The curious cat was a victim of drowning; or, an illustrated lesson in button-pressing

Hopping on our local 88 bus and changing more or less as planned, we arrived at school in excellent time to have a look around before our oral tests. Now, these are not exactly high-pressure examinations - just a wee chat to see which class we will end up in. On the way in we ran into Aaron, another St Andrews student, and subsequently Matt and Alissa who were recovering from a demenage (removal - that's French!) immediately followed by a day on the train getting to Paris.

I had a test of bizarrely short duration, which on reflection I attribute to the fact that Stephane, my teacher last year, had taken detailed notes on the progress of his students and they pretty much knew where they were going to put me, which is as he said last summer.

Here's a picture of the courtyard that I really like, so much so in fact that I poached it from last year.

We had to pick up our bursaries - I know it's not the school's money and certainly not that of those handing it out, but I still felt awkward taking that much cash and counting it out as they requested!

Right outside the office there was an accessible toilet. I embraced it, not literally, but almost, given the extremely low loo in our flat and the fact I am missing my toilet frame quite badly. The seat was angled and high and my curiosity was piqued by the various buttons next to the seat. After flushing as normal I decided that the thing to do would be to test these buttons, in the spirit of science and experimentation. History rewards the thinkers but celebrates the doers, I felt.

There was a bidet function which was predictably squirty at a low level, accompanied by a bottom drying button that blasted air upwards for brief periods. All very sensible and toilet-appropriate. Then there was the button marked "shower". I pressed that one and stood well back, just in case. This little nozzle whirred forth and water began to flow down into the toilet bowl. Bemused by the description of this function as "shower", I leaned forward, at which point a jet d'eau that would rival Geneva's hit me right in the face and continued right up the wall.

I am told that from outside, my squeals and eventual soaked appearance were quite funny. I am sure I am going to suffer some sort of post-trauma and develop a fear of toilets, showers or buttons in due course.

In the book shop at reception they were advertising this book, which to my mind asks a very important question.

Just up the rue d'Assass is a very fine establishment into which we wandered, seeking sustenance. The proprietor, as it turned out, spoke fluent English and was interested in us as Divinity students. Not for a moment did I imagine that my first long-ish conversation in France would consist of someone asking if I knew whether Murphy-O' Connor's books on Paul had been translated into French, and someone who not only knew that he taught at the Ecole Biblique but who had known him growing up. If that sounds like enough of a small-world anecdote, you would be mistaken, as it transpired that he had lived in Israel for many years and was taught by Carmelites, something which made him vaguely aware of the community in Haifa in which Mary worked.

Something else that I discovered in this cafe I have taken up with evangelical zeal. I do not want to give too many details of this original creation, lest it be appropriated by too many who would not appreciate its wonder, but let me just say: Pizza. Cone. Veggies. Mmmm.

After a short ride on the 94 bus, we joined the upper tour at Madeleine. Passing the Opera again, I took this picture of the cafe at which we stopped the day before.

Ah. Trinite church was a favourite site on the commute going back home last year, but was under renovation at the time. Now it appears that you can go in, so I must do that this year. Best seen, in my opinion, up the street below.

A glimpse of Sacre Coeur from the Blanche area.

A really interesting frieze on a building by the Barbes-Rouchechouart metro station, which I kept trying to locate last year.

A couple of destination-representing statues on the Gare du Nord.

The commentary looped a couple of times here, and we heard part of the story about the siege of Paris in the Franco-Prussian war, during which the Parisians had to eat rats and Maxim's served elephant from the zoo. Apparently it was hoped that large hot air balloons could be sent outside the city and returned with cattle to eat. Unfortunately, we never heard if they got their cow. Seems a long wait for a beefburger, to me.

Below, to my shame, is a perfectly decent picture of Place de la Republique avec my finger. Oops.

Around the St Martin area, in the east,

Gratuitous Opera picture, because I like it and will bring it up given the least cause.

Before hopping on the final section of the loop, we stopped for refuelling at St-Michel again. Here's a picture of the rue de la Huchette, which I frequented last year but never once photographed.

I had my first crepe with nutella and banana, while Mary tried the nutella and whipped cream.

Here's Mary's photo out the window.

Before we left, we had a partially intelligible conversation with the Greek table attendant. We spoke to a lot of Greeks the first couple of days.

Walking back from Denfert Rochereau, a task for which I was entirely too tired, I spotted this broken mirror out on the pavement and decided it was there just for the benefit of passers-by with cameras. Welcome to the rue Victor Considerant, slightly fragmented.

Just like the photographer. I slept ten hours after this.

A very not-like-the-way-Cliff-did-it summer holiday

After a long and tiring day, we needed a lazy morning, and it was almost 12 by the time we set forth. Mary had suggested an open top bus tour, and I discovered that the four-loop city tour ran within a few minutes of our flat. We set off through our local cemetery (don't judge; it's one of the three main ones) and, after a grappling match with the ticket machine at Raspail metro station, we stood on the pavement and awaited the lime green bus.

Not only did Mary think that the buses were a great idea, she thought that they were my great idea. Everyone's a winner on this trip.

Mary's photos of the first day are far more exhaustive, partly because I myself was exhausted and partly because I had seen a lot of things last year and was selective, for me. However, you will see none of them until I can make blogger and my browser cooperate.

(update: browser not cooperating, however alternate browser now being used for blogging. Vague memories emerge of same last summer. Aaah! Mosquito! 'Scuse me while I close these parentheses.)

We stopped at the St Michel area, a favourite of mine, for lunch and a change of buses. After some browsing, we settled on spaghetti bolognese at an Italian restaurant. We were served by a German-speaking Greek waiter, who asked us, "If you're British, how come you can speak French?" We explained that you had to study it in school and we were students in Paris, but he was clearly still mystified as to why we would even bother. The other waiter walked up and placed sparkly hats on our heads, which we wore while we finished eating, though no explanation was ever offered.

Back on the (other) bus, we drove into eastern Paris. Very interesting route. I saw several new places to me even though we passed familiar sites like Bastille, where there was a boogying octogenarian wearing a bejeweled t-shirt that read, "Papa Danser".

The first major site we came to south of the river was this library - the Bibliotheque Nationale (named after Mitterand, the great builder of contemporary France, but I don't know where his name fits in, really). There's something megalithic about the four huge corner towers, even though they are meant to evoke open books. Meg compared them to the library in the library episodes of the most recent series of Dr Who, which didn't encourage me to visit - count the shadows...

We drove past the road to Bercy village, a revolutionised development of the old warehouse district.

Things were already starting to get a bit odd, with the commentary broken up by a rotating playlist of approximately ten songs that blasted randomly between anecdotes. Taking a leaf out of my tour-guide book, the guide turned to the helipad on the central taxation department.

"It is closed now, for security reasons." [pause to think of terrorist threat, then..] "Imagine a secretary gets out of his helicopter, you are driving below, and then there is a gust of wind and he is sitting in the seat next to you."

On the "grand tour" we were driven up the Champs Elysees to see the flaneur culture in action (when people go out strolling to see and be seen), before swinging the double-decker bus around the Arc de Triomphe which, for what I can honestly say is the only time in my life, made me feel like Cliff Richard. The commentary told us the familiar history of Victor Hugo lying in state, the unknown soldier and allied troops marching into Paris under the arch, then terrified everybody by telling us about daredevil pilots flying under the archway.

After I gave Mary my potted history of the Palais Chaillot while a chanteur de jazz yelled, "JE T'AIME!" in my ear rather alarmingly, we viewed the Eiffel Tower from every conceivable angle, and I must admit it was a lot of fun to have a contained group of people suddenly realising how mind-bogglingly huge it seems from below.

We got off at the Opera Garnier to ogle my favourite building and to recharge before taking the 68 bus (my old friend) down to Denfert Rochereau.

Look what we found in a shop there:

Yep, that says Jura.

Pausing for a drink and an excuse to use the loo, we ended up at the same cafe at which Tina and I enjoyed a pre-ballet meal last summer. Conjuring up a vague memory of prices having deterred me from Coke Lite, I ordered jus d'ananas, pineapple juice, with which I also remember having impressed the waiter last summer. He seemed to react, again, as if I were a great sommelier who had ordered an obscure yet excellent vintage from his own grandmother's vineyard. Unless his grandmother has a terrace in the Phillipines, the label of the juice bottle says this is not so. Even more strangely, when Mary asked me what I had ordered and both he and I replied, "Pineapple juice," something in his look congratulated me for my grasp of English. The waiters on rue Auber must have really low expectations.

After our €5 pineapple juice (seriously, you should see what they charge for a coffee), we explored the loo. I was excited that it was a proper Parisian cafe toilet with the phone cubicle, a la Charade. The light system in the loo was interesting - the bit that was glowing, almost inviting you to press it, turned out to be the flush. A few litres of water later, I found the switch lurking in darkness behind the door.

When we actually got on it, our bus terminated three stops down - another quintissential experience. There was, however, another just behind, so it was less of a frustrating experience than it might have been. I plonked Mary down in an appropriate seat and introduced her to my former commute - view of the opera, pyramid at the Louvre and Ile de la Cite included.

Denfert Rochereau is totally disorientating. This is my conclusion from first day. The key problem is that one swings around it for an ill-defined period of time, after which one screeches to a halt and is dumped along on side or another with an almost identical view of the misshapen islands within. Once we knew which way was north, we walked down rue Daguerre with the plan of picking up something to eat in the 8 a huit, but didn't even get that far before succumbing to the temptations of a traiteur asiatique and (in Mary's case) the supermarket full of wine across the street. We also stocked up on some delicious looking fruit.

Sore. Very sore, after the buses and their stairs. It was also much later than we thought.

Sleepy!

Nothing Ventured, No-one Pained...

Dragging oneself out of bed at 5am (ish) to set forth on a month-long study programme seems a self-punishing way to go about things. Really, one should have a limo pick one up at a decent hour and be conveyed to parts foreign on a cloud of candyfloss, but these things are so difficult to arrange at short notice. On three hours of sleep, I washed in running water (thus ensuring that I would be ritually pure come sunset) and Mary and I set off.

We parked some way from the terminal building to start with, a problem compounded by the need to walk the length of that building, out the other end and into terminal two. Naturally the gates were back in the other building. Glasgow Airport has grown since last I was there. Mary was concerned.

"Do you think the flight was so cheap because we're walking there?"

I had wanted to opt for priority boarding given my current mobility, but without the proper diagnoses and actually needing a wheelchair. it seemed petty. Nevertheless, I thought I might as well ask. I was given a brief lecture on how I "should have told them at the gate" in a not-very-helpful tone, but she still let us go through with the priority line, which was nice. I was a bit taken aback by the tone. However, I decided to be really nice and voice my appreciation, which made me feel pretty good which made me feel pretty shallow which made me feel like I should stop reflecting upon it. We agreed that it was worth asking, especially when we got to go straight to the back of the plane and ended up with three seats to ourselves.

We were just settling in and getting our bags into the overhead compartments when we heard the announcement,
"Good morning ladies and gentlement and welcome to this Easyjet flight to London Luton..."
I looked at Mary and said, "Luton?" I was a bit confused. "I hope that's a mistake."
"Ohh!" came a cry from behind me. "Paris! We're going to Paris!" [tannoy crackles back on] "Sorry, ladies and gentlemen; this is of course our flight to Paris Charles-de-Gaulle..."

Flight was fairly uneventful apart from a very nice member of the cabin crew stepping on my foot while I was dozing and discovering that the hand soap in the loo moonlighted as a moisturiser and an air freshener.

We had taken our time getting off the plane and after watching everyone else rush past in a flurry of "me-first", it was somewhat satisfying to find that everyone had been loaded on to a bus and was now waiting for us, when, naturally we would also be the first off the bus. First signs of the Parisian attitude in the tarmac director guy who waved off passengers dismissively as if they were ready to accost him at the first opportunity. Magic.

After a smooth taxi-run in, we arrived at our flat which, while the settee covers and bits of the kitchen could be cleaner, will do us quite nicely. After a few failed attempts to get the internet working, we discovered that all you need (apart from love) is a single successful attempt. Encouraged, we struck forth in search of food, both being quite hungry by that point. We staggered reasonably cheerfully down a main food and shopping street behind us before collapsing even more gratefully into an ambiguously Turkish establishment for a sandwich grec (me) and a panini. Best food ever. We admitted that we'd both had cold feet about the whole thing - the past few weeks being ever so stressful - but really felt we had to get on with it. Now that we're here we seem to have perked up with the excitement and the change of scenery!

Wandering the rue Daguerre:

Looks like there are quite a number of appealing places to eat around here, and a local 8 a huit (supermarket). Mary and the proprietor are already great friends, and we think he lived in Scotland for a year. Small world, Paris.

[pics to come]

Tour de France, Petit Palais (again), Bizarre Reminiscences and Notre Dame's Crypte Archeologique

This was the final day of the Tour de France. Predictably, we could not visit the Petit Palais the next day, so we fought our way out of the metro station onto the Champs Elysées to join in with the festivities briefly.

That last picture is of me waiting a few minutes for them to change the receipt roll so I could buy souvenir water bottles.

With the streets cordoned off, it was not clear how one got to the Petit Palais without a Tour ticket. I asked a policeman who directed us round the back on what could easily have turned out to be a wild goose chase. The place was swarming with police and associated vehicles.

I found a ribbon that appeared to be the last frontier between us and the museum, and after asking again a policewoman lifted the tape and let us through.

The benefit of going to all this trouble was that the museum was quiet and a pleasant visit ensued, even if it was awfully hard work getting tickets to the permanent collection and not to the special exhibition also!

I’ve already blogged the museum in-depth here, so it will suffice to confirm that we actually went by means of this photo.

He likes glass.

Heading across the Pont Alexandre III for the bus, we nearly fell victim to the common shiny-find scam, but resisted admirably. Said scammer looked awfully disappointed, especially as he had approached someone who was, bizarrely, able to cheerfully confirm that said shiny-find was gold. Perhaps if one genuinely found such a shiny-find one would not be so keen to hand it over for a couple of euros.

Moving on.

We hopped on a bus to Saint Michel where we had agreed to meet Meg and all headed over to the Greek place she and I had discovered with Kenny our first week. Thankfully, I had marked it on my map then, as even with that assistance it took us a while and we were nearly kidnapped by a dancing man in a sombrero en route.

It was as good as we remembered and provided fuel for Meg who proceeded to soliloquise about my apparently freakish good memory, before testing it with the very odd question, “What was it you said about naked men?” This is, undoubtedly, the most alarming thing she has ever come out with.

As we painstakingly reconstructed, it turned out that the exact phrase was, “Yeah, where are the naked men?” in helpful conclusion to Meg’s neo-feminist rant in the Musée d’Orsay about equality in post-1800 art. Of course, she got away with it while my single contribution was overheard by a shocked group of American ladies in matching hats, none of whom would see ninety again. You can’t take her anywhere. In my defence, I had just escaped death by revolving door.

Before we moved on, we popped round the corner into St Severin again, which was still pretty.

After lunch we visited the Crypt Archeologique under Parvis Notre Dame, which contains the excavated remains of the Île de la Cité’s hunchback-era community. This includes the house of Nicholas Flamel and the Foundling’s Hospital, where I got very irritated with the nuns who refused to look after babies until St Vincent-de-Paul baptised them.

The museum, which began with a look at the development of Paris through the ages, was interesting – indeed, Meg wasn’t wrong when she said it would have made a good early visit – but incredibly hot. We were all dripping by the time we left, and I mean that literally.

Being pretty sapped by all that, we parted from Meg and walked a bit further across the river, where we passed the Paris Plage, the beach on the quai made from trucked-in sand.

Then we passed the Hotel de Ville.

Back on the metro, I decided to take us by a scenic route. Or rather, the scenic route, as there aren’t many. We came above ground at Bastille, to see where the canal feeds into the Seine, then joined line 2 which goes above ground for a few stations in north eastern Paris. I wanted to see the Egyptian-tiled cinema at Barbes-Rouchouart again, so of course a train was passing us at the time. I’m honing a feeling of cosmic persecution as I feel it may serve me well, artistically.

Catacombs and Coffee shops

By the time Meg-of-the-cursed-rail-travel turned up at Denfert-Rochereau (as I write this she is in the sixth hour of a journey from Durham, yet to reach Berwick, without her planned travelling companion), Jo Ann had enjoyed a Chinese lunch and we were ready to tackle the catacombs.

We located the queue, only to be informed, by a very forceful man with no other apparent function, that the last entry was an hour hence and there was little chance of us making it to the entrance in time. It was not entirely clear whether he was going to prevent our trying, so while Jo Ann distracted him with pouts and French tales of sadness (Mais c’est mon dernier jour à Paris!), the three of us sneaked in, followed by a group of Australian girls who had been walking all day. The next forty minutes were consumed with constant estimates of the number admitted per minute, and attempts to divide by this the equally indeterminate number of persons in front of us. We realised we were going to make it and spent the final five minutes making fun of the man who tried to dissuade us. I never said we were nice people.

Our catacomb visit began with ninety-three steps down a very disorientating and unevenly treaded spiral staircase (we all know how I love those, and naturally they all sent me down in front). It was a long way, but once down there we had the opportunity to read boards in English (you don’t take this for granted after a month in Paris) so we knew that the bones came from most of the old Parisian cemeteries in the central arrondissements and included many influential and notable, if not famous, Parisians. See, there’s no shame in being used as decor… though, later, when I told my companions that when I died I had no objection to my skeleton contributing to a chandelier, there was some choking and spitting out of drinks. Can’t think why. These people are so sensitive.

A long and slippery walk brought us to these carvings, made in near total darkness, from memory – the story was only slightly spoiled by the ending, where the unsung artist got killed in a cave-in. And may I say to the curators, when you have hundreds of tourists underground and would like to avoid panic, it is best to avoid phrases like “cave-in”.

We split into the sensitive and less-sensitive pairs; no one will be surprised to hear that Jo Ann and I were the ones who were third and fourth last out, having spent extra time bonding with the dead and exclaiming, “Cool!” when they made new patterns with femurs. Here’s an atypically well-lit corner.

There’s not a lot you can say about the catacombs, other than to note that for those with arthritis of any kind, it’s the kind of thing you want to do on a good day. There were eighty steps up, less than the down staircase, but as it was about a metre in radius, there were only two people behind us and one of them was jangling the keys and calling encouraging things like, “Don’t go too quickly!” while speeding up, it was a bit of a slog. However, the metro had done us good and we displayed a commendable recovery time, after which we decided that a coffee shop was better than taking on the rush hour.

Shortly staggering onto a boulevard, the task of choosing a coffee shop was hampered by Jo Ann’s unsuccessful attempt to buy churros from a stand where the proprietor was inexplicably but completely determined only to sell them in sixes. Her attempts to bargain he seemed to find hilarious, and suggested that maybe we all wanted to share. As Jo Ann turned to the rest of us hopefully, we noticed that the light was a convenient green and crossed the road in haste.

Jo Ann and Meg disappeared, briefly, in opposite directions seeking shoes and/or baby clothes, leaving the Burts in charge of the coffee shop choice. We had a traditional French café on one side and Starbucks on the other. Starbucks?, we thought. Pah - clearly we must select the French option. Five minutes later, put off by the price of an orange juice and the outdoor seating (outdoor, since the smoking ban, means squinting to discern your interlocutor through a nicotine haze), we marched collectively through the doors of Starbucks. As is my wont, I handled the transaction beautifully and fluently while ordering completely the wrong thing. But as “the wrong thing” was, in this case, a mango tea frappucino, it was a happy accident, as most of mine are (barring the car crash and the shoulder dislocation). Jo Ann ordered the same, but was very clear that she wanted it blended twice to rid the drink of nasty ice particles. Our inquiries were well-rewarded, as we were treated to an extremely entertaining and (after two hours with corpses) funny monologue about ice and Starbucks prices and the entitlement to good service. Here’s Jo Ann sipping critically to assess the quality of the blend.

The disadvantage of dragging parents round Paris with you is their availability to friends who relish such an opportunity for parental quizzing. Accordingly, the rest of our time at Starbucks was spent reliving my childhood activism to a decreasingly incredulous Meg, after she expressed doubt that I had always had such a defined sense of autonomy and political accountability.

The bus journey back to the 17^th included an unscheduled stop at the Seine, where we were all kicked off the bus so the driver could go home (it happens). We took the opportunity to wander over the river on the Pont Royal.

While we were taking pictures, we missed the next bus, and naively returned to await the next one. Let me tell you, this is a view we had for some time, as we peered at the number of every passing bus.

Some hours later, we stopped again to change buses on Avenue de l’Opéra, and this picture was taken, which is suitably representative of the street and made me realise that I hadn’t taken any pictures of the scene of my most frequent bus changes.

When we got back to Guy Môquet, we staggered into my local Chinese restaurant, having abandoned more ambitious plans in the sweaty 81 bus. It seemed sensible.

Commuter rage and Montmartre (again again)

What you have to understand is that I put a lot of thought into it. I wanted to buy my visiting parent a weekly carte orange, at €16.80, but after asking whether they had a start date my friendly local metro ticket dealer informed me that there was no point in buying him a weekly card as the only ones now on sale were for the next calendar week, beginning the day of his departure. Thinking that the daily card would not be worth it in the short term, as we would need two tickets on the evening of his arrival, I went ahead and bought a carnet – ten single tickets – thinking that we’d probably get a one-day pass for the Monday, which would bring the price to a reasonable total. The process wasn’t stressful, exactly, but it did involve the man in the window (in the metro station, not in my mind) switching to English as soon as he caught an accent. This would not have been a problem except that the metro staff can have this weary, eye-rolling way of doing that which grates, especially when you’re not asking them to suffer the indignity of the English language for you. I happen to speak decent French, thank you very much, I thought, and I know very well how to conduct this conversation in your language. Um, vive la France, bye.

In retrospect, it seems vainly principled, but we continued the conversation, him in English, me in French, until we had debated all the possible options and I had completed my purchase. We will return to this theme of my patience with other human beings shortly.

On Friday evening, I had set forth to Porte Maillot, to retrieve Dodo, and had to endure en route the events described here. This was bad enough. Then, as I approached Porte Maillot, my iPod ran out of battery power. Oh well, I thought, I won’t need it on the way back. Just at that moment I got the following text message.

“Forgot to collect bag. On bus back to airport. Go home.”

This didn’t do much for my mood, and nether did the three hundred steps at the Porte Maillot RER station on my way to the metro.

On Saturday morning, once reunited and well-slept, I had decided we would ride the Montmartrobus and do a wee tour of the Butte before meeting Meg and Jo Ann at the catacombs in Montparnasse. Small problem. Every time you get on a bus you need a new ticket. So I decided that Saturday, not Monday, would be an awfully good day to get the day ticket. Bigger problem. They don’t sell them in the automated machines and the window was unmanned. Ah.

Problem solver that I am, I decreed that we would use one ticket, go along to Jules Joffrin metro where the Montmartrobus begins, and try that station. In due course, we got a day ticket and boarded the Montmartrobus. That was easy. It was the getting off that was the problem, and led to my little temper problem. A man was standing in the narrowest part of the bus, right in front of the doors at the centre, with a buggy. This buggy was wedged in between the two pillars. When I said, “Excuse me,” I thought he might at least move. But no, he stood right there unflinching and waited for me to climb over. Which I did, but we missed the stop. That was bad enough, but what I wasn’t quite expecting was the cool wave of rage that washed over me as I stood, fuming, in front of the doors. When we got off at the next stop, I allowed myself a little tantrum with foot stamping before we continued sightseeing. Four weeks before I had rolled my eyes at those Parisian commuters whose expressions betrayed disgruntlement and disapproval at anyone who got in their way, and here I was – one of them. I allowed myself a moment of horrified introspection before deciding that paintings were really far more interesting.

I remembered that I hadn’t taken a picture of the water tower before, which, along with Sacre Coeur, is a major landmark in Paris.

We explored the upper part of Montmartre, hanging out around Sacre Coeur (where, once again, I encountered the busker in a cowboy hat who seemed to sing nothing but bouncified James Blunt covers), appreciating the portrait artists who actually take no for an answer when you reject them cruelly, and browsing the paintings in Place des Tertres. The best part, again, was St Pierre, with its fascinating stained glass, and this time I took some pictures.

There was a genuinely artistic modern crucifixion scene.

And this is my favourite – there are scenes from the life of Peter all round the sanctuary, and this is his walking on water.

Descending in the less-than-thrilling funicular, we passed some friendship bracelet sellers who seemed convinced that what I wanted was one of their creations (they were quite lucky, given my recent experiences, that they didn’t get my nails dug into them when they tried to grab my wrist) and inched forward, much distracted by shop windows, to Abbesses once more, where we revisited St Jean, my favourite church in Paris.

We also got lunch at the bakery with the meringues, and treated ourselves to a big strawberry one which actually lasted more than three days. We ate under a tree in Abbesses and watched as no less than four young couples stood around the metro station, DK guides open to the map pages, in a weird sort of frozen performance art. None of them realised the other three were doing exactly the same thing or looked exactly the same, which amused me no end.

Heading down via the dreaded Montparnasse station to Denfert-Rochereau, we rendezvous-ed avec Jo Ann in the big lion-adorned square (loved the lion).

Galeries Lafayette

With me both sore after Versailles and busier with class, I was glad of another easy day. Jo Ann had left word with Tina that I was expected at the Chanel counter of Galeries Lafayette, shopping for to do. Galeries Lafayette is the most iconic of the three (with Printemps and Samaritaine) famous department stores in Paris, and Jo Ann had been the sole interested party as I kept bringing it up on the list.

At 2, Tina and I arrived and quickly located Chanel. Thirty minutes later, we managed to meet up – naturally Chanel has two perfume counters in the Galeries. Why we didn’t think of that I don’t know. We proceeded to shop for clothes for Jo Ann, and if that doesn’t sound like fun to you then you don’t know shopping. Our conversation was dominated, yes, by complaints about the temperature in shops and how we would propose to fix the problem, but then that’s the kind of people we are. And there was some discussion of the lift, how to get in it, how to summon it (pressing the button helps, we found, after ten minutes) and how to survive a breakneck basement lift plunge. I had scientific data on hand.

The highlight was the beautiful Art Nouveau inspired interior. And yes, that, and not the shopping, was what put it firmly at the top of my list. At least I’m consistent.