Paris for a second time

The bus ride wasn't great, trying to sleep on those things is an art form, but i met a English bloke called Dan on the bus and we got on like a house on fire, he was a musician so we talked a lot about music, we also joke about the photo on my passport, because now it looks nothing like me, i cant get over how much i've changed! but i don't think i've just change physically, i think this trip has made me a different person too, i think having time by myself has been a really good thing and i've kind of sorted myself out a bit. oh, and i've got a 'things-to-do' list a mile long for when i get back, its brilliant, i think i'm going to hit the ground running.

I ended up staying where i did the last time i was here, which is pretty nice and cheap (well, cheap for paris) and the guy that checked me in, Marcus, remembered me from last time. hes australian also and we got on quite well, i fact on the first sunday of the year you are meant to eat a cake that has a little present inside it, the person who gets the present in there piece is king for the day. he gave me a slice but unfortunately for me, Marcus got a little aeroplane in his piece.

I didn't end up catching up with Maddy and Mike as i planned to do. on the first day her phone didn't work when i tried to call and the second day for sme strange reason my phone card didn't work, which was a bit of a pain, not to worry i'll see them back in London at some stage. but i did catch up with Claire, who i used to go to high school with. she has moved over here to live with a guy she met while traveling over her last year. we went for dinner in a little chinese resturant that was around the corner from my hostel, it was a really really cool little place and was deck out like St Jeromes (a bar i used to go to in Melbourne), the food was great and quite cheap, i think i was a bit of a student hangout. anyway, it was really nice to catch up with her, it felt like i hadn't seen her in ages. Claire is possibly one of he nicest people you will ever meet.

not really a lot to report on the tourist side, i kinda did everything last time i was here (check out my last Paris trip here). i spent a lot of time just walking around, checking out clothes and book stores and just enjoying paris. i brought Eric Captons Autobiography, so i've been reading that quite a lot so thats kept me busy. oh, and it was snowing here, i've seen snow before but i've never experienced it snowing so that was pretty exciting, well for about an hour it was, it was bloody freezing, its funny, because some of the fountains here have frozen over and only squirt out a little bit of water, they look like they have conjunctivitis or something. on the sunday i was here all the galleries were free, i saw most of them when i was here last time except for the pompedui, which is the modern art gallery. they had some brilliant work in there, like Duchamp's 'fontaine' which is a urinal, it was pretty outragous in its day. plenty of Matisse, Pollock and Picasso. i was really into this one artist that layered posters and then tore them off leaving this amazing collage. something i thought was good was this HUGE plane made out of wicker, it looked like it could've come from the Michel Gondry film 'Science of sleep'. they had a sculpture that was made with a trash compactor which i thought looked amazing!

anyway i'm off to the South of France, but this time i'm not going alone, i've got myself a travel buddy! i was kinda sick of traveling on my own, not that it hasnt been fun and i do like my own company, but the opportunity came up so i thought 'why not?' i met Ashleigh in Dublin, she is originally from Sydney and was one of the group of people that i got on with that worked in the Hostel there. i dont know how long we'll travel together for but i think it will be nice to hang out with someone for a while and have more of a conversation than 'where are you from?' 'where have you been?'

anyway, a bit of a short blog but i'm sure i'll have more to write about when i get south. though, its good to see i can write under a million words for a change. oh, incase you were wondering, the mime tally is still at zero. see you soon!