I lucked out today. Instead of my regular half-baguette, I skipped out of my local boulangerie with a three-quarter wedge of bread. Not so lucky was the woman behind me, who, for exactly the same order, left with a mere quarter (hehehe).

The half-baguette is a handy bit of knowledge you acquire on living in France, especially if you are living or just eating alone. Baguettes just don’t stay fresh if not eaten on the day, which I’ve learned the hard way, stubbornly and defiantly chewing on miserable pieces of stale, hard bread the next morning. Either buy yourself a toaster or ‘une demi-baguette’, and even better, if you’re that way inclined, buy one half in the morning, one half in the evening and enjoy fresh bread throughout the day.

This post may seem a little silly, perhaps insignificant – but how many stereotypes of the French revolve around toting a baguette?

I’ve come to realise that nothing surpasses the small pleasure of breaking into a baguette on the street, just a few metres from the boulangerie – and I’m not the only one to do it! I’ve seen many people walking along with one baguette end missing. Buying a baguette leads to a sensory excursion to break the mundanity of the walk home. You clasp the bread and feel its crispy fragility. You look the part of the Parisian. Then there’s the sound of the first eager rip. I even saw a woman sniffing her demi-baguette the other day, so it looks like we have the whole range covered!

I’ve just spent a few days in Venice, rekindling my love affair with the city. From the number of passers-by either speaking French or wearing Quechua-brand sports equipment (a pretty reliable gauge of French nationality), I’d say I wasn’t the only one putting my school holidays to good use…

My rain jacket holds me in good stead in Paris (I’ve even devoted a previous post to it), but it was incongruously out of place in Venice – even during the downpour of the first evening! The Italian fashion seems to favour a waist-length puffy number, more often than not fur-trimmed, in black, cream or brown. Ai-ai-ai, life is tough for fashion victims!

Venice provides the opportunity for some great photos though. The Byzantine influence on the architecture provides some great instances of Oriental aesthetics, and there are a lot of picturesque clotheslines – just like down the Adriatic Coast in Croatia! One woman decided to wash her sheets… “Good idea!” a chorus of tourists chimed, “especially when hung against cream and terracotta-coloured walls!” I counted eight cameras simultaneously whipped out on completion of the hanging. Nine, including mine, except being alone I didn’t have the option of posing in front of them like many others did!

One of the numerous breaks in my rigorous wandering routine happened to be in Piazza San Marco, where I decided to chance the “no picnicking, no sitting” rules. I was captivated by some idiot woman trying to attract some of the masses of pigeons to her empty outstretched hands. I couldn’t believe it, these are the most overfed pigeons in the world – why would they be inclined to be curious? Spend a euro and get some birdseed if you want that photo! Luckily a German couple noticed her plight and shared their seed. Thank goodness, we’d all be there for a while otherwise…

The thing about spending time out of Paris is that on your return, you have to spend all your time re-learning the ways of the city. I’m talking about the dog poo. It seems that a little over a week out of town and I’m an absolute excrement dodging novice. Hopefully I’ll remember to keep my eyes peeled on the footpath and get back to my previous form.

There is also a new hazard on the streets. These come in the unsuspecting form of autumn leaves, and when wet, they are more potent than a banana peel in a cartoon show. I almost lost it twice today on the slippery little suckers… my balance, that is, the dignity factor was long gone after several dog poo incidents.

I thought I was quite good on slippery surfaces. In St. Petersburg, a few winters ago, there was a particularly sustained period of black ice on the footpaths. I had men falling at my feet, literally. Everyone had to resort to shuffling, because the moment you lifted a foot that was the end of it. Almost the whole icy incident passed without a personal tumble into the gutters… until one day, perhaps the day before it all melted. There was a teenager handing out pamphlets, dressed as Santa Claus. I magnanimously gave him a head-turn in acknowledgement of his boredom, but also to soften the blow of rejection. In that split second of concentration lapse, I lost my balance on a sheet of ice. My legs flew out from under me, kicked up in the air one after the other, and I think there was even a moment of poetic choreography in the fall when both feet were above the height of my head. THUD!!! I slammed down on my tailbone, and looked sheepishly at Santa, and let out some sort of an ironic giggle that was trying to say “see what happens when I don’t take your leaflet?”

The boy stared blankly ahead, as if I was only one of the millions who had taken a spill in front of him that day. I picked my sore self up and limped carefully home.

I hope the same thing doesn’t happen in Paris…

It’s not often that one gets to sleep the night in a castle. I feel like I’m a character from a childhood TV show, where they spend the night in a department store… only replace the “department store” with “museum.” I honestly feel like I’m living in one of the regal display rooms of the Hermitage… but ok, alright, castle is a slight exaggeration. Perhaps ye-olde country retreat would suffice.

For all those who haven’t been slavishly following my blog, waiting on the next posting with bated breath, I’ll just recap. I’m working as an au pair in Paris, and the grandparents live in the aforementioned Jane Austen-esque manor, just outside of Paris in untainted natural seclusion. It’s in a tiny village oblivious to the external suburban sprawl, and this property an oasis oblivious even to the tiny village.

When I first came here, it was during the warm extended daylight of summer. Now the air is crisp and all the russet leaves are falling, carpeting the immaculate green lawns and interspersing with the mushrooms in the woodlands. Of an afternoon, the sun sets on the surrounding manors, elevated on a surrounding hill and basking in the golden light, the peaks of their turrets visible above the autumnal tree line. On the other side, the spire of the local church is visible – and audible too, as the bells toll regularly, ringing out to mark the various hours and occasions.

There are perhaps thirty rooms spread across three levels, and the floor plan is long and narrow. The façade is dominated by squares of sandstone and the panels of French-shuttered windows. Whilst the majority of the building dates from the nineteenth century, there is one tower remaining from the 1650 original.

Pick a room, any room, and there are dark oils of the life of the aristocracy, watercolour tributes to hunting (the one in my room reads ‘Northampton Grand National Steeple Chase, 1840’ and I can’t help wondering if someone brought the poster back as a souvenir), and tapestries glorifying some sort of romanticised pre-revolutionary peasantry. I think this is the only time in my life that I’ve eaten “game” (it was wild boar, by the way).

I’ve just attended my first Parisian fashion show! It was a rather unique foray into the world of fashion, and this impression wasn’t just created by the fact that there were hordes of children climbing and squirming on the stage beforehand.

No, it was somewhat exceptional as all the displayed garments were created with chocolate.

In a spectacle where brown was undoubtedly the new black, and edible the prevailing factor, model after model swirled past, occasionally throwing more foil-wrapped snacks to the crowd. The standard issue little black dress was converted to a shade of rich brown and decked out with some sort of peacock contraption trailing behind. All chocolate. The hostess-with-the-mostess waltzed by, in ruffles of dark and white chocolate, adorned with hundreds of chocolate forks. And who says that the design needed to be excessive? A simple approach to eye candy is often the most effective, and that was definitely the case for the first costumes, a sweet take on the Queen’s Royal Guards, as modelled by five lithe cabaret dancers from Le Crazy Horse de Paris. At first I was a little confused – how can it be a marvel of edible design when all they are wearing is chocolate buttons on their nipples? – But then on closer inspection, I realised that all the belts, buckles, stirrups and “bearskin” helmets were actually made from chocolate.

That’s right, last weekend a thousand sweet-tooth suckers and I succumbed to the exotic allure of an exhibition devoted to chocolate, and toddled along to the internationally-toured Salon du chocolat.

Ascending into this veritable Vegas of chocolate, one’s eyes were greeted by a rich, creamy blend of boring trades fair with Roald Dahl-esque chocolate factory. Enough of the sales pitch! Where are the free samples!?!

My personal smorgasbord read something along the lines of olive oil chocolate from Marseilles, bitter dark chocolate from São Tomé and Principe, repulsive lavender (followed by equally vile pink pepper) chocolate from I-don’t-ever-care-again-to-know-where, apricot chocolate, orange chocolate, Mexican hot chocolate, all chased down with Grand Marnier, sweet red wine and Baileys Irish Cream. Feeling a little ill, I calmed my sugar jitters with a more substantial chocolate-filled crepe, and some crunchy milk chocolate biscuits. On leaving, it couldn’t be helped – ‘just a little piece of Mars Bar for the road’ – but after the subliminal ecstasy of the other varieties (except for the lavender and the pink pepper), a good old Mars Bar just failed to hit the spot. At least it wasn’t deep-fried…

Last Thursday I had every intention of going to buy some fresh fruit and veg with friends at a market on the outskirts of Paris. On Sunday, I was going to enjoy a languid sunny Sunday in the gardens of the Château de Versailles.

These plans are as yet unrealised, due to a conspiracy of external forces.

On the up-side, I’ve learnt a new word. The word grève has now entered my basic French vocabulary, as for something like four days (I don’t really know, I lost track), those responsible for Parisian public transport were on strike.

Striking, as Guillaume explained it to me, is as much of a French institution as double-parking. You can grumble about it, but you still admire the audacity.

Apparently there are certain times of the year that are especially strike-prone, for instance, in October (after the budget blow-out from the summer holidays starts to sink in) and after an election (that one will take a lot longer to sink in…). As we are coming to the closing days of a post-election October, I wonder who will go next?

And, ever prone to gossip, has Cécilia Sarkozy chosen this moment to leave Nicolas to silence the cries of the strikers? “Transport strike – what transport strike?” What other headline-grabbing stunts will occur within the Sarkozy entourage next time there is some sort of civil unrest?

On somewhat of a tangent, this reminds me of an account of a Parisian waiters’ strike in Stephen Clarke’s A Year in the Merde:

‘Suddenly the clients were being served by horrendously inefficient but cute students, who traded in their smelly, underpaid jobs at fast-food counters for the joys of earning tips and not having to wear a baseball cap… They didn’t know the ingredients of anything, they dropped plates, the got the bills mixed up. It was just like being in England, where we think that waiting is a temporary job ideally suited to the totally unqualified.’

After some fairly harrowing encounters with some meticulously starched French waiters, the main character, Paul West, thinks that he has died and gone to heaven as the waiters go on strike, and he begins leaving cafes and restaurants with pockets full of phone numbers from waitresses not only willing to date him, but also to speak English. I think somewhere later in the text the pharmacy workers go on strike too.

Had the thought that France might be boring ever crossed my mind? Banish the thought! How could it be with this kind of day-to-day comedy of uncertainty? Who could it be next…?

Often when I’m walking around the 16ème, I try to pick ownership. Kids, dogs, apartments… I feel that anything is a commodity here. Having started my stint in Paris here, I find it pleasantly surprising that the rest of Paris doesn’t have concierges and maids. But I’m a little disappointed that we don’t have a red-light district* or nightly street mosques – in fact the only people on the streets of an evening are scavenging furniture. I know this, because Guillaume and I are amongst their ranks, but I feel we have some professional competition (antique restorers?) because we’ve previously had to race against cars to the next furniture hotspot.

But I’ve been developing a theory of property according to dog-walkers. It’s a stark contrast of nuances – aloof vs. indifferent. Now all this might seem quite oxymoronic at the moment (or just moronic, but run with me), but observing various degrees of distain, I think I can pin-point if the dog is owned by (or provides an income to) the dog walker. Either the distain is for the dog (hired help) or life in general (the owner). Aloof is what the owners manage to exude, the paid walkers can only ever muster up indifferent. It’s either an acculturated distance or apathy, and whilst there is a fine line between the two in terms of definition, there is a vast income bracket gulf between the two in practical application.

I feel like a sore thumb.

* According to all sources, the Bois de Boulogne holds some after-dark prospects. I’m curious to check it out, all in the name of research of course…

At the moment I’m reading one of those books that makes you laugh out loud at regular intervals and stop at the end of every paragraph wanting to read out that passage, even if you’re on the metro.

It is, applicably enough, called Pardon my French: Unleash your inner Gaul by an author called Charles Timoney, who prefaces it by saying that twenty years ago he decided to spend a year in France. Twenty years later, the year stretches on, and he publishes an almost encyclopaedic guide to all things linguistically and culturally French.

So, needless to say, to spare Guillaume’s ears, I might just be mentioning it every now and then in posts. I’ll try and hold out, but sometimes he just hits the nail right on the head.

For instance, describing the arrondissements (administrative districts) of Paris (for the record, there are twenty, spiralling out clockwise from the first), he pays particular attention to the 16th. For any of you paying particular attention, you’ll know that this is where I am living at the moment. And I quote:

‘The ‘arrondissement’ which seems to have the most famous reputation is the 16ème or seizième. For the 16ème is where the rich people live. While you can find some hugely expensive houses there, it is mostly made up of old-fashioned, well-constructed apartment buildings with magnificent front doors and marble hallways. They are inhabited by rich, chic people who wear their fur coats to walk their little dogs in the Bois de Boulogne.’

Hmm… or pay someone to walk their little dog for them…

I’ve been asked this question numerous times by my legions of fans out there… (ahem… ok, so it was only by my mum), but vélib’ is the name of the public transport bicycles in Paris. You can “prendre un vélib’” just like you can “prendre le métro”, and usually mentioning this gets an understanding nod as a reply.

For, you see, vélib’s are bicycles that can be rented from stations apparently every 300m across Paris, mainly at metro stations and other transport and tourist hubs. They can be rented with either a daily, weekly or yearly subscription and the first half hour of any rental is free.

I’m sure there are a myriad of neologisms screaming to be coined (and perhaps already have been) about vélib’ behaviour. I think there needs to be a term for speeding vélib’ riders, desperately hurtling through the streets (they are on their 29th minute and can’t find a station); for the anguish of finding a station full when you want to drop off your bike; for the heartbreak when you need to get somewhere and the station is empty, except the one bike with the flat tire.

Some friends of my parents recently visited Paris, and the lasting impression for them was created by the immaculately dressed business-cyclists heading off to work, in pressed suits or power-skirts with stockings and heels.

I was having a look on youtube to see if I could find a better visual description. I settled for a humorous one instead…


This is not how I rode home yesterday morning!

This is what a friend assured me on finding out that I was moving to Paris… that I would become a true Parisian. Now in regards to someone who managed to live in Russia without once donning a mini-skirt, make-up or stilettos, I find this hard to believe. (I was actually intrigued by the impossibly sharp high heels of Russian girls though, especially in winter time. I developed a theory that stilettoed boots were somehow akin to ice-picks for the feet, and hence amazingly practical, but I was informed that this was not the case, and that in fact they were as difficult to walk on as first appearances conveyed).

Not that I’m tea and crumpets through and through. I’m not oblivious to cultural and culinary differences, I think I’m just a bit lazy, a bit daggy, and very comfortable with who I am. This, however, has not stopped me from succumbing to a lightweight, three-quarter-length, trenchcoat-style rain jacket. When in Rome, drive like a madman… when in Paris, have the transitional season coat. Being a diverse and cosmopolitan city, you can have four choices in regards to the coat: black, grey, navy or beige.

This morning I didn’t feel like walking home after my early morning school drop-off. I took a vélib’ public transport bicycle instead, and made it home in no time at all, my coat tails flapping behind me in the wind as I picked up speed. I couldn’t help casting impressed glances at myself in the shop windows. This is probably about as Parisian as I’ll ever get. And considering I’m still wearing hiking boots (from the summer’s hiking trip in the Pyrenees) rather than the latest issue winter boots (my sneakers have holes in them, not very practical for the rain)… any analogies will just have to remain within the confines of my imagination.