Our second week of classes has started after a lovely weekend. On Saturday it was a delight to see Ellie and Tracy; we had tea and French treats at our little flat before taking a small trek in the rain to Toriyoshi, their favourite restaurant in Paris up near Montmartre. It did not disappoint and I still think longingly of everything we ate! It was raining so much after supper that Patrick and I didn't fancy the 45 minute walk back so we tried our first Uber: pretty terrifying! Our driver was weaving all over the place and speeding. It did get us home nice and dry, however, and it is much much cheaper than in the UK.
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| Place de la République on our rainy walk |
Aside from seeing Ellie and Tracy (what a treat!) and catching up with their news, I was also extremely glad to get my hands on some marmite and Yorkshire Gold teabags that they'd kindly brought for us, as requested; I'd used my final teabag the previous day. I am now fully stocked for the remaining weeks here!
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| Pals! |
On Sunday, Patrick and I decided to be adventurous and venture to the Marché aux Puces de Montreuil; we'd read up on it and were expecting it to be a fairly shabby affair, nothing compared to the larger and more famous Marché aux Puces de Saint Ouen (also on our to-visit list). It was actually awful; we didn't buy anything! It was kind of like a huge car boot sale and an outdoors Poundland - full of people selling basically anything used - clothes, shoes, kitchenware - a few sad books and records, together with stalls full of clearly stolen Nike shoes. We walked past a man dejectedly proffering a single mobile phone (obviously recently nicked) several times; it was quite brazen. I wish I had photos to show you all what an odd and dreary place it was but I was nervous I would get pickpocketed so my phone was safely stashed away.
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| Beautiful scenes around every corner here |
After a tough class today Patrick and I went for a walk to Île Saint-Louis to scout out Mama and Chris' AirBnB for their visit in a few weeks. We found it!
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| Number 42 |
Then, despite the chilly weather, we had a Berthillon icecream.
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| Pretending it's summer |
Then we did our homework!
Parisian things we have seen so far:
- old men playing pétanque
- coiffed women in furs walking fluffy dogs
- people whizzing along on ridiculous motorised scooters - they seem to have a Boris bike type scheme for them here and everyone looks so stupid
- Children (well, 13 year olds) smoking
- Chihuahuas x 1000
- People on bicycles with baguettes
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