Pendaison de cremaillere.

Paris' flaming trees are slowly being doused in an endless drizzle of rain; grey cloud banks cover the sky. Paris is beautiful in every colour but less than charming in this stormy mood. Saying that, the rain has abated for today, so I might turn my errand-running into a little walk. Sadly my memory card is stuck inside my computer, but a friend has promised to lend me a new one so come Tuesday, there will be more photos.

In the past week, I went to the theatre on Sunday to see Le Diner des Cons, which was very funny. Perhaps not as side-splitting as the Frenchies around me seemed to find it, but entertaining nonetheless. It was such a nice atmosphere; to be in a gorgeous theatre on a Sunday afternoon; high up and level to the vast chandelier, surrounded by people laughing in red velvet seats. Le Diner des Cons is known in English as "The Dinner of Idiots" and it's a farce based on the premise of a dinner where every guest brings along an "idiot" for entertainment value. Marrant.

Hmm, aside from that, the most interesting place I have visited this week was the Parc des Buttes Chaumont. Everyone says how lovely it is, and I wanted to see for myself. It is on the site of a former quarry, hence all of the hills (buttes is hills or heights).

It has a lake, two waterfalls, statues, and a big island with a belvedere on it (pictures to follow because clearly no one knows what a belvedere is without seeing it).

Belvedere on a hill

Trees with a statue of Pan, the Greek god of nature.

Pan in a classic Facebook pose.  

Leaves, light and water.

Last night I went to a party with people from all over Europe - French, English, German, Italian, Colombian and Spanish. One girl I was talking to came from Palermo, city of le mer et le Mafia. I keep meeting hundreds of new people, and often never see them again after an evening's conversation. It is very strange. No doubt a time will come in my life when I very rarely meet new people, but I can't help but think at the moment it would be compensated for by being around the friends I have already. That's a fancy way of saying I feel a bit homesick. Oh well. 

I attempted to speak and understand some German last night, and it was terrible! I can't believe I got the best mark in my school and now remember almost nothing of it.

In any case.

Auf wiedersehen, au revoir & arriverderci. 

Il pleut des cordes

It has been raining all weekend. I learnt a new idiom to help me out with describing this - "Il pleut des cordes", which means literally "It's raining ropes". It will hopefully be more help than the supposed English idiom of "It's raining cats and dogs, which I have never heard used outside of English language textbooks. 

Anyway, I spent this weekend... pottering around house. I found an old coffee table in the garage, which is full of old furniture people don't want, and decided to rearrange my room. Et voilà.

Newly painted furniture and bedside lamp.

New (old) coffee table, with coffee and computer.

The view from my door, looking inwards.

 My sofa bed.

My American penpal is coming to visit in less than three weeks!!! It's hard to believe that the sender of emails, - some one line long, some going on for paragraphs, some arriving within hours, others taking weeks - is going to appear in my life as a real person. We've only spoken on Skype once, and I saw a blurry picture of her about a year ago, but there's no way I could recognise her. But... I love showing off Paris. I feel proud, as if I have some claim over the city. I plan to be a tourguide par excellence.

A bientot.

Eden.

Automne à Vincennes et à Paris

Paris is on fire. The trees are red, and yellow, and orange, and maroon.

We went to the Parc Floral in Vincennes:

We went to the Pere Lachaise cemetery, although couldn't find Oscar Wilde's grave:

We went to a poetry reading at Shakespeare & Co

 Alice impressed up by playing Mozart and Beethoven from memory

Life continues as usual. I had visitors over the Toussaint half-term holiday, but it's back to work tomorrow. I've got classes in 9 hours, and I haven't finished planning them yet, so there's no more time to write.