MadamElla

This was my first French wedding, and I was interested to observe some of the differences to other weddings I’ve been to (not that many, actually). As you may know, all French weddings are secular, in accordance with the strict separation of Church and State (you’d think this would be enough to stop people protesting against gay marriage, but sadly no). You are free to have a religious ceremony if you like, but that won’t be recognized by the State. If you want to be legally married, you have to do it at the town hall with an official.

In this case, the official was the groom’s father, so obviously the ceremony was a bit different than your run-of-the-mill affair. But after the touching and funny speech, it was time for the legal elements. Unlike any Anglo wedding I’ve been to, the French ceremony includes a reading of the legal texts defining marriage and the spouses’ responsibilities. There was a lot of emphasis on Republican values – as in the values of secularism, liberté, égalité and fraternité of the French Republic, not as in promising to honour God and guns. A lot about having and bringing up children as well, although I suspect at least some of that was snuck in by the potential future grandpapa. The reading out of the full names, occupations and addresses of the spouses and witnesses was also more legalistic than I’m used to – although this provided some more comedy as Aurélien’s poor sister (who did a stellar job of providing the English translation of the speech, I must point out) had to struggle through some unfamiliar American street names. 

Legalities done (although not quite, since as I only discovered on Ella’s blog, the bride and groom were held up inside due to a paperwork snafu), it was back to the reception on foot in the rain. (I never actually made it into my heels until we got back to the garden party, thankfully enough as it turned out, since the little town hall was crammed with well-wishers and I had to stand for the marriage ceremony. Then I promptly sunk into the wet grass, but bravely kept my heels on for the vast majority of the evening nonetheless.) 

I was having too much fun catching up with the Lancelots and Mary Kay and family under a tree (for reasons of rainyness) to even notice that apparently beverages were not being consumed, but once I found the cocktail and snack tent, I didn’t stray too far from the yummy themed cocktails while chatting to blogfriends and many of Ella’s lovely friends from America and Aurélien’s French (and non-French) mates. (Surprisingly, my favourite was a cosmopolitan – I would have gone with the mojito if you’d told me I could only have one.)

Enjoying a cosmo with some of Ella's friends

This got me into a bit of trouble, however. As the afternoon wore on and the cocktails kept rolling, we were having a lovely discussion about poetry and other literary matters with a couple of Ella’s friends (genuine poets!) and a few of Aurélien’s friends. At some point, it was remarked upon that the punch bowls were getting a bit empty and we set ourselves the challenge of finishing the cocktails before moving on. Now, I did realize that things had emptied out a bit in the garden, but if there was a formal announcement that dinner was served, we missed it and, well, you just don’t issue a drinking challenge to a Kiwi chick. In my much younger days, I was known for such party tricks as “opening my throat” and pouring a specified amount of booze down in one. I once bested a 6-foot-something man built like a brick sh!thouse at a challenge which involved drinking half a bottle of peach schnapps (ugh) each in the shortest amount of time possible. Then I probably demonstrated how I can fit my whole fist (well, up to the knuckles) in my mouth. Because that’s how classy Gwan rolls. Or rolled, I don’t tend to engage in competitive drinking anymore, but you can probably still persuade me to put my fist in my mouth after a few beverages, if no-one has a camera handy.

Some of the cocktails in question

Long story short (actually, the above was more a case of making a short story long, and unnecessarily filled with embarrassing drinking stories from my youth), before too long the handful of others had also drifted away and only myself and one of Aurélien’s friends were left finishing up our cocktails in the tent.

I only realized that quite a bit of time had passed when I got a call from Ella’s phone asking where I was. I should have figured something was up when my jokey reply to "Where were you?" (I answered, "We were in the bushes", obvs) was met with an excited squeal and a "Who's 'we'?!?". But I really wasn’t expecting to walk into the dining tent a) to find that everyone was not only seated, but had *finished the first course* and b) to a round of applause from the assembled guests. Hugely awkward, especially since I didn’t even know where I was sitting so couldn’t flee to my seat as quickly as I’d have liked! The rest of the evening, I had people coming up and saying (hopefully at least half-jokingly) that they’d heard I’d been “otherwise engaged” in the bushes while they were tucking into their entrées. Cringe! The end result was that the young gentleman and myself kept well away from each other and any suspicious bushes for the rest of the evening…

This post is getting long already, so I’ll just say that the rest of the evening was fab. I’ve never seen a bride and groom actually boogie on down in their first dance instead of doing a sedate shuffle, and I did plenty of my own moving and shaking as well. (Seriously, I dread to think of the millions of photos probably floating around of me with what was uber-fluffy hair and probably more cleavage than anyone was comfortable with.) As well as being my first French wedding, this was also my first New York wedding, so I even got to participate in a Jewish chair dance (sorry, I’m sure there’s a proper name for that). I was right next to the bride and groom when the call went out, so ended up being the only girl to take a leg of the chair. Turns out that holding up a chair with a fully-grown man (even a slim one) is hard, so I drafted in a replacement man about halfway through and joined the circle of dancers instead.

It really was a fun evening, and I loved getting to chat with some awesome people (including meeting the lovely Grenobloise for the first time). All in all, it was a great party and félicitations to the happy couple! 

Balloons of good fortune (or something). Grenobloise and I were a tad concerned these might end up setting one of the tents on fire

Ella didn't specify, but I suspect this shot of yours truly is courtesy of Camille Collin

Does the hovering wizard claw of death shooting out of my chest remind you more of the Holy Spirit in Piero della Francesca's Baptism of Christ, or one of the chicken feet from Baba Yaga's hut? Discuss...

Either way, don't worry, I can tell from this photo I'm not trying to put a curse on anyone, this is a classic Gwan "here I am being funny" expression/gesture captured from the ages. The wizard claw is merely shooting out (attempted) witty rays. PS, talking of "witticisms", I have been dying to use this post title and secretly hoping the bride wouldn't get there first (selfishly!) It's not even that great!

Get her to the mairie on time!

For those who want to enjoy a meta-experience, you can read Ella’s version of these events here.

Unsurprisingly, for me the morning of Ella’s wedding began much more calmly than for the bride. I woke up reasonably early – in the bride’s bed, which was a first for me! – with plenty of time to wash my hair, grab breakfast from a local bakery and do my hair and makeup before chilling out and waiting for the rest of the guests who were also making their way out of town on the RER. When the rest of the girls arrived, they brought a wave of stressed energy and lively chatter with them which was slightly overwhelming at first, but with the addition of bubbly and the realization that *they* weren’t going to be holding up proceedings since the bride was running late, I soon got to know them and felt we clicked very well. Of course, Ella has great taste in friends!

A series of slightly frantic phone calls, asking for overnight bags to be packed and bubbly to be cracked alerted us that all wasn’t going quite so smoothly on Team Ella over at the hair salon. Deep breaths, a glass of champagne (although no Xanax) and a reminder that nothing starts without the bride were needed when Ella finally made it in the door, late and more than a little frazzled.

When Ella had first told me she planned on taking the RER to her wedding, dressed in her wedding dress and sipping champagne en route, I had imagined us commandeering an entire section of the train, clinking glasses while posing for photos and laughing at the stares of French people all agog to see a bride on the train. (Generally, the French will stare if you speak English on the RER, or wear a bright colour or go outside in 13° weather without a coat, so that part at least wasn’t much of a stretch.)

It was an Interesting Trip, but not a Very Bad Trip. (Photo stolen back from Ella's blog)

The reality wasn’t quite like that. I’d like to say that things went off like a military operation, but the main thing our journey had in common with one was the amount of running and shouting that went on. We were women on a mission, with no time for hesitation or stragglers. Problems with the ticket barriers were dealt with with ruthless efficiency; we were assigned buddies to make sure everyone made it on and off the various metro and RER trains, and instructions for each step of the journey were barked out in advance: “We are getting off at the next stop, turn left, right along the platform, up the stairs. GO GO GO!”

Schnell!

Piling on to the RER, our last connection, was an opportunity for a breather, or so you’d have thought. Visions of the nine of us sitting companionably beside each other splitting a bottle of bubbly were thwarted by the lack of free seats in the carriage, and specifically an aggressive man and his jungle of plants. Allow me to set the scene – there are bench seats on either side of the aisle, enough to fit three or maybe four people at a pinch on each bench. Multiply that by four (two facing each other on each side), and you have seating for 12-16 people. Ample, one would say. Except that there was one couple on one side of the aisle who, instead of putting all their fricking plants right next to them, put them all on the floor across the aisle, hence taking up space for said 12-16 people between the two of them.

 Now allegedly the guy did offer to move the plants before we got there, and allegedly (or, um, actually) Ella and I might have steamed in a bit later and expressed our displeasure with the situation in a vocal fashion, but that still doesn’t change the facts that 1) your plants shouldn’t have been all up in everyone else’s business to begin with and 2) you don’t shout at a stressed bride, dude. Still, Ella and I held our own (most of the art of French arguments can be reduced to “make a lot of random noises” – “eh oh, pfft, bah non, quoi”) although we continued to get evil looks from his direction for the rest of the train ride, not improved by the fact that we were all swigging straight from a bottle of wine. I think it’s safe to say, though, that the rest of the train were on our side, despite the Rowdy Anglo Factor being particularly high on this occasion.

The way I look like I'm popping out of Ella's suitcase amuses me

It wasn’t the way I pictured it, it wasn’t how Ella had pictured it either, but it was the most memorable wedding dash I’ve been involved in, and I was proud to be a part of it!

Fabulous Fontainebleau

I’m blogging Fontainebleau first in order to leave the blushing bride time to blog about her own wedding first (she said it was fine to steam ahead, but no bother).

So the morning after the big day, I woke up in the “prostitute hotel” (apparently a favourite with local hookers due to the fact that you can get a triple room for 30€) feeling a bit out of shape but not too terrible. I actually slept quite well, no prostitutes within earshot, although perhaps not as long as I would have liked. I had accidentally booked two rooms – although, name and shame here, what actually happened was that the Formule 1 site froze in the middle of my transaction, I refreshed, waited a while to make sure that I didn’t get a confirmation of the booking, then booked again. I got a confirmation email HALF AN HOUR LATER to say that I had, in fact, booked two rooms. Then they wouldn’t refund my money even though it was clearly a mistake. Seriously, I’ve never been double-charged in all my years of buying stuff online, and the one time it’s with bastards with a no refund policy. Anyway, it had a happy ending since Ella kindly put me in touch with some fellow guests who were looking for a hotel room, and they bought it off me. Anyway, this meant that I had decided to leave the wedding the night before at about 2.30 am, since they were getting a ride back to the hotel (about a kilometer out of town) and I was pretty tired after a long day of wedding fun.

I had planned to take a trip to the nearby château of Fontainebleau, hangover permitting, since I was in the area. Deciding I didn’t feel too seedy, I got ready in a fairly leisurely manner and calculated that it would probably be okay to knock on the door of my fellow guests at about 10.30 and see where they were at in the getting-ready process. Turns out the answer was “still in bed in their underwear” but they actually got ready super quick and we set out together towards town on foot, suitcase in tow, having failed to reach either the groom, the groom’s father or the local taxi for a ride. Hungry and thirsty (especially thirsty, in my case) we were eventually rescued by Aurélien, the groom, going above and beyond on the morning after his wedding. I was dropped off at the RER station just in time for the next train (and they even came back to deliver my suitcase, which I'd managed to leave in the boot in my hungover state) and from there it was just a quick trip to Fontainebleau.

I hadn't really done much forward planning on this front, and mistakenly believed that the train station was right by the chateau. Turns out it's nearly 3 kilometres away, well-signposted for the most part, but with a significant portion running through a large park. Despite my hangover, I tried to view it as a fun Sunday outing, rather than as a neverending forced march through trackless woods, but I wasn't 100% successful...

After a sandwich and a Coke at the château (I normally can't abide Coke, but the situation called for a bit of a caffeine injection), I was feeling slightly better, although my first impressions of the château were not great. The tour started off with a series of poky little guardrooms, which didn't particularly impress me. However, as soon as I got into the first of the royal state rooms, the bedroom of Anne of Austria, I shook off my hangover in order to marvel at the amazingly sumptious furnishings and, especially, the lavish wall and ceiling decorations. Whatever you picture when you think of magnificence, Fontainebleau is it.

It was a shame I didn't have the time to go on any guided tours to the parts of the château that aren't open for independent visits, and even more of a shame that the guy who sold me my ticket didn't tell me that the audioguide was free, so I missed out on all the historical detail, but it was still definitely worth the trip, much better than lying in bed in the prostitute hotel feeling sorry for myself. And it didn't rain, unlike in Paris where it was absolutely bucketing down while I waited for my train! I arrived back home tired but happy after a great weekend, and collapsed into bed at about 9 pm, feeling very grateful that the next day was a holiday as well.

Going through my photos, it seemed about half didn't come out due to lighting or other issues, but that may be a good thing since I still ended up with a ton...

The ballroom

The chapel

In the Chinese museum

Ceiling in the throne room

There was an exhibition on the influence of Fontainebleau's art and design - here you can see some of the notable features, chiefly the huge "frames" for paintings and the decorative use of nude figures

Not the most lavishly-furnished room in Fontainebleau, but that little table is supposedly where Napoleon signed his abdication papers

Napoleon's "camp bed"

Napoleon's throne room

More of the signature Fontainebleau style

Meeting Ella

I last left you on tenterhooks (sorry about that) at the Gare du Nord, saying goodbye to my family before dashing across town to meet up with the fabulous Ella of Tales from the Chambre de Bonne. But if you will, I'll take you a bit further back in time to the night before.

After many attempts to arrange a meeting - I'm not in Paris that often (although it seems like I've been a million times this year) and Ella has been living a jet-set international lifestyle lately - the big day was almost upon us! We had emailed back a number of times, but everything was still pretty vague, since I hadn't really nailed things down with what time the family were setting off. After dashing off a quick email, my phone started ringing. Who could that be, after 10 pm at night? For some reason, it didn't occur to me that it was Ella, and after the eternal inward debate when an unknown French number lights up my screen, I opted to answer with a creaky "Allo?", sounding as though I'd just woken up (my friend Liz asks me that every time she calls, I think my voice just goes into rusty gate mode if I haven't used it within the last half an hour). It was Ella! And I'd answered the phone sounding like the French version of the Squeaky-Voiced Teen.

"Omg, Gwan," I thought to myself, "Way to mess it up with the cool chick. She's not going to wanna be your friend now." I was as nervous as though we were going on an actual date instead of a blogdate. Luckily my testicles are not actually in the process of descending (got that out of the way years ago), so I managed to make it through the rest of the conversation without any awkward voice-breaks, and our plans were made for the following day.

I managed, for once, to navigate my way to our meeting place without getting lost (I actually can do the metro system okay) and came up the steps into a light rain 15 minutes early. Peering out of my underpowered eyes, I spotted someone who looked a lot like Ella, but I headed towards her at an oblique angle, just in case at the last minute I had to veer off course upon discovering that once again my eyes had deceived me and instead of a petite Italian-American woman, it actually turned out to be a large black man (I'm seriously blind and bad at recognising people, I wouldn't put it past me). No such avoiding action was necessarily, because it was indeed Ella herself, and I'm happy to say that that was the last awkward moment of the evening!

We set out for a mini inside tour of Ella's Paris. I was excited to pass close to her apartment, to see the famous Franprix O' Embarrassment and Yard, the cute site of Ella and Seb's upcoming PACS dinner, before starting our evening off tête-à-tête in a quiet bar with 4.50€ happy hour cocktails.

Doing an Ella, i.e. covering our faces. This was made possible by Ella ripping my map in two, cheers love! ;) The famous Franprix can be glimpsed behind us!

There was much behind-the-scenes blogssip to discuss, such as Ella's unconventional Paris life Before The Blog, the Worst Date Ever, Bad Flatmates, and Famous Jerks Ella Worked For. I think the most famous people I've met are Shortland Street actors (yes, who?), so I was all agog at Ella's glamorous tales of life in New York, LA, and the Paris fashion scene. Ella's just lucky I didn't try to compete with my fabulous stories about recycling bins!

After a little bit of Dutch courage (which I just found out Americans call "liquid courage"), Ella led me into the lion's den of Au Bon Accueil, a "dive bar" filled with a motley (but, it turns out, friendly) crew of genuine, un-chic, salt-of-the-earth Parisians, "interesting" decor and, most importantly, 2.50€ glasses of wine. Ella describes, and photographs, the ambience much better than I could, so if you haven't read it already, I refer you to her account of the evening.

I'll just add that I had a great evening, the conversation flowed as easily as the wine, oh and Ella has a secret thing for little ratty men! (I've seen photos of Seb, fear not ladies, he's hot, but it seems her taste falls off quite a sharp cliff thereafter.)

Foxy ladies and foxy toilet decorations. I loved this cute little fox cuddling a chicken. I hope he has honest intentions

A drunkard? And why not? I've known a hundred times worse... Come drink with me. We'll bore ourselves later. I just had to get a photo with this neat summation of my life's philosophy.

A nice drunk man kindly took a photo of me, Ella, and our lobster pal

I was sorry to leave, but managed to make it all the way across town to the Gare d'Austerlitz and on to the last train back to Tours safe and sound & with 10 minutes to spare. Thanks for a great night out and being even more fabulous, funny, and full of witty anecdotes in person than you are on your blog, Ella! You're welcome any time to party with me in Tours, otherwise I'll definitely be beating a path to the next quirky bar of your choice the next time I'm in gay Paree!

En famille à Paris

Apologies, I've been quite a bit quieter on the blogging front this month than last. Mostly because a lot of what I've been up to lately hasn't involved having to change out of my PJs - after staying in my PJs all day on Tuesday, I hurriedly got dressed while watching the TV & only realised when I was outside that I had my dress on inside-out, oops! Luckily I was only going around the corner to help a friend practice for an oral presentation in English (and boy, does she need the help!). Partly because I went out a few too many times last week (Wednesday, Thursday, all day Friday in Paris and an all-nighter on Saturday, oops), which left me with a bit of a cold this week.

Tonight I'm supposed to be going to a pub to celebrate Guinness Day, which is totally made up & I don't like Guinness, but whatever. The main problem is, it being the end of the month, I'm as poor as a whole church full of mice (why are churchmice so poor anyway? Body of Christ not filling enough for 'em?). I have a cunning solution for this on Saturday though: Step 1: lure people around to my place with the promise of homemade hummus and carrot sticks (who could resist?), Step 2: ???, Step 3: profit! (by drinking the wine they bring me, muhaha). ((PS Not really, I'll let them have some of my wine too, I'm not evil.)

Anyway, one super fandaddydocious thing that I have done lately is a daytrip to Paris! My Uncle Jack-John-Jackie-John-Jack (so called by me because we have entirely too many Johns in our family and because everybody seems to call him a different variant of "John"), his daughter Jacqueline (my cousin, although I call her Auntie because she's old enough to be my mother - in fact her kids are older than me) and HER daughter Vanessa (first cousin once removed) are doing a bit of a tour of Europe right now & it was their last day in Paris. Ness lives in London, but I hadn't seen the other two since I left NZ three years ago, so it was a great opportunity to catch up.

Typically, since I suck at all things Paris, I got lost on the way from the metro to their hotel, literally just around the corner in Saint-Germain, but I went the total wrong way. Still, at this time it was beautiful and sunny, and I got lost next to a lovely church (Saint Sulpice). In fact, I think I've never even been in the Saint-Germain neighbourhood before (you may recall that I tried to find the St G-d-P church the last time I was in Paris, without success). I must say, Paris is starting to grow on me a little bit, as I realise how many things there still are to see and do, despite the fact that I must have been there a dozen times (short trips).

Saint-Sulpice

Fountain in front of Saint-Sulpice

Once I found their hotel (very classy, and great location), we decided to take a metro to Clemenceau-Champs-Elysées and then walk up to the Arc de Triomphe. By the way, Ness had awesome Paris navigational abilities, while I bumbled about saying silly things like we were going the wrong way when she wanted to get on the RER to go there (she was right, but I have an instinctive/stupid horror of the RER and would never voluntarily get on one other than to go somewhere like the airport. This one was actually quite nice though) and having no clue where we were when we came out of the metro station, and then almost getting hit by a car while asking a cop where to go. It's always a bit embarrassing, because people seem to expect that Paris=France and I will have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the best hotels/restaurants/itineraries etc., whereas I am in fact a Complete Womble.

I have seen the Arc de Triomphe before, years ago, but it was nice checking it out in the company of Uncle J, because he particularly wanted to see it as he remembered watching footage of German troops on the Champs-Elysées and Hitler visiting the Arc when he was a kid (Uncle J, not Hitler). It's always kind of mindblowing to remember that there are still people around with a connection to these historical events. I asked him what the war had been like for him in Liverpool - I didn't realise that there was a lot of bombing up there, I tend to just think of the Blitz in the south - but he told me that, while he lived a bit out of the city and so wasn't really affected (other than hearing the raids and going into bomb shelters etc.), he had an aunt living in the city, and he'd cycle in after every air raid to make sure she was still alive.

Awesome photo - you can neither see us properly nor tell we're at the Arc de Triomphe!

As you can see, the brilliant sunshine gave way to cloud while we were at the Arc, and it started raining as we headed back down the Champs-Elysées, so we decided to head into a brasserie for lunch. I normally wouldn't eat somewhere like the C-E, due to a general suspicion that places on notorious tourist spots like that tend to charge a lot and not try very hard, but in fact the food was quite nice. More importantly, we had a leisurely lunch (and half a bottle of rosé each for me and Ness) and just got to chill out, chat and people-watch for a couple of hours.

And I had frog's legs! For the third time in my life, so not a great novelty, but they are yummy.

After that, the rain had stopped, so we took the metro to the Louvre, got out, and walked back to the hotel, where they checked out & we took a taxi to Gare du Nord for their train.

Another not-very-good photo, but here we are at the Louvre

Me and Ness saying goodbye at Gard du Nord. Standing next to an ex-model, current personal trainer does nothing for a girl, I tells ya!

And after that, I headed for a much-anticipated meeting with one of my favourite blogging ladies (stay tuned, that's on the next exciting episode of Where in the World is Gwannel Sandiego)!

Discovering Paris in the Marais

Saturday evening

Ah, so nice to be home! Of course, I only have a couple of days till I'm off again, but I mean to spend them hanging around doing nothing. My back was a bit better today, but I walked around a lot and my feet are pretty sore.


Last night I left a ton of time to get into the centre of Amsterdam, before having to take a bus out to a different suburb than my hostel, and then, typically, faffed about at the central station and then realised I didn't know where the bus actually left from, resulting in a bit of a panic. It all worked out fine though, unlike for the one poor young gentleman who left his bag on the tram and eventually set off for Paris without it.

My heart sank when a group of about half a dozen noisy young cock-of-the-walk French teenagers turned up, loudly announcing their intention to smoke a joint before the bus set off, singing songs, saying stupid incomprehensible things in English to be cool, etc. I decided the only way forward was to fight fire with fire, so I countered their boisterous teenager routine with my own sulky teenage routine, full of sighs and eye rolls and angry looks. I felt a bit silly when the bus got going and they all turned out to be as quiet as little lambs. I really shouldn't be pointing any fingers when it comes to maturity levels.

In fact, the return trip turned out to be much better. I had stupidly picked the seat directly behind the driver (I think from memory there were few options available when I booked) and I realised at once that that would be no good, with constant headlights and so on coming through the windshield. Luckily enough, once again some people didn't turn up and as soon as the bus started off I raced down the aisle quick as a flash to claim the only other unoccupied row. I didn't feel like I slept more than the outgoing journey, but I must have since I arrived in Paris feeling relatively fresh (and I'm still up at 10.20 pm, not having slept yet).

We got to Paris at 6.30 am or so, and I decided to walk over to Austerlitz with my suitcase. Stupidly, I went the wrong way and had to come all the way back, and it ended up taking over an hour, by which time I was very sick of my suitcase. I left it in the lockers at Austerlitz and, following Mary Kay's suggestion from Tuesday, headed to the Marais to explore a little bit.

I think I've somehow managed to avoid ever setting foot in the Marais before Tuesday, and it was nice to wander around its narrow streets before the many tourists got there. Seems like a pretty cool neighbourhood, but those tourists would drive me mad! I caught a little of the early sun before going to the Musée Carnavalet, which covers the history of Paris. At first, I wasn't overly impressed by the museum. I'll admit that I didn't bother reading most of the labels on the pictures (which were generally very brief anyway), but it didn't really do a good job of teaching you about the history at all. Rather, it just presented paintings and objets d'art from each historical period with very little context. There's only so many paintings of dead guys in wigs I can look at without getting bored.

However, as the museum went on, I found there were some cool things, particularly the reproductions of period rooms. I always love seeing these and imagining I'm a fancy 17th century lady or whatever. There was also a gorgeous pharmacy designed by Mucha (and I gave myself many bonus points for thinking "that looks like Mucha" before reading the label. I wish someone else had been there to witness me being smart) and a ballroom decorated with scenes from the story of the Queen of Sheba.

Gate to the Musée Carnavalet

Imagine having this dude in your house, you'd never be in a bad mood! I think it's an actor from the Comédie Française in the 19th century

Interesting stained-glass window from the Chat Noir caberet. At the left, a black cat attacks "virginity" (hidden meaning not so difficult to interpret), while in the middle a woman seems to be strangling a baby in front of a golden idol. 

The furniture from Marie-Antoinette's room in prison in the Temple. Looks pretty cushy!

Revolutionary-era families liked going to the guinguette too!

Some monkey business going on here

Exterior of the pharmacy designed by Mucha (unfortunately there was no space to take a better photo)

Interior of the pharmacy. I wish my pharmacy looked like this!

I thought this Revolution-era plate was cute, it looks like Saint-Exupéry's drawings for Le Petit Prince or something. The caption says "I announce (or foretell, herald) to you the happiness of France"

A painting of a rat ready for eatin' during the Siege of Paris in 1870-71

One of the pretty panelled rooms

This room was particularly lovely

They had a whole room full of pub and shop signs from Paris. I wish these still existed!

This was some sort of flag or banner. Bet someone was pissed when they realised they forgot the "r" in "liberté". Also: couragé ?

Dramatic ballroom of the Wendel hotel. Actually, I think it wasn't a hotel at all, but a hôtel particulier, i.e. fancy townhouse

For lunch, I thought I'd follow the people with felafel and try the "other" place across the street from the As de Fellafel where we ate on Tuesday. Unfortunately, the As de Fellafel was closed, so instead of feeling like a counter-cultural rebel laughing at the sheeple lined up on the other side of the street, I was lining up right there with them. And I've got to say, l'As de Fellafel was better. Better flavour, the spicy sauce was less overpowering, and at this other place I asked for no tomato and they put it in anyway. Plus they had two plastic chairs right outside which I thought must be for customers to use while eating their felafels, but instead a scary old crone came and shouted at me for sitting in her chair. Then I got up and she just moved it to the other side of the doorway with three other (empty) chairs, so I can only conclude that it was a honey trap designed to lure weary/unwary tourists in for a bit of a verbal spanking.

I then chilled out for a bit in the Place des Vosges (again at MK's suggestion - she really does know her way around the city), and may have even drifted off to sleep for a minute. I woke up with a start and an arm flail, and thus had to spend the next 10 minutes doing things like stretching, checking my watch and shaking my arms about in an attempt to look like I hadn't just been publicly sleep-twitching. Oh dear.

Ground-level view of a fountain in the Place des Vosges, after my mini-nap

Was it just in New Zealand where there was a strange Filofax fad amongst young girls in the 80s/90s? What was that about? I think any "cool" diary with a key and with multiple sections was pretty desirable, but Filofax was top of the pile. And did this shop open back then, or are people in the Marais really really into Filofax still? So many questions.

I've been wanting to go to St. German des Prés for ages, but I stupidly forgot my map of Paris in the locker and thus while I managed to find my way to the general area (going past Notre Dame on the way - I really must go in again one of these days when there's not such a long line), I didn't manage to find the exact location. I was definitely close by, but I didn't know exactly what direction it was in and I was really tired of walking around, so instead I went over the Pont des Arts and to the Saint-German l'Auxerrois church across from the Louvre, where I accidentally crashed a wedding. The guests were coming out when I arrived and some tourist-looking types seemed to be going in, so I went in and realised after about 5 minutes that the bride and groom were actually still in there. Since when do the guests leave a wedding before the bride and groom? I suppose they must have been taking photos because they were in there and/or milling about the entrance for a very long time, until I eventually just gave up and went to Austerlitz pretty early to wait for my train. I was really ready to go home by this stage. Shame, since it looks like a very pretty church.

Notre Dame and its long queue

Arch detail on Notre Dame

And again

The Pont des Arts. Apparently you're not meant to put the padlocks on as it causes a huge nuisance for the city having to cut them off (unsure why they need to cut them off, but anyway)

Looking back across the Pont des Arts to the Institut de France

Church of Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois

Bedtime now, to recover my energies for next week!