So - actually oysters are so me

I have a picture of the dozen oysters that Kipper and I devoured for "lunch" today. It may possibly include the glass of wine that I may have had... but I couldn't comment on that.

Today started off a little overcast, but turned into pure blue skies and gelato. I bought a pair of goldy/bronzy wedges today, to replace my favourite blue sandals, which I discovered were coming seriously to pieces in the airport, as I was waiting for my - yet again - delayed SleazyJet flight. The freakiest thing is that I bought them from the first shop we went into. (I know: it was i) a decision ii) so quick!!)

Kipper got a new phone, all she required (and maybe a glitter bar) from Lush, and I stopped her buying a dress with her phone money.

For dinner Kipper and I are having: the smelliest cheese ever (if Roquefort is medium, this is guru level), fantastic olives, cheap bubbles, blinis, fresh sardines with beans and tomatoes, red wine and more cheese and salad. Oh, and we're listening to Boplicity.

Must get back to the olives and bubbles. God I love Paris.

Hounded by the ghost of Flat Past

Well, to be strictly correct, it's more Luke-the-not-landlord, not the flat. Once we texted him on the Friday to say we were moving out the next weekend, he phoned straight back - a first! - but we weren't prepared to talk to him until the weekend; and he didn't call back or come round at any stage during the week; until Saturday afternoon, when we were in a secondhand shop buying a supremely cheap (£40) tv, because the broadband people were coming round on Tuesday.

Did I mention he's so assiduous at the moment, because he hasn't been around for three months to collect the rent? Unsurprisingly we a) forgot about it, and b) spent it (on essentials, naturally).

Lara looked at her phone, and said "I'm not answering it - we've already moved out." She's such a bad influence; I didn't answer mine either, and he left a message saying "I'm in hospital" (sure you are), wanting to send his mother(!) round to pick up the keys and rent.

So then we were quite bad, and either didn't hear our phones (genuine, honestly), or were in meetings (also genuine), or at the gym (really! I know it sounds bad); but we also failed to call back. So this week we decided that we had to call him. Two bottles of wine later, we'd made a huge list of bargaining points, which I won't reproduce, but included: no contract, no receipts, toilet leaking into kitchen, the fact that he didn't have keys himself (I could go on), and psyched ourselves up to call him. It was engaged. For about 15 minutes. We texted him saying "We've been trying to get in touch with you (which we thought was a nice touch), but your phone is engaged. We're going to bed but will call you after work tomorrow." Twenty minutes later he texted Lara saying "My phone is on 24/7", which made us squeal in disgust (we had been drinking), and want to stay up to 3am to call him then. That was Tuesday. Wednesday we were at a bbq (fantastic weather, and so much food we ate ourselves sick). Tonight we must call him, because I'm off to France tomorrow, and Lara's going to Sweden to collect her cats. I just want this sorted. Gargh.

More damn packing

We're moving out of our flat tomorrow, and I'm gutted. There are so many things I adore about the house: it's three stories, my room is enormous, the ceilings are all really high, the wooden floors are beautiful, the bathroom is red. There are annoying aspects too - the so-called landlord, the fact that none of the windows open because they're all painted shut, the toilet which leaks into the kitchen, the garden at the front not being big enough to sit in, having to put the heating on for half an hour before you can have a shower; but I'm still going to miss it.

I haven't done any packing: a combination of laziness (and being out drinking) and ostrich behaviour; Lara keeps telling me how much she's done. I'm out buying things - I need three cans of chickpeas and 10 pairs of chopsticks now, right?

Still, the new house has some good points: opening windows, a wee garden in the front, and a wee garden at the back, a spare room... I'm starting to struggle here. It's easily the best of the places we've looked at, but it's not a patch on our current place.

So, yeah, bring on the weekend - I can hardly wait. (Thank Dionysus for The Vineyard.)

Paris part deux

On Saturday morning we jumped out of bed bright and early at 11am (this was to become our typical rising time) and went to the markets. When Kipper isn't living in Tourcoing, she lives in the 12^me arrondissement, which is apparently quite a posh part of Paris, so the market was rather expensive. That didn't stop us purchasing an immoderate amount of cheese ("the most expensive Roquefort in Paris", and two types of goat's cheese), and a variety fruit and vegetables and a bottle of rosé. We went back to the apartment (which definitely bears a small description) to gorge ourselves.

The flat is on the 7th floor (opposite a place called "Ladyfitness", which advertises itself as "Concept No 1 en France"), and belongs to an actor. It's decorated in a manner that may euphemistically be described as "eclectic". I only took one picture, and it doesn't quite sum everything up, but it made quite an impression on me: it's the bathroom chandelier and it's plastic. Every time I went in there I would whack my head, and it would make a cheap plastic noise (the chandelier, not my head).

After cheese and rosé we went into the Marais district to buy Kipper some new shoes and rugby socks to go with her new grey dress from H&M. The weather was phenomonally warm and sunny (and that wasn't just compared to Belfast!), though I was so cheerful it could have been snowing and I wouldn't have cared. We had to change at the Bastille Metro station (cue more pics), and wandered around for a wee while before we found the shopping part Kipper was looking for.

One of the things that I particularly noticed about Paris was the amount of dogs and bikes in the town centre. They have a great system where one can hire a bike from a docking station very cheaply (you're not going to catch me on a bike for any money - I have enough problems walking), and drop it off at another docking station when you've finished with it. Cyclists seem to own vasts tracts of roads, and they even have their own traffic lights set down very low (took me ages before I worked out why they were there). I took a picture on Sunday evening after we'd had Salad Niçoise at Cafe Hugo with Kipper in the foreground, so you can see how close to the ground they are. There's also a good shot of her famous boater.

It took us forever to find any shoe shops, but along the way we came across all sorts of thurmaturgical delights. My personal favourite were the "baguettes magiques". I may have stopped and squealed when I saw them, in the time-honoured schoolgirl fashion. I had to have a photo.

It was the final day of the Paris sales, so we stopped in at numerous boutiques, at one of which Kipper bought a lovely green jumper. I was slightly taken aback at how tactile the young male sales assistant was - in a good way though, he wasn't at all sleazy. He fluttered and fussed around her like she was a model on a catwalk; it was nice (not to mention effective).

After we'd finished shopping (I talked Kipper into a fantastic pair of strappy, but eminently wearable, silver sandals) we stopped at a café for a drink, some people/dog/bicycle/shoe watching, and to plan the evening. Kipper had some other friends over in Paris, and we arranged to meet them at "the most trendy and pretentious café in the whole of Paris". We started off at the bar over the road from it, but the service wasn't that great, and the mojitos weren't as good as they previous place they'd been in, so we chanced the pretentious place (Café Charbon) and found it to our liking - guess that makes us young, smart and bohemian. Kipper's French friend told us that we'd hit the perfect time for visiting it: down season in Paris. Apparently it's usually filled to overflowing and impossible to get into. We liked it so much we stayed for dinner - I had the most heavenly steak tartare. Afterwards we went into almost-Belleville (I was very excited, The Triplets of Belleville being one of my favourite films at some festival) for a post prandial drink. It seemed a bit odd, drinking in the 'burbs, but I guess that's what you get, in large cities - or even N.Z. for that matter: I've driven to Newtown for a drink, for heaven's sake! Catching the Métro home is not something you do there though...

I was at a metal gig last night...

Don't ask me what the hell I was doing there; well, actually, I can tell you: being scared by the people, and then having a beer, and giggling at them. In fact I got an attack of the giggles, when the band on the left came out. (I think they may be called Lesshelp.) The lead singer was wearing a welding mask. No really. It was unbelievable, when he wanted to sing, he had to lift it up with his hand, and push the microphone under it. The rest of the audience seemed to find this perfectly normal, so I choked quietly on my Tennant's. I would have taken a picture, but it was all I could do to remain upright. When they first came out I decided that they were a bunch of tossers (the lead singer calling for multiple naked chicks in the audience may have had something to do with it - I mean would he even know what to do with one?), who thought it was cool to wear sunnies inside at midnight; but actually they had lots of short (= good) and amusing songs - current favourite "Obsessed with cheese", which goes: "Obsessed with cheese / Obsessed with cheese". It's great! I think Lara and Armand should have them at their wedding.

The general audience I found really scary. Stereotypes bad, I know I know, but they were all scary fat geeky fanboys; either with long hair (which they obviously spend more time and money on than I spend on mine), or no hair and long beards (again more time and money). I'm sure they didn't come straight from their computers to the gig, but that's how it felt... So I grabbed another beer (oooops - budget!), decided it was okay to laugh quietly at them, and enjoy the music. I didn't head bang though, I'd need a wig for that.

Paris part 1

I took a flexi-Friday, which meant a beer at lunchtime, and not going back to work. I wandered round town for a short while, then caught a bus to the international airport, where I was massively early, and, thanks to EasyJet (don't get me started), I had to wait for an hour or so before I could get my boarding pass and get to the next bar. I had the option of checking in on-line, and going straight through security. Wohoo: I like this. I printed my boarding pass to Paris, and then the one to Belfast. They looked different. I studied them. The one to Paris didn't have my name or the flight on it, nor the bar code. Hmmm. I went to the page again, and compared it to the Paris-Belfast pass. It still looked different: bar codes were in different places. I hit F5 (refresh). The entire page went away. Errrr... what? The back button didn't work. I had broken it. Well, apparently not entirely. You only get to print your boarding pass twice. (It says so in the small print.) I got to print a screwed one once. Thus you find me at the airport being very patient, reading Hunter S. Thompson (he is a fantastic travel companion).

At 3:15pm I join the queue for boarding passes, and enter the sacred world of two bars. I decide to be sensible though, and go through security - there have to be more bars on the other side - and the queue looks nasty. It is - it goes on for ever, and they want me to take my shoes and belt off (can't they tell I've been to the gym since I bought these jeans, and this has the potential to be embarrassing?). I shuffle through clutching my waistband with both hands. Safely on the other side I do a quick browse for tax free specials. I am kidding myself. The EU has many things going for it, but cheap alcohol is not one of them. At this point I come across a money machine dispensing euros. (Quick digression: I was listing things I had to do earlier in the week to Lara, and one of them was go to a bank and pick up some francs. She laughed and laughed at me (anyone seeing a pattern here?), and reminded me that France was using the euro these days. Sure I knew that, I was working in Dublin at the time...) Now is a good time to pick up some euros, I thought to myself. I tried using my cashflow card (I still don't know its proper U.K. name), but it wasn't accepted. No worries, I'll use my credit card. Eeep, the longer you have them the more blasé you become; like violence on tv (Family Guy anyone?). Unfortunately it had been such a long time since I'd used it I couldn't remember the pin... (It was set by the bank, not me.) Oh dear. The weekend stretched out in front of me - long, euroless, sober, cheeseless, long, airportfull... I nearly broke out in a cold sweat. I imagined the conversation I would have with the bank (I've had it before). It was dreadful. I texted Kipper, and didn't hear back. She's distancing herself, I thought. Perhaps it's just this machine, I thought. Those in France will be more forgiving. They'll take my cashflow card. What if they didn't? Fortunately, however, common sense prevailed, and I realised I could call Lara, who would look up the pin for me, which I keep in the sensible "important papers" pile. I thought it had 8s and 2s in it; well, I was close. (Ish.)

After this wee bout of stress, I locate the alcohol (no anosmia here) and a seat at my gate. This is important, because the flight is delayed. And delayed. And further delayed. And then a little bit more. Finally we are called, and make it onto the plane. My seat is the second row from the front next to an English couple who are also off to Paris for the weekend. We're up in the air for 20 minutes (I know this, because she and I both check our watches when we lift off: 7:55pm, instead of 5:15pm), when the captain announces "Cabin crew prepare the cabin for landing". Really, they have to be joking. Nope, turns out they're not. We land at Luton (apparently somewhere in London), because... we'll, no-one seems sure exactly why. They have mixed up stories about technical problems (what delayed us at Belfast, apparently), and ill cabin staff (there is an ambulance, which went to the wrong plane). People on the window side report that the staff member can walk, so she's probably not dying. We have to get off the plane, and onto a bus, where we are transported, like animals to the slaughter (Roald Dahl is uppermost in my mind at the moment) to a holding pen. An article later we are bussed back to another plane, where we're told that due to the "inconvenience" we will be given a free hot or cold (non-alcoholic) drink, though because of the short flight everybody may not receive theirs, and they apologise for this in advance. Well, thanks EasyJet; and I was a lucky one - being in the front row this time.

So we eventually arrived at Charles de Gaulle at around 11:15pm, in time to catch a train (after I follow, very carefully, the signs for the "RER", and pass very scary army people carrying real guns (hey, I'm from N.Z. - we do things like name our kids Superman when we can't have 4REAL, and we don't have soldiers in Belfast) to the Gare du Nord where I failed to meet Kipper for a good 15 minutes, and spent easily £3 texting her (texts are 49p each when you're roaming on vodafone). It was complete fluke that I found her, having given up looking for the tourist information in disgust, and actually left the building (call me Elvis). I found another entrance though, and wandered back in, just as she was whistling our school song (one of the choruses from Verdi's Aïda); she's still sure it "called" me. Could have been, though if she'd been shouting "Free beer", I'd be more convinced... This is now around a quarter past midnight, and we have 15 minutes until the last train to her flat. Just time to grab a quick kebab, and sprint back to the her station. Excellent.

I manage to open a bottle of red which had until now evaded her clutches, and we stay up talking until 4am. I like Paris a lot already.

Nearly Paris

It was only three days, but it seemed like quite a lot happened to me.

On Thursday I still hadn't heard from Kipper, so I sent a slightly desparate e-mail.

As everyone knows I have problems with public transport at the best of times (sober, in an English-speaking country I know, going somewhere I recognise), so when she said she’d meet me at the bus station I didn’t exactly panic (that will no doubt come later), but warning flags were raised. They turned red yesterday when she hadn’t replied to my e-mail ("Errr... I'm arriving tomorrow evening; you're going to be on a train from Lille. Could I please get single syllable instructions for getting to said bus station to meet you, given that I struggle with public transport in English? Oh, and maybe your phone number?").

In fact it must have been preying on my mind, because I woke up an hour before my alarm on Friday, looked at the time, and went back to sleep. I dreamt that I was meeting someone else in New Zealand, and I had to take a bus. There were about 20 possibilities for me to catch: any bus but the number 9. So I stand at the bus stop, and finally a bus arrives. I can’t see its number, because it’s obscured by a large tree. It’s a cool open top one, though, so I get on. Of course, it turns out to be the number 9, and stops are about every twenty miles, so I stay on, feeling more and more stupid. I would text the person I was supposed to meet, but my phone has turned into a brick (kind of like a calculator) and half the keys are broken off, so they don't work (even though I try using a ballpoint pen). (The scenery is gorgeous though – a bit like the West Coast, but with sun.)

I told Lara about my dream that morning, and she was completely unsympathetic. She laughed at me, and told me that it was Paris, and of course I’d find my way around. She doesn’t understand how these things just happen to me. I was telling my team about my dream, and Lara’s reaction to it, and Bronagh said to me that she and her husband always take public transport when they go overseas, and that they had massive problems finding the bus that they needed from Charles de Gaulle airport, and it added about an hour to their trip. This, needless to say, filled me with confidence. She mentioned afterwards that they may have been marginally under the influence at the time. Damn it – I have a half day, and I was planning on a liquid lunch as a means of dusting off my 13 year old French...