Life of a Non-Parisian

He sat at the computer, long hours of struggling with a keyboard who’s alter ego seemed more in love with an evil pain loving warlock known as Richard, and would to his lovers desire confuse and strain the limits of the typists mind…..
Sorry bout that. I am struggling with this French keyboard. It needs to die.
Along with most of the population of Paris.

Anyway, I care little for Paris yet I have had some good times here. Over the past few months a lot of friends from Australia have visited us, either from home or while on their own adventures.
When we first arrived we were living in the small apartment of the beloved Mikaela Squirchuk and Lucy Bradshaw, who were also our original guides of the city. They showed us all we needed to know: the way to the metro, how the metro worked and most Importantly the location of the best and cheapest crepes in all Paris.

So we were set! Or so we thought. The next month was dedicated to finding jobs, which included a lot of wandering the streets leaving CVs in cafes and bars. Maz soon found work in a bakery then changed to receptionary, though I was having trouble finding anything…. Apparently no visa, French or long term employment are a good start to a high paying job in the business centre of Paris.

So then the fun began, and I am sorry to anyone with a better memory than mine as I am V. forgetful. First visitor who was around for a while was Robbie Diamond who is Tom famous (its like world famous…. Only better) for an exceptional rendition of Hallelujah a few years ago, otherwise brilliant multilingual chick from Ascham. Her outstanding attribute being her ability to out eat me, while also being around 4 feet tall.

Beside her stood the 10 foot giant of a woman known only as “Sir” (or Charley Stollman) who was travelling Europe with an old friend of mine. Once again more crepes were eaten and general jolliness had.

Zara rocked up... with but one desire, one simple request, and only one thing she wanted to do in Paris: visit the grave of Jim Morrison. So we did, and we visited the coolest graveyard in the world.

Its big and luminous with crypts all over the place and then amongst all the 20ft tall gravestones you find a small rock, covered in bunches of flowers with cigarette boxes, joints, a million cigarette butts and a lettuce, and a simple plaque saying KATA TON DAIMONA EAYTOY ("To the divine spirit within himself”), as well as his name and dates etc. Really cool, anyway we later convinced Zara that she also had to eat crepes in Paris, so the day ended perfectly.
Daniel Amzalag popped his head in and shared a drink and a crepe as we wandered the streets in search of a beer under 7 euros (we didn’t find one). Then popped back out to travel the country with his folks.

Cadel Evans dropped by on his bike, gave us a wave as we sat on our bridge.

We found our first nice Parisian a few days ago, a banker who went against bank policy to help us! Policy was to not open bank accounts to students or for short term uses (Maz needed to bank cheques then close the account). Anyway yeah, thought it was a special moment.

The Cohns dropped by, or at least a couple of them, and we had a blast of a week including lots of nice food, the Moulin Rouge and another trip to the Louvre. The Moulin Rouge had lots of wine and topless people on stage yet somehow created an extremely classy show, with amazing costumes, water snakes, good food (though not quite enough of it, I ended up eating most of the Cohns meals as well) and really stunning dancers.

In the last little while I have been training as a tour guide, which is much like ski instructing; you get paid to meet cool people. Maz and I should do our tests and be able to give our first tours early next week, until then it is a whole load of learning…….. yay…

Well, it is now a few weeks since I sat down and started this blog, the mixture of wine and this keyboard (which I have still not yet mastered), have made it a fun…. time to say the least.
Love you all, and miss you lots.

Tom

Family in Paris

After several weeks of asking nicely followed by asking followed by forcing followed by giving up on Tom writing a post himself, I decided to write again.

Dad and Oma were in Paris this week! Oma seemed to be really enjoying herself which was nice to see. They stayed at my hotel for the first few days and it was really odd to see people so out of context (family at my work in Paris). We went to Notre-Dame and the Louvre together, and they did the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe and the Musée d'Orsay on their own. Dad took Tom and I out to the Moulin Rouge for dinner and a show which had to be the highlight of my time in Paris so far (contender is Disneyland on Sept. 2 - tickets have been bought!!!). Dinner was nice although not too flashy, but the setting was really cool especially with my personal obsession with the Moulin Rouge. We had a table in a really great spot to see the show which lived up to its reputation for costumes, lights, colours, dancing, gorgeous dancers, and overall good entertainment. Even the intermission-like circus acts were great - one of our favourites was a hilarious multilingual ventriloquist. Sadly enough they have a no-cameras rule so we have none of the show :(

Off this afternoon to do another free tour of the city since Tom is training to be a guide. Lots more learning of dates and names in history for him.

Reflections on the City of Light

So now that I've been in Paris long enough to have settled in, I thought I'd have a ramble on the city itself since our day-to-day life isn't exciting enough to comment on. Paris is nice enough, I quite like it and definitely prefer it to Germany (possibly because of the language - I feel more comfortable here), but it hasn't really wowed me as much as I always imagined it would. The sights are pretty, millions are spent lighting them up at night so the city can live up to its name, but they tend to be surrounded by tourists and locals trying to make money off the tourists which ruins the atmosphere. Other than that, its got everything a bustling big city should have. Homeless people, smelly public transport, lots of concrete and high-rises. I get the odd moment every few weeks where I'm reminded I'm in Paris. There ARE the cute cafes and restaurants and famous museums and flowered balconettes. I just wish I'd been around to visit Paris 100 years ago, before the tour buses and souvenirs, when Montmartre really was a cool artist's village. I think it would have been how I imagined Paris back then. My imagination just ignored the obvious fact that as the capital of a western country it has become a big city.

Rant put aside, I am excited to see Dad and Oma who are arriving next week and staying at my hotel. Dad is taking us out to the Moulin Rouge for a show which I'm really looking forward to!

I have tomorrow and the next day off work so it will be nice to chill and maybe see a bit more. I never posted about Versailles which Tom and I visited a few weeks back. The queue was too long to bother going inside the palace, but the gardens were really beautiful and we spent a nice afternoon getting lost in them. (There were also ducks in the royal pond!)

Bisous
Amanda