salut! Into the second week then...i cannot believe where the first week went! So...yesterday was Tuesday the 19th. I went on a trip to the laundrette. Was very interesting...was sitting there next to the wahing machiene, when “Hamid” appears out of nowhere. Ive never seen this guy in my life before. We exchange the time of day and he gives me a grin displaying teeth that probably have never seen a tooth brush...honestly, dentists everywhere would have a field day! He puts his hand on his hip and i notice that he is wearing some kinda holster thing. (ARRRRRGH...run for your life!!!) he sees that i have noticed, and say, (all in French, cause he cant speak a word of English), “oh this, don’t worry”. I start to worry...LOTS. He reaches into the bag and goes to pull out his gun!!! mon dieu... All i wanted to do was finish my washing and live another good fifty years-is that not too much to ask?!..cough cough...okay...it not a gun. (phew) its a wallet full of identiy cards. Nice. Hamid then pesters me for another 10 mins trying to get me to come to his apartment!? –er...non Hamid. Anyway. By now my washing has stopped and he goes to “help me” unload my washing. I think i actually jumped in front of the machiene...there was no way that guy was going anywhere my underwear! YUCK! Anyway. Hamid finally gets the hint and disappears....carl, i obviously forgot my slime repellent!
After an afternoon of shopping with the girls we all head to our different flats, and make some dinner. We all meet at the fountain at 10pm and set about finding a beer bar that cecille told us about. We find it after asking a guy in a kabab and a receptionist in a hotel. It tres cool! Its quite small, but five stories high. We pick a table in the centre of the first floor...soon a couple of French guys come over-and they practice their English, and teach us some French. By about 2am we have made friends with most of the guys on the first floor and get invited to a musicians house party on Thursday! We stay at the pub until we get kicked out and then head to a secret underground club where you have to do a special knock to get in! Its really cool, dimly lit with good music and nice people. We leave at about 4am and get walked home by Pen and Chris. Bon nuit, mes copains!
Donc...Wednesday...im suppost to be meeting Simon today, i was going to get up early and go running, but due to the beer..(je sais, i never drink beer!!)...my plans have all been put back a stage. Plus, we are meeting our new found friends tonight pour allee ou cinema pour voir: Le filme les Simpsons! (yes. Again.) Maybe we might watch something else...anyhow...ive got to get more credit on me phone and buy some more toilet paper...so...for now, arriverdarci! Okay...didnt go to the cinema...met with Chris and went to the irish pub....Mary went home early...after about ten whole mins Chris suggests showing us a view of the entire city...er...yes please monsoir Chris! We drive for at a 45 degree angle until we come to what looks like “make out point” in any teenage American movie; think American pie...the view is AMAZING!!! The only thing spoiling it was a couple of French dudes yelling obsinities out of their smoke filled car. Nice. So Chris drops me home, and then i try to sleep. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Thursday...we all agree to meet Chris, (AGAIN!) at the “square” at 1pm, sharp. We all decided last night to go a la patinoire!-yes, you anglaise, ice skating. Yippeeeeee!!!! So...we skate for about an hour of so...yep...fell over, and have the bruises to prove it. I like to think its cause i was going so fast....yer....anyway.....So chris invites us chez lui for dinner that night....murky buckets Chris! So we all agree to meet at ermmm....2000hours. We all turn up around the same time...Chris is there with his best friend. Chris....we decide that chris 1 and chris 2 is not the nicest way to address someone, (unfortunately, not before i say it out loud-thank God they laughed! Awkward!) so we settle on, Chris and Toff. Yep...makes complete sense....anyway, Chris’ friend Toff is tres beau with dark hair, green grey eyes, sporting a slight stubbly beard and a gorgeous smile. Hum. Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaalut! Anyhow...we all squeeze into Chris’ car and arrive at a one room apartment...eat dinner sitting on each others laps, sing, play guitar accompanied by Chris on his piano while Toff sits tapping his foot looking smoulderingly sexy. The night ends at Boit a beer...and everyone recognises us...we are now know as zee ingleese gerls! Its nice to feel included...anyway...i actually talk French more or less all night, apart from translating to Mary and Liz. I find all that junk French TV has paid off...I can actually understand more of less everthing! YEY! Just need to learn correct grammer! Do you know Catherine tate? (this is relevant, honest!), well theres this sketch she does with a posh family; a mother and two kids...anyway, those of you who know me, will know that i do a “posh accent”...anyway. Chris seems to find it hilarious when i talk, (in English), in this accent “i love horse riding and going fishing with Daddy” and “if you continue to act that way Elisibeth, you will end up with a sore bottom and no husband”...are two of his favourite lines...i smile as he laughs, and about 30seconds later, still laughing, he says; “these iss funny, as when you are speaking in the French, you speak poshly!” Damn stupid textbook French! Oh, talking of books, Chris has given me a novel to read, by Stephen Clarke called: “A year in the Merde”. –need i say more?!!
Friday...hummmm...i didn’t really do much today....did some Yoga and then the girls came round and i made them dinner, a Chinese dish. Nina, you would be proud! So...Saturday...Mary and i arranged to go to the laundrette. (outing of the week, eh!?) my alarm didn’t go off...but ssstillll got to Laundrette for about 9.30am where we learnt French verbs. And theeeeeennnn...(dude where’s my car), We met Liiiiiizie and Hannah by Joan of Arch Road....went for lunch-le salad pour moi! And theeeeeeeennnnn///i did the French thing and had a siesta...managed to fall asleep watching ‘lost in translation’-ironic, as it was in French, but mostly Japanese. Alors, everyone was chez moi, at about 7ish for guitar/singing/doing hair/cake eating/wine drinking session and then we headed down to the Irish pub. Made friends with one of the waiters there...Chris, (Toff) text me, (!!) and got invited to a gig next weekend by a guy at the bar. Result! I may try for a job at the irish pub...we’ve been there a few times...almost regulars now! HA! Donc, Han went home early, (2.00am!!), and the girls came back to mine for a chat about various piercings, boys and tattoos. Finished reading the book Chris one gave me, and was making the zee’s at about 4am. Ciao!!
1 comment:
Grace!
how glamorous, hanging out in launderettes with gun toting, knicker stealing junkies offering nights of abandoned wonder in their squalid roach infested apartments! I'm glad you sent Hamid packing, I really think you can do better. If he wants to woo, he needs to have a closer relationship with the toothbrush (and a more distant one with the needle and smack).
So I'm sitting here in this roof top, glass walled office staring out at a glorious golden sunset behind the London skyline (and diverting myself from the copy i'm meant to be scrawling)...while you are perhaps preparing to paint your first shamrock on your first pint of Guinness. Who goes to Irish pubs in France anyway? Hamid and his slime-ball mates probably. careful!
So, I found your blog..it was hastily posted around the family for amusement and insight into our wild life across the channel...so you'll have to edit carefully now, we're all watching like circling DaSilva buzzards..ready to swoop on your every lurid confession. Who are all these people you're hanging out with? You see...I've started already.
By the way, I like the way you write..it all rolls and tumbles along beautifully. you should do the opening page on a Sunday Supplement. You'd soon shake the nation awake from their grumbling, moaning middle class stupor with your wild tales of ...
Your tales remind me of my time in Northern Spain, part of an Erasmus exchange experience back in oh...1994. I also went to strange bars behind un-marked doors where you had to knock late at night...little dank dens of iniquity that were certainly exciting and lively. Next time you're in London we'll all go to an amazing place I've discovered...It's called SHUNT and you get to it through a discreet doorway in London Bridge station. Inside you cough up a fiver to the punky looking people at the desks before entering a dark brick tunnel lit only by a runway of pin prick lights. This leads to a netherworld of strange happenings and weird events. It's like an Alice in Wonderand world of the bizarre. In there I've seen people building mini paper villages, naked men covered in mud, showering under buckets of chopped tomatoes and flour, a shed with a strange lady offering sticky kisses in return for treats from her magic box...yep, it's pretty odd. You won't believe it 'til you see it.
Anyway, enough of this idle waffle...its now dark and people are fast leaving. I need to get on a train and hope I don't sit next to the deaf psychopath I was next to yesterday. He was getting all testy and wound up because I wouldn't squash myself to the window.
I will soon be hearing lots of French voices myself as this company (totally unbelievably) are paying for me, their loyal freelancer to go skiing with them in Canada on Friday
Something I've never done before, so I'll probably break something or get frostbite. Anyway, I'll tell you what happens at some later date.
So take care, avoid slimeball infested launderettes and keep the blogs up (we're all watching! ;-) )
Gareth xx
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