Should I feel insulted or complimented?

Y'know, I haven't totally gotten back on track with this blog, and I think it's because I've tried to get back to normal posting even though I still have lots of things to yap about that happened during my looooong absence.  So, clearly I'm going to have to backtrack and talk about those before I can get back into the regular swing of things.  Okay?  Okay.  

So, one of the things that happened is that I was apparently mistaken for a gay man.  On one of the few nights out I had in July (when I wasn't busy packing like a demon, working like a demon, or generally stressing out like a demon - there were a lot of demons involved, is what I'm saying), two friends of mine were celebrating their impending move to Berlin.  It was one of those evenings that start out with nice, civilized cocktails and end up with stumbling home at 6am.  Anyway, one of our merry group was a very nice Austrian guy, let's call him Herr Wienerschnitzel - he was cute and charming, but I immediately pegged him as gay and thought no more about it.  So we all caroused from bar to bar and ended up in a skeevy nightclub, which is where we remained until 6am.  At that point, our group scattered in various directions, and it turned out that Herr Wienerschnitzel and I were going in the same direction, as he lived a block away from me in the Marais.  So he and I strolled home from St Michel to the Hotel de Ville, passing Notre Dame  along the way (and here's a little tip for you - if you ever want to get a photo of yourself in front of Notre Dame with absolutely NO ONE else around, 6am is the time to do it), until we arrived at my door.  I started to say goodnight, when, with no warning whatsoever, he suddenly pounced on my face and started smooching the hell out of me.  Gentle readers, not much surprises Miss K anymore, but I did not see that one coming!  I lived in the Marais for five months, so I do have a tendency to assume that every handsome, well-groomed and well-dressed man I see is gay, but even after Herr Wienerschnitzel snogged my face off and claimed he was straight, I'm still not convinced about him.  I think I know what happened - as I've told you before, I'm tall and have shoulders like a lumberjack, plus I also have a deep voice.  The pickings were mighty slim in that nightclub, so if he ignored my cleavage and long hair, I was probably the closest thing to an attractive man that he could find.  So I'm still trying to decide if that's an insult or a compliment to me...

Social butterfly? Yeah, kinda...

Gentle readers, I do apologize - I know the content of my posts has been pretty thin this week, but that's because this week has been part of what I like to refer to as the birthday "season".  Which involves going out far too often, drinking far more than is good for me, and basically partying in a manner for which I'm way too old.  Oh well, I'll sleep when I'm dead...

So the week kicked off last Saturday with some leaving drinks for friends who are moving to Berlin.  This carried on until 6am (6am!!!), and here's a little tip for you:  if you ever want to get a photo of yourself in front of Notre Dame with absolutely no one else around, that's the hour to do it.  Sunday and Monday were spent recovering from Saturday.  On Tuesday, English Rose came over for lunch, which started at 1pm and ended somewhere around 7pm and involved three bottles of wine between the two of us.  Well, she is English (the clue is in the name) and I did spend nine years in London, so that kind of drinking is pretty standard for us, really.  Wednesday was spent recovering from Tuesday (what? I'm old, I already admitted that) and on Thursday for my actual birthday, Tiny Dancer took me out for a rather magnificent lunch (which also went on for several hours if you include the subsequent visits to three bars).  Friday was Southern Belle's "welcome back to Paris" drinks, as previously mentioned.  And on Saturday,  The Redhead had a few of the gals over for a fabulous girly brunch/champagne/movie affair and brought in a beautician to give me a much-needed pedicure as an extra birthday treat.

So, needless to say, I am simply shattered.  I am very lucky to have such awesome friends and I am sooo grateful for all my lovely treats, but I have to admit that I'm glad my birthday season is done for the year - my liver (and the few brain cells I have left) just can't take the pace anymore.  I do have a quiet week coming up, but let's see if I can't dig through my recent photos and find some Parisian things to tell you about anyway...

Favourite Paris photos - 26

Springtime in Paris

Anniversary

Well, believe it or not, gentle readers, I have now been living in Paris for exactly one year, and I'm feeling quite sentimental today (so excuse the lack of snark, it will be back tomorrow).  Yes, on the first of November 2009, I arrived in the City of Lights knowing exactly one person.  Well, one year later, I have lost many kilos and gained many friends.  There have been ups (social life, travel, general awesomeness) and downs (love life, money, general difficulties), but Miss K is one incredibly lucky little blogger and I do know it.  There are times when I complain about life here, but it doesn't mean I'm not madly in love with the city - it's Paris and I live here and that's still a dream come true for  me. 

  

Favourite Paris photos - 12

Time for another one of these?  Probably not, but I have totally lost track of time and this is all I can manage to post for today! But look how well I'm doing this month - I have already beaten my record for posting for January, February, May, and June (not to mention August and September combined - ahem! Miss K is none too proud of that statistic, I assure you...), this is progress,  I think?

Notre Dame - interior

Nuit Blanche report

As promised, I am reporting back on last night's Nuit Blanche in Paris. 

 Miss K is currently suffering from a very painful bad back, but I nonetheless dragged myself out to one of the primary art events on the Parisian calendar, just so that I could tell you about it (needless to say, I had to have a couple of glasses of red wine during the course of the evening, but in this case they were strictly medicinal!) - do you appreciate my efforts?  Well, we'll see...

We started off at Notre Dame, which was amazing - the artist was Thierry Dreyfus and he had the outside darkened and the inside lit, so that the colours of the magnificent stained-glass rose windows were visible at night.

Upon entering the church, there was dramatic lighting accompanied by ethereal singing - really magical...

The next stop was at the Hotel-Dieu, which was okay, but certainly not worth the hour spent waiting in line to get in.   There were several other venues we tried to check out but the line-ups were far too long, so we saw some of the general projects on the street but probably the coolest thing was at St Martin, a ghost station which has been unused since WWII - the only way to view the project was to take Metro line 9 from Republique to Strasbourg St Denis.  I am attempting to link a video here that I shot of it (accompanied by the oohs and aahs of the other Metro passengers - hee!) but bear with me as I haven't tried video on here before.  If it works, I hope you like it...

Don't hate me, but...

...this is how I spent my day.

This is where I had lunch:

This is where I ate an ice cream from Berthillon (mango and chocolate, should you be interested):

This is around the corner, where I stopped to read my book for a while:

And this was on the way home, when I stopped to just sit by the river, drink wine and relax:

And all of that for the grand total of €3.50 for the ice cream since my sandwich ingredients and my mini bottle of wine were both bought on previous days and therefore still within my €5 per day challenge.  Springtime in Paris, people - it makes "poor but happy" pretty damn easy.

Favourite Paris photos - 6

Sixth photo:

Do I really need to say anything about this?