A pied in the 7th arondissement

Solo exploration in my commute yielded the reward of an extra escalator at Saint-Lazare, which leaves the staircase quota for the change at one, maybe two staircases before the five million steps at Rennes.

Our teacher (dubbed by my friends, "the cute one"), started today by pointing out the Americans in the class and humming the Star Spangled Banner until they caught on. We all seemed to have forgotten it was American Independence Day (most of us had the excuse of not actually being American), and it was quite funny to watch realisation dawn. Slowly.

Fun class with a lot of language practice, and I can feel that my brain is starting to shake the dust off and get used to the school schedule again. One of my classmates suspects that Stephane is not really French and may even be American, partly because he makes fun of the Americans (in a nice way). I suspect this just indicates that he is French, but time will tell. It’s an intriguing theory.

I was one of les médécins sent through to the opposite classroom for the oral exercise, and it was nice to break out of the usual classroom-hall mould (already!). The Brazilians actually got the ecossaise thing because their word for Scotland is pretty similar to the Spanish (Escocia), which is pretty similar to the French, so it was nice not to have to explain. One of my classmates had not one imaginary problem but several – head, abdominal, legs, one then both feet – was taking medication for all of them and I had to admit to our teacher that I didn’t know what to do for her as she had so many problems! It doesn’t sound hilarious, but we were in stitches. (oh, ho ho)

The teacher announced un petit cocktail after class, which got everyone excited until he added that they were cocktails sans alcohol. We were even less thrilled about the test on Monday, but it should be fine. In reality, there was quite a lot of alcohol in the cocktails.

Lunch was a bargain. I popped down to the cafeteria to get une baguette jambon buerre, like the day before, but was pleasantly surprised to find that instead of that they had ham and cheese, and – even better – they were selling off the sandwiches. A Friday thing? I don’t know, but they gave me a second baguette for €1. At €1.80, I already think the cafeteria is a good deal, but two baguettes for €2.80 is really good.

From Solferino, we found Rue Sainte-Dominique which cuts across the seventh to the Eiffel Tower (still quite a way away, but we saw a few things en route). Here is an ominous and not-at-all posed picture as we set off.

We passed the French Ministry of Defence, and a patisserie. One was more interesting than the other.

Happened upon a large church, the church of Sainte Clotilde. Was large and sort of neo-Gothic. Austere was how the English language guide described it, but in reality the stone was light and the interior felt more airy than austere. We found, in a stained glass window, St Hilarious (okay, it was actually St Hilarius, but it’s still funny). What was hilarious was the grim expression on his face. Saint Hilarious is henceforth adopted as the patron saint of this trip.

Next stop: Rue Cler. To get there we crossed the park north of Les Invalides and south of the Pont Alexandre III, with the great glass dome of the Grand Palais looming across the Seine.

We paused in a park attached to the grounds of Les Invalides (well, we walked in a circle inside it, stopping briefly on one of the benches) before orientating ourselves with the help of some big metal tower-like thing (imagine the Blackpool Tower, only bigger).

Finding an appealing café (with excellent black felt-patterned wallpaper) right next to the Rue Cler, we stopped for drinks before we could gather the strength for the sophisticated shopping of said street. The Americans toasted Independence Day and I was quietly British. We took the opportunity to examine the guidebook and, in Alissa’s case, to pull out and annotate her copies of my list and Jen’s. We mused on the sewer tour and I responded to Jen’s (I thought) straightforward question – what was the difference between the sewers and the catacombs – with the entirely reasonable answer that one is filled with raw sewage and the other isn’t. Alissa is now convinced I have a zipped folder of mean person inside me somewhere. (Extracting files…) I merely note, in response, that we had to drag her away from the flower shops all afternoon. I don’t know what bearing that has on anything, but it seems like something a mean person would say.

Jen found some dumplings, Tina and Alissa decided to share some cheese from la fromagerie, and I ogled the trolleys much favoured by the Parisian supermarket shoppers – but these were in vivid pattern or even (ooh la la) in bright and shiny gold! I was not willing to spend €43 on something I couldn’t take on Ryanair, and restrained myself from even going into the expensive linen shop, but we had fun walking up and down a stretch with stalls and outdoor stands while we followed cute puppies that we noticed on the way.

The Avenue Bosquet was intimidatingly affluent, and we were obviously riff-raff, but it was enjoyable nonetheless. We were very close to the Eiffel Tower by this point, so it was no use for navigation, and we entrusted our destination and persons to Jen, who had the map. At the end of a residential street we spotted Eiffel’s grand projet and soon arrived directly below the pointy thing.

After standing around for a while and looking up, while trying to pretend we didn’t speak English (it becomes necessary), we took some pictures, many at crazy angles, and I nearly fell over when I was crouching and leaned on the amazing moving bollard.

Then, put off by the crowds but happy to have seen the tower at close quarters (it’s my intention to go up one evening), we crossed the street, passed through a water-spraying mini carnival – with the worrying sign “new safe ice cream – special heat treatment” in neon – relived carnival-related blue-vomit incidents, and walked along the river to the RER station.