Les Images de Paris

For more images go to: PARIS ALBUM

Karma

About a year and a half ago when I was living in Montreal, I met a lovely girl from France named Cora.  We had mutual friends so we hung out a little bit.  At the time, she was devastated because she had handed in her final essay for university, which for some strange reason had to be written in English.  Cora had never studied written English at an advanced level and sadly, her professor told her she would have to do it again because he didn't understand it at all.  Cora asked for my help, so I spent quite a bit of time going through her essay and helped her to rewrite it.  In the end her professor was very impressed with her work and I think it opened some doors for her with her career...

 

So, to get the the point, to say thankyou, Cora said to me if I am ever in France I would be welcome to stay with her family in Nice. When all of my accommodation plans fell through in Paris I remembered this offer and got in touch with Cora and Voila! Here I am, in Nice, I arrived last night...

 

I feel so lucky, her parents are very kind and generous, I basically have the basement level all to myself and its like a luxury apartment, my own bedroom and bathroom, there's even a mini gym, and a sauna :) They've given me a computer to use and there are 2 guitars to choose from,  I'm in heaven!  And when I woke up this morning breakfast was layed out on the table, coffee, a baguette, cheese and butter, and an assortment of jams and some chocolate!.....Karma is real! 

 

They've told me I can stay as long as I want - I wonder if forever is too much to ask?...

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