Back To Reality...

Hi folks...it's back to reality after my trip to Paris or perhaps I should say "Back to Normality" because it didn't go as swimmingly as we hoped...the 2 hour wait at Immigration while the "job's worth" arrogant Border Police sat chatting to each other ignoring the hundreds of frustrated travellers in the "as far as the eye could see" queue...the hotel that was more shabby than chic...no light in the bathroom to apply the morning polyfilla...a toilet that didn't flush and a rather strange conversation with the not very helpful gentleman (and I use that word loosely) at reception...

"Room 201, the toilet is not flushing"

"When did you notice this?" 

"In the middle of the night"

"Did you report it?"

"In the middle of the night?! No!"

"You should have reported it" 

"Would you have sent someone to mend it in the middle of the night?" 

"No" 

"Well, I am reporting it now - will you send someone to mend it?" 

"No, it is too early, you should have reported it in the middle of the night"

We did the whole tourist thing...visiting most of the iconic Paris sights...
Notre Dame...

Eiffel Tower

The Louvre

Arc De Triomphe

Champs Elysees with it's crazy Paris traffic

and don't be fooled by the blue sky...why did we think that Springtime in Paris would be warm when in fact it was BONE CHILLINGLY COLD...1 or 2 degrees at best with an arctic wind blowing off the Seine...so cold in fact we had to buy large cosy scarves just to survive and make lots of coffee stops...top up our energy levels with fabulous lunches and my favourite was a huge bowl of the most delicious piping hot French Onion soup...the best I have ever tasted...

treat ourselves to fabulous dinners and this crepe filled with smoked salmon and Chive Cream was SO GOOD...

and keep ourselves topped up with alcohol to ensure our blood didn't freeze...

and we very nearly upset the "entente cordiale" apple cart with our first trip on the Metro...the machine quite happily swallowed our euros but refused to print our tickets but thanks to a lovely kind mademoiselle we were saved from the wrath of the long queue of angry commuters...were soon on our way and never looked back...whizzing from one end of Paris to the other like the locals. I fell in love with this beautiful Metro Station at Louvre-Rivoli with it's gorgeous Italian marble walls and Greek statues...very chic...very stylish and very Parisian.

Despite the traumas...we really really did have a great time on this Parisian adventure...laughing until tears ran down our faces as one disaster after another unfolded and we met some lovely friendly kind Parisians and one or two lacking in manners and people skills but hey you meet them wherever you travel in the world and of course it wouldn't have been half as much fun without the company of my lovely buddy Enfys...so thanks En...hope you don't need therapy to recover.

But it's back to reality and it's far from normality in the cubbyhole...the way things are progressing at the moment I'll be staring at the weird multi coloured walls and working on my postage stamp sized desk for some time to come.

C'est la vie as my Parisian friends would say...

Toodle-oo for now

Hugs Kath xxx