Pariisi, vol 1

Paris was… overwhelming. Just as always. The moment I got up from the metro at Étienne Marcel I felt very much alive. I just can’t get enough of that city ! And at the same time it intimidates me with its elegance and arrogance. In the middle of all those nonchalantly chic Parisians I tend to feel even dowdier than usually and I get uncomfortably aware of my hair that sticks in all directions with no control… But then there are also those moments when I walk up and down the corridors of a metro station pretending to know exactly where I am going and for a little while I imagine being one of them. Classy and confident.

The weekend was spent in the best company imaginable. Maxime’s old friend J lives in Paris since about two years with her boyfriend and always reserves us her warmest welcome ! Also one other friend of Maxime’s and J’s, S, was there with us and we had such a good time :)

We somehow miraculously always manage to miss the lightning at the monuments in Paris (ville de lumière ?). Like this time we walked a little extra tour Friday night to see Opéra Garnier in all its glory but with no luck. Last year we actually biked all the way from Montmartre to the Eiffel tower (might not seem that much on the map but just do it once to see…) to see the new lightning show - just to find out they stop the lightning at 1 am nowadays to save electricity. Good for pandas and polar bears and global warming but we were a little disappointed…

We did catch a glimpse of Galeries Lafayette in it’s Christmas lightning and it was astonishing ! I would have liked to see the Christmas tree inside just to see if it really can be that much bigger than the one in front of Turku cathedral (how do they get it in the building ?!) but as always we did our sightseeing during night time.

(this is what it is supposed to look like !)

The weekend included a handful of restaurants and bars and some very random experiences. Friday evening we sat down for a while into this tiny little bar (all the bars I’ve ever visited in Paris are minuscule) where the DJ was having a good time in his own little universe and people (mostly Americans) seemed to be in their own living room. We had a drink and went outside - where all of a sudden we had a bucket full of freezing cold water thrown at us from upstairs. Normal…?

Apparently one of the neighbours had had enough of all the noise outside. Or then he just found it funny throwing water on people (or his apartment was flooding, who knows?). One thing is sure : people sure didn’t calm down on this. There was a party going on next to the apartment from where the water was thrown down and people down on the street started to yell up to the people in the windows who yelled back and the desperate bar tender was yelling in vain everybody to calm down. And all the time there were bucketfulls of water splashing on the street. We were laughing hysterically, at a safe distance though.

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I’ll have to come back to you tomorrow, now I’m starting to feel sleepy (I’m such a grandma, I know). I’ve spent a lazy evening, cooking braised cabbage for myself and writing this, it’s all weird having all this time. I like it :)