Hello boys and girls, today's post is about Spunk's trip to Paris. Please enjoy the show.
Hi, hello, bonjour, I'm back. Sat at my own desk, with my own English keyboard, walls of faces etc half heartedly eating some veggie kebabs my Mum made me. The photos from Paris are just downloading and in a minute I'll trawl through them and try to find a few half decent ones to post. As for this week, it's been a blast so here goes with what went on:
Day 1
St. Pancras International, London
View from hotel room
First visit to St Pancras International, London, was mildly interesting. It's pretty fucking massive and beautiful if you, like me, enjoy a good bit of architecture now and again. Managed to get on the right train for once and was seated next to the spitting image of Jude Law, who was French, polite and fell asleep for a good hour. People are always cuter when they are asleep, all the superficial emotion and expression is erased and all that's left for the world to see is genuine. Hotel De La Vallee, on Rue St. Denis, was alright. Cheap and cheerful. Plenty of restaurants and strip clubs nearby, if that's your scene. I clapped out pretty early on, because I could, and it was really hot, not something we Brits are accustomed to. Best thing that happened all day was a cute punk saying hi to me outside Gare Du Nord, not only because he had a Union Jack on the sleeve of his jacket, as I do, but he had a cool dog. I was sold on the dog.
Day 2
Arc De Triomphe
Either I was crazy from the heat or keen to 'see' as much of Paris as possible. I walked from the hotel to the Arc de Triomphe, via Galeries nationales, the Eiffel Tower (ish) and the Champs-Elysees. How I ended up walking the long way, past all the tourists, I don't know. That was wild, especially as not one but two men decided they fancied giving me a quick, unexplained kiss (or rather two, as they were French and insisted on it). That left me hot and flustered, the walk that is, as the second guy was old and fat therefore canceling out the semi-cute first guy. Anyway, that afternoon I met the amazing Dennis Cooper outside this crazy thing and we talked over black coffee and cigarettes. That obviously put me in a creative mood because I finished off the whole first draft of the Hangers script that evening. For a Tuesday, I think it went pretty damn good.
Day 3
Views from Jules Ferry Youth Hostel
Buzzed in and out of accommodation; Jules Ferry Youth Hostel is a fantastic place to stay in Paris if you don't mind sharing a room. Reception spoke good English, there are lockers to leave luggage/valuables in and the rooms and facilities are clean and functional. I checked into my room, Studio, in the afternoon. It was on the 5th floor, no lift, which was good exercise to say the least, but the views were amazing. My 'room mates' all spoke English and were friendly too, which is always nice. Back at Galeries Nationales I queued for an hour to get into the Marie Antoinette exhibition that was on. Crazy hot, kind of worth the wait. It was so packed in there it was a wonder no one got trampled on. Mostly paintings and documents, but a few artifacts that were really cool. Also, the painting shown in the film Marie Antoinette was on show. The real thing is huge, I mean really, really, huge. Bigger than the square footage of my bedroom huge.
Day 4
Versailles
You can't go to Paris without visiting Versailles, so I did. This was due to my interest in Sofia Coppola's film Marie Antoinette, which was filmed on location at the palace, and because I'd visited Paris twice already and not been. I was afore warned that it was massive and I can now verify that Versailles is indeed the biggest palace I have ever been to. Not just the actual buildings, the extensive gardens and domains within the estate. It was so warm that the sun painted me pink and everything was brightly beautiful. I was relieved to get back to Republique though, it kind of gave me the feeling of being home. Tourists, crowds and hot hot heat are three things that don't go down well with me. So crowds of tourists in the sun was just too much. Either way, I had a good day at Versailles and got lots of writing done back at the YHA. Big clap for Thursday.
Day 5
Time went so quick. Before I knew it Friday spun out into discovering the YHA had internet with an English keyboard, more coffee and cigarettes with Dennis, seven hours of sitting in a station then six hours of trains and a car ride back to my house. Back tracking; the internet didn't last long enough and kept freezing, although I did manage to do a brief post saying not a great deal. The coffee was more than welcome, as were the (duty free) cigarettes and conversation, or conversations, with DC. I think we managed to talk about everything and anything, which was great. It was refreshing to meet someone who knew what they were on about, and who didn't mock me for not being able to use a lighter properly, as my friends so often do. So yeah, cheers man. The station wasn't as bad as it sounds. I got to people watch, write a whole chapter and a half for my parallel worlds project and read 3/4 of High Fidelity by Nick Hornby, which by the way is possibly better than the film although because I watched (half of) that first I can only imagine the lines being rallied out by John Cusack and Jack Black. I also kicked a pigeon and silent discoed to The Undertones' 'Teenage Kicks'. Obviously, when I got back at what was around 3am (inc. time difference between UK & France) I was living dead. Still catching up with that.
Fine
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