially Afloat

In one of my most masochistic acts to date, I decided to give up chocolate for the whole of November. A decision based on absolutely no tangible benefits but because life is a little bit too cushy here and I needed a challenge. It has proved easier than anticipated though, as I have replaced chocolate with champagne! A slight cold and earache has tried to hamper my fun over the last week, but a trip to see the plastic surgeon (I kid you not) and resulting prescription has put that worry aside! So another busy fortnight which started with the revival of Erasmus life, Paris style:

Just in case things weren't international enough as it was, the first weekend of the month brought a Roman reunion to Paris. Jen and Alain hopped on a plane from sunny Glasgow and Antonio flew over from Madrid. Us nouveau-Parisians welcomed our guests in the best way we know how: by taking them out drinking! We went to a bar called Apérock Café where they have (not entirely convincingly) renamed all the cocktails with a rock music theme. Hilariously my peach-based cocktail was the "Depêche Mode" and Jen's was a "Mick Shaker" ie Jagger in case you were looking for the link. Despite the terrible level of wit, the evening was a total success and at any one point there were at least 5 different nationalities in any conversation: very l'auberge espagnol!

In the lighter hours of the weekend, we did a fairly thorough tourist trail through le Gai Paris, massively taking advantage of the free for under 26s sites. Somehow a walk through the heart of the city had us in almost constant fits of laughter, and interpreting the numerous works of modern art scattered through the Tuileries Gardens we came to the conclusion that "la vie est futile" (Life is futile!) and this became a running joke for the rest of the weekend. A 3 course meal for 10€ at Le Menhir signalled the end of the night for Jen and I who are evidently too old to deal with two heavy nights in a row. After Sunday's stroll around the Louvre and the obligatory photo sessions next to the Eiffel Tower it was already time to bid farewell to the Scots amongst us. Waving goodbye to our friends I couldn't help wondering where in the world we would next meet...! Exhausted and ready to go home I was then told by Henri that we were going out to meet Miguel, Antonio and Anne Laila for dinner somewhere in the north of Paris. Of course I could theoretically have politely declined and returned home alone to my lesson plans and resident chihuahua but a steak and bottle of red with friends unsurprisingly seemed the much more fitting option!

The lure of free champagne had Charlotte and I rushing back to the piano bar mid-week with Helena this time. After being presented with an enormous bottle of champagne (Sorry dad, I'm failing you, I don't know what the official bottle-size name is), we pushed our luck about as far as possible before leaving to investigate the club in my building! Helena left us at this point, to go home and rest after a hectic week, so Charlotte and I pressed on alone. Mercifully void of topless women and transvestites this visit was infintely more successful than the last! On a night when luck seemed to be pouring from the stars into our laps, no sooner had we entered the club than we met some people who has paid a lot of money for a private table and who invited us to sit with them and share their costly bottle of vodka. (Ie classy vodka in a classy club, not a watered down bottle of Tesco value in the Rock, where VIP tables don't exist to my knowledge....) So after yet another free drink we were telling our life stories, as is a fairly regular occurence when you move to a new city, and I casually mentionned that I lived upstairs. Our new friends suddenly became very ebullient and demanded to know if I had yet been introduced to Quentin, which for the record I hadn't. Embracing our newfound carefree demeanour and having no idea who Quentin is, nor why it was so important that we meet him, we followed them to meet the man! Turns out Quentin is, at 26, the manager of the recently reopened club and an excellent person to know! He was really nice and took the time to tell us a bit about the place and it's history, and it transpires that he effectively brought his crowd of exclusive clubbers with him when he re-opened the club under the name "130".
After a brilliant night out at a cost of precisely 0€ our feet were throbbing and we were slightly wobbly on the old legs. Charlotte and I then felt very smug as the journey home could not have been easier - a mere five floors up in the lift and we were home!

One night when I came home from work I put on the TF1 news and noticed that it was coming live from Place de la Concorde, broadcasting a live concert commemorating the fall of the Berlin wall. I was exhausted but have a natural inquisitiveness and pull towards big events and after all the luck I've had so far in Paris, I was feeling a bit cocky and decided to head on down. It is, after all, only at the end of my road. Only problem is that my road is longer than Morestall Drive for example, a fact I sometimes forget. I probably thought I'd bump into someone fabulously famous and spend the evening sipping free Moët. Alas literally the second I arrived, the last note of the concert sounded and the crowd dispersed. A well deserved reality-check? Yes. But I did have a sneaky sense of excitement walking in the opposite direction of the mass exodus of the Place.

Last weekend I went on my second French voyage of the year so far. This time, however, it was not to discover a new city. In fact, the complete opposite - I went to Nantes to visit my grandma and the rest of the French family. It was really nice to spend some time alone with Mémère as she is affectionately known in the family (despite it's negative connotations in French!) and also a welcome break from the ambulance sirens of the Rue de Rivoli. On Saturday we went to the countryside and had a big family lunch - a slightly surreal experience owing to the absence of mum and dad, but luckily I survived the pressure of total french family immersion and I don't think I made too much of a fool of myself, linguistically or otherwise. The meal was beautiful and definitely adhered to my newfound level of life: fresh lobster, duck and lots of champagne. By Sunday lunchtime I was already excited about returning 'home' to Paris. If home is where the heart is, then Paris can certainly claim this title! Well OK, it can share the postition with my beloved Ciren, but I can genuinely see myself living here in Paris for a long time.

On the train home from work on Monday with Charlotte, a tactical eavsdrop informed us that we were sharing the carriage with a player from Marseille football club. This was particularly exciting for Charlotte who, for some unfathomable reason, supports l'OM! Anyway, not working on Tuesdays means that Monday night is the new Saturday night... sort of! A friend from Ciren was over for a few days looking for a job and somewhere to live. Having gotten tired of waiting at home, with a degree but no work, he decided to come and ride out the recession living in Paris! In a depressing time like this when even friends that have been working a year or less are being made redundant it seems like a great idea! So I met up with Tom and his friend Theo and we somehow ended up in an Irish pub and participating in Monday night pub quiz! It was good craic (!) but the lax rules on cheating would have had Bill in a cold sweat! Iphones everywhere and people joining teams willy nilly. Good fun and I would like to go back as I love pub quizzes and we're all allowed a little bit of home comfort, but it had nothing to rival the institution that is Bill and the Nelson pub quiz! I then continued my night by heading to Helena's flat to celebrate Tobias' birthday. Another highly international night, I walked the 10minutes home with a group of people and managed to hold conversations in four languages in that short time!!

I've got a busy fortnight coming up with lots of parties, visits, concerts etc... Obviously I'd rather stay in my flat alone every night with a cup of a tea, but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do to stay socially afloat in Paris!