Traveller's Tales...

Paris (Part 1)

On Thursday I flew from Manchester to Paris. I got the train then the metro from the airport, and met Claire, my friend from university who I was staying with, just after 7pm. Her flat is on the 8th floor above the apartment of the family that she works for  (she is a nanny too), and used to be the servants quarters, but they have knocked two of the rooms together and converted it into modern living quarters, and it is lovely. The view from Claire's bedroom is amazing, overlooking Le Sacre Coeur, and there is a mini balcony that you can put cushions on when the weather is mild to use as a window seat.

When I arrived it was a bit of a mad rush to get changed and ready to go out, as we had been invited to a photography exhibition that started at 7pm, so we were already pushing it time wise! We eventually made it there for 8.45pm, after getting rather hopelessly lost and parading round in heels in the rain for ages. The photos were really good and the holistic centre it was in had a chilled out atmosphere. We had a couple of glasses of free wine, and then left to go and meet some of Claire's friends for a very late tea.

We went to a restaurant called Chez Janou, and ordered a bottle of red wine to drink whilst we waited for our table. The three people we met were lovely, and extremely interesting to talk to, one girl was quadrilingual which I found fascinating, it made me feel very uncultured! I ordered scallop risotto, which was beautiful, although very creamy, I dread to think how many calories were in it. For dessert we shared the restaurants speciality - a huge bowl of chocolate mousse that even between five of us we could barely make a dent in! Very generously, the two guys we were with split the bill, and we got a lift back to the metro stop and got the metro home. Despite it not being a wild drinking night we still didn't get back until 1am!

The following day we got up and made our way to Le Sacre Coeur to explore a bit, as despite this being my third time in Paris, I had never been there before. We climbed up all the steps and went inside to have a look around. It was nicely bustling but not too busy, and really gorgeous to walk around, I am glad I made the effort to go. I bought a few presents on the way back to Claire's for Mum and Dad, and then we had a simple lunch of bread, ham and cheese before going to a local shopping centre for a wander. I bought some grey leather trousers from H&M which I love, and then Claire left to go and pick up Louise (the girl she looks after) from school whilst I made my way back to her flat.

I spent a bit of time on the internet and doing my diary before Claire called on me to go with her to take Louise to her dance class. Whilst she was there we went into a place called Dome for a glass of wine (which was over 7 euros!) and then we dropped her off at home and started getting ready for a night out. We went to the British Embassy, as Claire's friend Elliot who went to uni with us both now works there. We had to go through some security checks and it felt like James Bond! Once inside it was like a typical English pub, complete with creme eggs, Bombadier ale and Pulp playing on the jukebox, and the drinks were really cheap so we had a few there before moving on.

We went to an Irish bar called O'Sullivans next, and although we had intended it to be the warm up to Friday, we ended up getting quite drunk and dancing until 3am! It was really fun though, and we managed to get a few free shots off the bar man!