Day 32: Paris

Highlights:

• Bateaux Mouches
• Les Deux Moulins and Creme Brulee
• Scooter to a Friday night French Gym session

With a coffee and croissant, I listened to Beethoven's 2nd, 7th, 4th and 5th (duh duh duh, duuuuuh, da da da daaaaa) Symphonies before skipping to disc 56 to listen to some Sibelius. I reckon I can make a significant dent on this stuff before leaving. Master wine tasting, tanka writing and classical symphonies. I then listened to Lewis give me a healthy dose of grief about how sarcastic I am. I think I probably responded with the finest sarcasm I could muster. Highest form of wit.

I got the train to Assemblee Nationale via Saint Lazare (said in my finest English accent to annoy Lewis). You can buy 10 tickets at once on the Metro - costing €12.70 instead of €17 - to be used at any time, so really worth the money. There was an Accordion busker on the metro, so I sneakily listened in without him knowing, and vaguely paid attention to Michel Thomas teaching me how to ask someone to come to dinner, because I have something very important to tell them. Can't see me using that line over the next few days.

Marthe, Siemen and I had planned to go to the Musee d'Orsey, but there was the most ridiculously long queue outside. The only way I can quantify it is saying it's the largest queue I've ever seen. You can question me on previous queue sightings when I get back. Surprising really to discover any sort of orderly queueing in Europe. It's normally an imploite free-for-all. Anyway, we really couldn't see the point of queuing two hours for probably a one hour viewing. Because of the 1st November Thursday public holiday, most people also take the Friday off to make a long weekend, so that could explain all the visitors. Can't imagine the Brits spending two hours queuing outside the latest
V&A exhibit on a bank holiday.

The weather was pretty shocking, so we decided to get the Bateaux Mouches
(Fly Boats I think might be the translation?) from Pont de l'Alma. I figure you can't do the boat tours in every city because they'd become really dull (Europe all looks relatively similar, and a river is a river), but Paris has probably got to be a good choice. €11.50 a ticket for an hour's ride, and then a fairly priced small bottle of Evian for €2.50...They had an option called the 'Night ride 'yes'' tour, which involved a greeting by the Captain followed by a romantic dinner for two on a boat, being serenaded by a violin and piano, drinking champagne and eating chocolates...presumably all as a set up for a cringingly unoriginal proposal, where the lady is presumably too bombarded by the sickening display around her to say no.

It was raining from time to time, but Marthe and I went out to the front and took some photos of the Notre Dame (translation 'Our Dome') and the Eiffel Tower, whilst Siemen took a nap. I was going to drop in my knowledge of Gustave Eiffel, but Marthe beat me to it. Going to have to save those facts for someone else.

After the boat ride, we headed up to Montmartre (translation is 'martyr mountain' I think) by Metro. It felt like rush hour London; we were proper sardines. Marthe joked that she was going to use the opportunity to pinch my bum, and I eyed a few dodgy men who probably were actually doing that to unsuspecting women. We got off at Place de Clichy and headed to Les Deux Moulins on Rue Lepic.

(Photo taken in July 2012)

Presumably everyone knows why this is famous? It's the cafe that Amelie Poulain works at in the film 'Amelie', and whilst it's now the sort of tourist spot that I'd usually avoid, I've yet to meet an Amelie fan I dislike and figured at least the guests would be at worst decent and at best, lifelong friends I'd yet to make. We were sat at a table and had a look at the basic menu; seemingly it only served a few types of brunch and then Creme Brulee (one of Amelie's favourite experiences is obviously cracking the top of a creme brulee with the side of a spoon), so we all ordered a portion, and then later some pommes frites. A nice dinner course reversal of dessert first, mains second. The cafe is only slightly adapted from the film, with a few film posters up on the walls, a few extra tables added and the tabac store removed. I guided myself to the loo based on the scene where two customers have sex in the bathroom (success!) and whilst being pretty grubby like most French toilets*, the wall was covered with photos of Amelie's dad's garden gnome in front of famous sites around the world.

When I first watched Amelie, I assumed it was set in a town just outside of Paris, as the images didn't at all match my visions of Paris. It mentioned the Notre Dame, but I figured she'd gone on a day trip. Only on visiting Paris did I realise the film is actually just set entirely in the Montmartre area. Amelie's love interest works in a sex shop called 'Palace Video' on Boulevard de Clichy, and she lived in a flat up the hill from the cafe.

After our food, I took Marthe and Siemen on a mini-guide of Montmartre. I was aiming for the Abbesses Metro but of course got us lost. To M&S, I described it as an intentional 'early evening meandering stroll around a nice part of town'. The roads all rise up to the base of the Sacre Coeur, so at least we worked off half a teaspoon of creme brulee going up the steep roads. I eventually found what I was looking for. The wall of love, with 'I Love You' written in a gazillion other languages. Unfortunately, the park was shut so you couldn't actually see it, making my tour somewhat pointless (though see the photo below that I took in the summer). Redeemed it slightly by going into the St Jean de Montmartre L'Eglise. It was a large church just off the main Abbesses courtyard and with it's wide open doors, it felt welcoming where many other churches feel exclusive or intimidating. The style seemed more rustic than a traditional church, with wooden domed ceilings and dim lighting, and it had a real warmth despite being so wide and sparse.

I knew my way from here, and left M&S at the cinema looking up times for Skyfall whilst I walked back to the apartment. Lewis had spent the day writing a jazz hit (I'm optimistic) so we listened to that a few times, examined what looked like a minor bike scrape to me but seemed the equivalent horror of losing a limb to Lewis and watched another episode of Red Dwarf. I love Cat. Tomorrow I think I'll practise his walk.

Around 8.30pm we headed to the gym. Friday night in a budget gym in the Latin Quarter. Living the dream. As well as working off the 6,000 croissants I've eaten recently, it did have the added benefit of a late night scooter ride across the Seine. Seriously can't get enough of Mavis (it's sticking, Lewis). So Lewis had described the gym as being the grimiest I could imagine, which probably was an accurate representation of the 6 x 4metre gym. I liked it though. Having only three of every machine meant you were forced to spend longer on each one to make it worth the wait, or because you were waiting for something better to come free. Even longer spent trying to work out French fitness terms on the machine. Vitesse is speed, apparently and 'Razel' got me somewhere on the rowing machine). We spent 2hours or something there, then I went to brave the French changing rooms. Hello nudity. After a moment's hesitation, I decided against the nude sauna (do you really need to be nude?) and embraced the row of non-private showers. Liberating, it was.

I was shaky from those extra rowing kilometres, so Lewis drove us to pick up a Lebanese Kebab. It had tomato in, how unhealthy could it be? We then went back to Lewis' part of town and went to a cool bar he knew for some wine. It was ALLOWED; it was 11.30pm on a Friday and we'd just worked our socks off at the gym. The bar was cool, like the scene from a painting of a local Parisian bar, jammed with people all laughing and cramped around tables, with labelless green bottles of wine. There was an older man in an adidas jacket with long scraggly gray hair dancing to some sort of electro beat in his head.

We went back to the apartment, listened to some Wayne Shorter and then watched Ian Hislop rip into Conrad Black on HIGNFY.

End of day 32.

*No restaurant or bar toilets ever seem to have seats and during my last visit, at the Cimetiere du Montparnasse, I had to use some of those crouching hole-in-the-ground sorts. Lovely.