Tales of the Cite
Sarkozy makes an “honest woman”
of Carla Bruni on Saturday 2nd Feb
(I don’t know if they waited until I could make it across)
“Ohh!Ohh! and then I saw the Eiffel Tower and screamed out loud, and then I saw the Seine and shrieked like a little girl, and then I turned to the left and there was the Champs Elysees! And Notre Dame! I cried with joy when I saw the Louvre! And then…” and so on.
You can go to Paris and do that yourself. And I defy you not to react like I did, for it is the most wonderful, jam packed, beautiful city. All you need to know is that I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED Paris. I had a grin permanently plastered on my face all weekend and will go back at the earliest opportunity.
Instead, I want to tell you some of the things I promised in my last post.
J’ suck at le Francais
I was a real languagey person at school, but I did German and Spanish instead of French, just to be difficult. As a result my French is based on stuff gleaned from French movies, the songs of Serge Gainsbourg and the obvious “get-you-by” stuff. I hate not being able to have a stab at getting through the day in the native language. It fills me with horror that I am tarred with the same brush as British people who steadfastly refuse to grant their hosts the courtesy of giving their language a go.So I did try. I managed to order a couple of things, got my Metro 3 day pass with no problems (I promptly got on the wrong train, but let’s gloss over that) and was able to meet and greet in the most perfunctory but sing-song of ways. I wished
I could have been better at it.I can only apologise to France as a whole, right here, for the way I desecrated their mother tongue. But be assured of this Frenchies, I resolve to learn more and return with an accent that would make Charles De Gaulle himself proud.
I love my friends
Not the sort of romantic love you associate with the City of Light, but I do; I love them. The whole Paris trip was an attempt to meet up to celebrate 21 years of friendship.
Despite the fact that the three of us haven’t been together for ten years as a complete party of three, and we all live in different countries, we never had one awkward silence, one cross word or one second when we weren’t having a big old whopper of a time.
Every hour or so one of us would exclaim, ” I can’t believe we managed to get this together”. And in Paris too. It just doesn’t get any better than that. We have resolved to do it on a regular basis.
The patented and inevitable Misssy travel nightmare story
What follows is a catalog of errors involving my trip home which I will outline in verse:Oh Misssy M, why didn’t you,
Remember into which terminal you flew?
And why didn’t you get on the airport bus,
Instead of having one last girlie fuss?
And why didn’t you find out in advance,
That your check in desk was on the other side of France,
To the one that you were on, when the bus driver let you go,
Requiring you to run the length of Charles De Gaulle like Flo-Jo?
Next installment: I try to leave Paris and my etiquette is questioned
