I took the Thalys to Parys. Given the choice of practically being anally probed under the guise of 'security checks', squished up into a Stephen Hawking-like position in a pressurised tin can or sitting for four hours on a nice comfy train, I'll take the train, thanks.
So, after catching the train by the skin of my teeth because I spent too much time buying a toothbrush in Etos (red, no blue, no red, no blue, ooooh purple, no blue, oooooh, blue. Yes blue.... I bought a green one...), I settled into my seat and got served a meal, just like you get on a plane, although this one actually tasted pretty good. There was, bizarrely, a packet of Rolos, which are chocolate toffee sweets that we had in England when we were kids, for desert, which I found highly amusing and ate the whole packet in about five minutes flat like a piggy schoolboy in a sweetshop.
Whilst watching the countryside flick past, or trying to because the grumpy bloke behind me had shut the blind, I began to wonder if, when they have kids, people suddenly become deaf and/or their brain capacity gets significantly reduced. Do they somehow become unaware that their constant "sh sh shshhh shhh shhhshshshs" to little Jaap-Jan are even more irritating than little Jaap-Jan's random shrieks and continual "Kijk mama, kijk! Een boom/brug/koe/huis/auto/treins!" Firstly take the damn kid away from the window. AWAY.
Secondly, don't ever, EVER bring the toys that make noise with you on a train. There was a little boy sitting in front of me, who, to be fair, was behaving like any other 3 year old boy would and was quite well behaved but almost had me belting his dumbass mother over the head with my laptop when she got out his toy police car that had a siren noise on it. Give a kid a car with a siren noise and he's going to turn it on. Continuously. And then scream when the nice toy with the nice noise making device is removed from his grubby clutches. Arrgh.
Anyway, I got on with my work as best I could with that going on in front of me, and the grunting fat man grunting away behind me, and the dangerously cute mini bottles of vin rouge they kept shoving in my face. It was hard to concentrate, I tell you! I also noticed the ridiculous ring tones people have - the 65 year old french woman next to me had "Sweet Dreams" by Annie Lennox which played almost to the end of the song before she had scrabbled around in her giant bag and found the phone, and a middle aged business man had a ringtone like a frog croaking. This one prompted screams of 'Kikker, Kikker' from little Jaap-Jan.
So Holland and Belgium flew past and before I knew it I was in France, and making my way through Gare du Nord, which had this amusing sign,
and to the metro line 2, which is a bloody long walk, and then crossing the city to Passy, where I am staying in a ridiculously overpriced and mis-advertised hotel, with doors and walls as thin as paper. I think I heard the person next door breathing a moment ago. I am staying in a sort of annex thingy, away from the other rooms and up my own flight of stairs...guess the lady thought I might disturb the other guests or lower the tone of the place or something and shoved me as far away from everyone as possible.
She gave me my key and I asked if it was a non smoking room. She looked at me as if I had asked her if she just farted and would kindly refrain from doing so in my presence in the future and said "I don't know" with such a look of utter boredom that I almost didn't say anything else. But, it takes a lot to stop my mouth from working, so..
"Well. Ok. If it smells like smoke, can I come back and get another room?" I asked.
"I don't know," she said again, "Maybe. Maybe not."
Alright then. Grit les dents! The room didn't smell of smoke; more like musty carpets, dusty blankets and drains. Actually, the whole of Paris seems to smell like drains, all evening I've been getting whiffs. I even smelled Parisian sewer in the supermarket but then worked out I was standing right next to the cheese counter and deduced that this was probably why it smelled like rotting corpse a la baby's nappy avec goat shed garnish.
In the hotel here's a huge stuffed toy tiger in the lounge, just sitting there, minding its own business which I find very strange, and something only the French could get away with. There's a patisserie right next door too, selling scrumptious yummy things. So, after I'd dumped my stuff, paid ten F-ing euros for an Internet connection and thoroughly inspected and desecrated the room (opened all draws and doors, removed ubiquitous rubber sheet from bed, and then spilled contents of bag everywhere), I went next door and bought myself a croissant. And a pain au chocolat. In French. :)
I have to admit, I did not realise I had forgotten this much French. It's embarrassing. I can understand most of what is said to me but I simply cannot string a proper sentence together anymore. Whenever I need them, the French words jump out of my brain and elope, legging it off into the sunset and shouting au-revoir, perdant anglais. Dutch words come to mind, German words, even bloody Spanish words. I wouldn't be surprised if I suddenly answered in Russian or something.
And let me get this clear; when I was at school, no one pronounced "oui" as "Weh". We all said "Wee", even poor old, crazy Mme Arnold, who had hair like a bird's nest and an unfortunate skin condition that teachers should never have to suffer and who was on the verge of a nervous breakdown at the end of every lesson and who actually WAS French never said "Weh". Anyway, my French sucks and no one speaks any English, which I think is great, although makes things somewhat difficult. When I went for dinner by my lonely self and asked miserably for "One person, please", the boy stared blankly. Eh. Ok then....ummmm "Une person?". And then it was ok.
I'm staying five minutes from the Eiffel Tower, which is lit up in blue and has the EU stars on it. Every hour, on the hour, it sparkles quite beautifully. Aaah. I resisted the urge to go to the top, because the sign said "limited visibility" and the price was probably shocking. I couldn't tell the price because there were no signs and the queue bouncers wouldn't let me past to check. I bet that's the trick. Make you queue up and then, because you've spent 30 minutes in the queue, you think ach, paying 40 euros ain't so bad. Mental note: check out whether there are free viewing spots in the city.
There are boys everywhere under the Eiffel Tower and on the bridge trying to sell you mini flashing blue towers and carrying a huge amount of jangly things. I didn't get too close to see what they were but I guess they were metal mini towers, and they seemed to be put off by my perfectly executed snarly "Non! Merci!". Each one was selling EXACTLY the same two things. I took about 55 photos of myself in front of the tower but they all came out fuzzy, or with me looking like I had a severe case of constipation, or was about to be executed, or with the top of the tower cut off, or with no tower at all so I gave up. As I was walking back across the bridge, the tower began to sparkle and I saw a man setting up his tripod to take pictures. So I gave him my camera and asked him to take a picture of me - not even a professional photographer could get a decent picture and now I am convinced I must buy a new camera.
It was quite late and I noticed a shop still open and so I dived in for a nosey. It was a sort of a small department store/supermarket, where I realised that only French women can get away with wearing cropped knitted twin-sets and grey puffball skirts without looking like complete knobs. While I was in there I got the sudden and unstoppable urge to eat sushi, which is strange, because I've been off fish for a long time but it is full moon tomorrow, so these things happen I suppose. I got out the GPS thingy and it handily told me there was a sushi place a 10 minute walk away. I love technology! Off I go and wham, the bloody place is 10 meters away from the hotel. AH HA HA.
When I was in Paris about five years ago, I went to a Japanese place and they gave me and my two friends, Vicky and Kirsten, a shot of something very strong in these tiny little glasses. At the bottom of the glass was a little cloudy glass dome which, when the glass was filled with liquid, became transparent and revealed a very indecent picture of a man, with a very, ahem, intimate part of his body on display - we found it totally hilarious and ended up buying the little cups from the restaurant and taking them home with us to show everyone we knew. Imagine my total horror when, paying the bill, I get the same little glass with a very rude picture at the bottom - total horror because I had no one to howl with laughter about such a bizarre custom with. I wolfed down the shot to stifle the laughter because I was quite sure the chic Parisian women sitting next to me would think I was a total moron if I started to laugh like a mental patient at a picture of a naked man. I guess it's some sort of bizarre Japanese-French hybrid custom, because I've never seen it in a French restaurant, or when I was in Japan...
Anyway, I'm going now because I feel quite sick - I've just remembered the story Camilla told me about why she never drinks from the glasses in hotel rooms...mmmm that's because they never actually leave the hotel room to get washed. AAaaaerreergh! I've just drunk seventeen toothbrush glasses of water. Aaayeyyyyuck, my tongue, my tongue... Blaaaaargh.
