Love and handcuffs

I was enjoying the latest post from Garance Doré's great blog (Paris, je t'aime) and it reminded me about a photo I took a few weeks ago.  These locks are put on the Pont des Arts by lovers, to symbolize their eternal amour, and there are tons of them.  But handcuffs?  Really??  Yeah, there's romance for you...

Favourite Paris photos - 44

Things you might see by the Seine

For those of you who don't know, Paris brings the beach to the city every summer - they truck in a few tons of sand and create a beach alongside the river, complete with loungers, ice cream stands, beach umbrellas, water features and so forth.  And this year, one gigantic mofo of a sandcastle...

Favourite Paris photos - 27

Favourite Paris photos - 26

Favourite Paris photos - 25

Get some bleach for my eyes, please

Yesterday I took a stroll over to the Ile St-Louis and wandered around in the sunshine on the quai next to the Seine.  It was all perfectly delightful until I got to the western tip of the island and happened across a 60ish man sunbathing in only a g-string - eek!  I told this story to a couple of my friends here, and the first thing they asked was whether I had taken a photo.  Well, I hope this doesn't disappoint y'all too much, but no.   Clearly the gentleman isn't overly burdened with modesty and I'm not sure one has much of an expectation of privacy when one lolls around nearly naked in public in a major metropolis, but those considerations aside, that's not why I didn't take a photo.  It's because I was nearly blinded by the glare of the sunshine reflecting off his frighteningly shiny, oiled-up buttocks (gah!), and I'm not sure a photo would have turned out very well...

Favourite Paris photos - 23

The eyes have it. Well, they used to...

I got an email today from one of my readers - it went like this:

When you say "I'll tell you tomorrow..." on a Thursday and then wait until the following Monday, what are your loyal readers supposed to assume?

A) Four-day hangover?

B) Rugged Irishman?

C) All relevant photos involve you wearing (exposed) green unmentionables?

D) All of the above?

Well, gentle readers, that's an excellent point, and my apologies for the delay.  Sadly, it had nothing to do with A), B) or C), far less D)!  I only wish any of those things had been the reason... 

St Paddy's evening on Thursday was good fun, but Friday night turned out to be a different story.  I  went to a party on a boat on the Seine, which was also good fun, right up until the end.  Unfortunately, when I was about to leave, I attempted a dazzlingly complicated feat of physical coordination: walking up the stairs and putting on my coat at the same time.  Yeah, this might be easy for you, but Miss K is well-known to be the clumsiest person in the world - especially on a moving surface. Even moored, the boat was bobbing up and down in the river, and the wash from a passing bateau-mouche hit our boat just as I was putting my arms in the sleeves of my coat, and that's when I tripped up the stairs.   And how did I break my fall, you ask?  Well, with my face, of course.

More specifically, I broke the fall with my right eye.  Now, Miss K is ever an optimist, and I am extremely grateful to have not broken my teeth or my nose, but not only do I have one hell of a black eye, the impact ripped off most of the lashes on that eye as well - aieee!!!  Never mind the cuts and bruising, never mind that I woke up on Saturday with blood all over my pillowcase and my eye puffed up like a blowfish, never mind that it hurt like the freakin' bejaysus - I don't care about any of that.  What I care about is this: my eye is bald!  I have a bald eyeball!  I'm eye-bald!  Wahhh!!!

And I can prove it - see below for before and after photos of my poor eye...

Before:  Not too shabby, right?  Nice colour, decent lashes, perfectly presentable.

After:  Saturday morning.  Eye-bald!

After:  Today. Still no lashes, just applied a little eyeliner -verrry carefully!  Notice how the bruises are turning neon-green on the left?  Yeah, that's going to be sexy...

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.