Letters from London #3

Okay, tomorrow I am definitely getting back to Paris-related matters, but boy, it's hard for me to resist the lure of a) reminiscing and b) being able to post just by pasting in something I already wrote.  Sorry, gentle readers, you know I love you and of course I want to put in all sorts of effort for you...but not today.  Hee!

December 2000:

1. Housing: Obviously there was some sort of major computer malfunction at the North Pole this year, because even though I've been very naughty, Santa still brought me a great big apartment as a Christmas gift!  Yes, it's true.  In the great tradition of seasonal miracles, I was rescued from the Dickensian misery of the hostel in the Jolly Old Saint Nick of time.  The apartment is in a cool area, it's huge, in a great building with a very large garden, and it's affordable.  Of course, this probably means that my roommates (English guy, Australian girl) will turn out to be devil-worshippers who sacrifice goats and howl at the moon every second Tuesday, but as long as they don't expect me to bear Satan's child, we'll get along fine.  Yes, I did watch "Rosemary's Baby" recently, why do you ask?

2. Theatre: Last month, in the pursuit of cultural enrichment, I attended the theatre in the company of three other refined ladies out for an evening of intellectual stimulation.  Yes, it was that masterpiece of Australian theatre: "Puppetry of the Penis".  Well, what can I say?  The ad is not misleading in any way -- there are indeed two men, there are definitely two dicks, and there are no pants whatsoever.  It's a little bit hard to describe what they do, other than to say that they manipulate their genitals to look like landmarks, animals, and objects (and there is a very large video screen so that you don't miss a single close-up detail).  The two gentlemen involved seem to possess a great deal of, er, flexibility in their parts, because the aforementioned parts were twisted, bent, wrapped, curled, stretched, and even tucked away completely (and not the way you might think) in the course of an hour and a half.  It was very strange and very amusing, indeed.  Actually, my big worry after the show was whether or not I would ever be able to look at male genitals again in real life without a) laughing hysterically, or b) asking if it does tricks. 

3. This occurred to me the other day, and I find it mildly alarming: I have not had an alcohol-free day since I got here.  In Toronto, I used to go months and months without drinking (of course, this would usually follow an intoxicated binge where I completely disgraced myself, but that's totally not the point), but it's so much a part of the culture here to go for a few with your mates every night that you don't even think about it.  If I don't smarten up, my liver is very shortly going to be the size of my head.

4. I leave you with this final thought -- I saw a homeless man sleeping on the street the other night.  Suddenly, a mobile phone rang.  Was it mine?  Nope, it was his. London is an odd, odd town....

Miss K - Travel Weasel

I know I will get absolutely no sympathy about this, but Paris is feeling a little stale to me right now.  But before you start lighting the torches and sharpening the pitchforks, let me explain why - it's because I haven't left the city in nearly a year.  I got back to Paris just before New Year's Eve, and other than a day trip to Vaux-le-Vicomte (the post on that is yet to come, with fabulous photos), I haven't been outside the city in all these months - for a travel weasel like me, that's a looooooooooooong time to be in one place.  Last year I managed to get to London, Toronto, Monaco and Marrakech.  The year before that: Prague, Bucharest and Istanbul.  I once went around the world in 31 days.  I once went to Egypt in the spring and Jordan in the autumn of the same year. I once spent Christmas in a Scottish castle and then went to Barcelona for New Year's.  And those are just a few examples...  The point is, I used to travel.  

I think part of the reason I have had such a crappy year is that I've got a bad case of cabin fever, and there wasn't anything I could do about it.  Between the nightmare of trying to find places to live and not having any money, I just couldn't go anywhere.  BUT the travel gods have smiled upon me - I am leaving for London tomorrow for a work trip, and will have to go back again for work, probably next week or possibly the week after.  And in between, my whole office in Paris is going off for a corporate retreat in the south of France.  Okay, so all these trips are work-related and they're not very exciting, but I don't care.  I am going somewhere, and when that brief flurry of travel dies down, then I'll be able to appreciate Paris again.  In the meantime, if you could try not to stab me with those pitchforks, I'd really appreciate it...

Tales from Toronto (Part 3)

Yes, yes, I know I left Toronto two weeks ago, but I was sifting through my photos and they were making me laugh, so I just had to do one more post about my wonderfully weird hometown before getting fully back to the goings-on in Paris. Yes, I'm going to be one of those annoying people who make you look at their holiday photos - sorry!

This is a little family Xmas tradition - the building of the gingerbread houses.  There were five of them this year (so it's a bit more like building a whole gingerbread suburb, actually) but this was my favourite house - please note the giant plume of icing "smoke" coming from the chimney, and the chocolate-button bosoms on the gingerbread lady.  Hee!  Outstanding...

A lovely friend, whom I have known since I was eight years old, took me out for a very boozy lunch one day (ahh, she knows me so well) and this little piece of weirdness was on the wall of the restaurant bathroom.  And I think I speak for us all with a resounding "Huh?  Why?  What the -?  Why would you -? Huh??"  See, I told you before that Canadians are slightly strange  - in the nicest possible way, of course.

On another day, I was out for a very boozy dinner (yes, apparently there was a theme to my Toronto visit) with some other friends, and we went to this lovely restaurant.  Isn't it nice?  Doesn't it look like a reasonably sophisticated dining establishment?  Well, scroll on down to the next photo...

...because this is the outdoor seating area for the above restaurant.  Yes, those are hay bales.  Hee!  So. Freakin'. Awesome. 

For those of you who don't personally know Miss K, here's a bit of info about me: I hate dry food - things like toast are my idea of hell.  Ugh.  But I love sauce, gravy, everything like that (at family holiday dinners, I'm actually not allowed to have the gravy boat until everyone else has their turn, because I would cheerfully just take it all),  so when dining out, I always ask for extra sauce - and in Toronto, when you ask for extra, they give you extra.  Heaven...

In case you're wondering what the hell this is, let me enlighten you.  It's a Christmas tree made entirely of snowshoes, it's in the poshest department store in Toronto, and it's awesome.

All right, technically I should have used this photo for a Totally Crap Outfit of the Week post, but it makes me laugh so much -  I just had to keep it with the rest of the Toronto photos.  Look at him - he's all: "Ooooh yeah, fedora, big scarf, fur coat,  I am one pimptastic bad-ass mofo, that's right.  I'm so bad."  And then he goes and slings a Jamaica backpack on top of it all like a total doofus.  Heeheeheeheehee! 

All right, so that's the end of the Tales from Toronto for another year, I hope you liked them (although I am still totally kicking myself for not getting a photo of the chandelier made entirely of hockey sticks - if any of you TO readers know the restaurant it's in and you send me a photo, I'll publish on here and give you full credit!).  We now return you to your regular Paris programming...

Tales from Toronto (Part 2)

Toronto is an awesome place to live.   The weather is great in the spring, summer and autumn (okay - admittedly, winter can be a little rough), we have a lake so big you could fit a hefty chunk of Europe into it, and we have world-class theatre, opera, ballet, restaurants, bars, music, wine, sports teams (okay - admittedly that one is stretching it a bit) and so forth.  But no matter how sophisticated and cosmopolitan Toronto can be, it's still a place where someone can get on the subway with a circular saw tied to his belt and no one will give him a second look.  You don't get that on the Paris Metro...

Pretty pictures

From my last post, you probably noticed that I'm not actually in Paris at the moment - I am back in Toronto for festive fun with family and friends until nearly the end of December.  But never fear, gentle readers, that doesn't mean I won't be blogging.  It might be every second or third day (which, admittedly, is not all that different from usual), but I will still be sharing my silly ramblings with you.  I'll write about Toronto if I see something noteworthy, or I might post some photos or talk about some past events from Paris, or I might share some crappy outfits I photographed this year and didn't get around to posting at the time.  We'll see...

But for today, some shots from the plane window as there was a rather spectacular sunset as I was leaving Paris...

If you squint, you can see the Eiffel Tower - it's the pointy thing just off-centre

That's better - my camera rocks

Clouds - although it looks like ocean