Couch Surfing

On my first day in Paris I discovered a great little cafe/bar called Le Bar du Lycee.  I've been dropping in there every day for a coffee or a wine on my way to and from exploring the city.  Its not a tourist spot so I've been lucky enough to meet some of the locals who frequent there. Its a real community spot, everybody knows everybody; just they type of place I love :)

One of the guys working behind the bar, Guillome, is very kind and offered his couch for free for a few nights...he has done a lot of travelling and couchsurfing so he seems really happy to return the favour to a fellow traveller. I've been calling him 'mon petit ange' - my little angel :)

Its a fun household, with 4 housemates, all with very different backgrounds, but they seem to have become the best of friends in this living arrangement.  Guillome has just finished studying to be an Engineer, Zoe is studying something that seems to resemble Osteopathy, Etienne is working as an activist againt racism, the other girl I havent met.  They are all very kind and welcoming and very trusting to give a complete stranger a key to their home and letting me come and go as I please.  I feel very lucky to have free accommodation for a few nights and a first hand glimpse into the life of Parisian youth.  All those years studying to be an Anthropologist are coming back to me, it sort of feels like I am undertaking participant obserervational research of a foreign culture...

A couple of nights ago at the Bar Lycee I also met two lovely girls from Belgium and I caught up with them again last night for a drink. We had some really good conversations and talked about all sorts of things. They gave me a long list of places to visit in Europe and some advice about cheap ways to travel.  They also wrote in my journal giving me some ideas for song topics.  We ended the night dancing in a basement bar in Montmatre, Eurovision hits seemed to be the theme of the night, it was so tacky but so funny.  I ended up getting into a broken french argument with the barman who wasn't happy to give me a glass of water for free.  I won the argument in the end, but he was not happy, and at that point I decided it was time for me to go home...

... to be continued xx