Read Show Me The Monet (or "This Is So Going in My Blog")

Published on Tue 24 Feb 2009

Paris is definitely making a play to be my favourite place in the world. Edinburgh might just about be holding it off, but I dunno. Glencoe has definitely succumbed. I had a really nice long weekend visiting Jason and Krys - just what I needed. And the fact that I've been there quite a few times now meant that I didn't feel too guilty sleeping and watching DVDs a lot. This is probably going to be briefer than I normally would be, but work's as busy as a bastard this week, and that combined with pub quizzes and Morning People recordings mean I won't have time to write again until Lord knows when.

So, I turned up at Gare Du Nord at lunchtime last Wednesday, having had a relaxing journey - seriously, Eurostar is ace - and wandered round aimlessly for a bit until Jason spotted me, then we got the bus to where they live.

It's pretty big by Parisian standards - there's enough room to swing a cat.

Sorry.

We had a quick lunch of cheese, bread and wine and went off to look round a couple of decent churches, have a walk through the Jardin de Luxembourg, have a beer while watching Ronnie O'Sullivan beat Steve Davis (very continental), have an excellent kebab and do an open mic in a very busy Scottish bar (I played Edinburgh, The Easy Way Out and Watertight to general apathy - Krys and Jason both went down much better, though Jason did attract some weird attention from some girls in the corner). I went to bed and had a slightly disturbing dream about having to cancel the gig that would have made me famous because a minor thing had broken at work.

We'd decided to get up nice and early and make the most of Thursday. We finished breakfast by 2pm and went to the Natural History Museum, concerned it would be shut before we'd looked round. It's different to most of the other natural history museums I've been to in that it's full of animal skeletons instead of stuffed specimens. There are a few pickled things (kitten with splayed out guts anyone?) but mostly just the bones. Not that there's anything wrong with that. And it's excellent for vocab learning. Here are a few pictures.

The triceratops is my favourite dinosaur. Is it unusual that I still have a favourite dinosaur? Protoceratops is my second favourite but they didn't have any of those. There was a sabre toothed tiger though.

One of my clearest memories from my childhood dinosaur books is that the iguanodon has really pointy thumbs. They thought they were a pair of short horns at first, but then it wouldn't have had enough fingers.

When we'd finished in the museum and had a quick McDonald's (they give you the code to the toilet door on your receipt! No wonder everyone pisses in the Metro!) we wandered through the botanical gardens to catch the bus to Le Tour Montparnasse.

Unfortunately, it being France, the bus drivers were into their 4th consecutive month of striking as a show of solidarity with Caribbean oyster divers or something, so after 20 minutes wondering what was going on, we went to get the Metro. The tower is very tall. A good 20m taller than the BT Tower

It's also kind of unattractive, which means that if you're at the top of it, Paris looks even more amazing, because you can't see it.

As it got dark I got a bit overwhelmed by how romantic a place it is - the soft lights, the uniform colour of the buildings, the smell of the Metro (when you can smell it above the piss). And then I noticed that the population of the roof essentially consisted of 21 couples with their arms round each other, and me. Still, this is my favourite photo I've taken in ages.

We went back to the flat, ate foie gras with toast and onion jam (which Jason made) and tartiflette (which Krys made), which were both delicious, and watched 6 or 7 episodes of "How I Met Your Mother" which is bloody hilarious, at least at the start, before I went to sleep and had a surprisingly detailed dream about my new keyboard.

We did actually manage to get up early on Friday to go to the Musee d'Orsay. It's pretty great.

I got a bit obsessed with taking pictures of small sections of masterpieces. 

There'll be a small prize for anyone who can tell me whose hands they are.  And anyone who can justify the size of this gigantic (double!) bed.

When we'd seen pretty much all there was to see, I went to meet Severine. I had about an hour to get to her neighbourhood, and thought it'd be ok to walk. And it would've been if a right turn really was a right turn and not slightly less than a right turn so you end up facing at right angles to where you think you're facing after a while. Luckily I had a map. We went for a walk down a cool covered passageway with cool shops and a very expensive wax museum

before going into the Opera only to be turned away because it was about to close.

So we took the Metro to the Parc des Buttes Chaumont, which Severine eventually let on was entirely man made. A quick wikipedia tells me it used to be a quarry and was commissioned by Napoleon. It's really nice - I bet it's properly lovely in the summer.

Then we went to look at these picturesque little streets

Which, sadly, have this at the end.

God, I've really got to go to bed. Friday night Krys and Jason were playing at an Irish bar, and were great. Oddly, a couple of pissed up guys managed to wangle their way on stage to do songs. With varying degrees of success. Saturday was another big lie in followed by a fried breakfast (I smuggled some Heinz in), more "How I met You Mother" and a party, which I understood much more of than I expected to (I wish I was brave enough to actually try speaking French) and really enjoyed.

I came back all refreshed and feeling great. It lasted a good 10 minutes into the walk to work yesterday. Which is much better than last time I went away.

There are more photos on flickr...