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