Paris, France (feat. Beyoncé)

I saw Beyoncé in Paris. In Paris I saw Beyoncé. I saw both Beyoncé and Paris and the more times I repeat those sentences the happier I become. 

I promise to get Beyoncé out of my system quickly and move on to the more culturally relevant aspects of my four day Parisian excursion... so I'll just quickly say that her concert was probably one of the best in human history.  I went last Thursday with my Amsterdam friend Renee and two other Kiwi kids Danielle and Maeve and all of them tearfully agreed that Bey can shake her booty and kill an a-cappella in a catsuit atop a grand piano like nobody's business. She IS Queen. Rant over.

On another royal note,  Louis XIV was also quite a lucky guy. Straight after Ren and I arrived in Paris, (bright eyed and bushy tailed at six in the morning) we dropped by the Kings Tuileries residence. Here it is still semi shrouded in morning fog.

Jardin des Tuileries. The Louvre is just out of sight, stage right.

 Next stop was a baguette breakfast on the Champs-Élysées. Bread was about all I could afford on that street. (The observant reader will spy our shopping bags on the table and realise that 'affordability' wasn't a major concern that day).

Basking in sunshine and triomphe. Have I mentioned that it was 28 degrees?!
Well it was.

My pasty Amsterdam body nearly went into shock but I had enough good sense to organise a picnic with Renee up on the sunny hills of Mont Martre.

Carousel on Mont Martre, right by the Sacre Coeur and the most aggressive bracelet selling men in the history of accessorising.

Overview of our gloriously 'french' picnic overlooking the Parisian rooftops. 

Can you feel the size of my grin as I took this happy snap? 

It was bigger than that wheel of cheese, trust me. 

The next day wasn't quite as idyllic weatherise, but that's never stopped me before. In my post Beyoncé haze I negotiated the Metro to my friend Billy's apartment (which turned out to be in the super swanky 7th arr.) and he was my tour guide for the next two days.

One of the many statues on the many bridges over the one and only Seine. Not far from Billy's place.
This marks the start of the impressively comprehensive walking tour he took me on.

Posing for a nice photo by the river- but then I saw a cat.
 These days it seems I'm always four paws and a tail away from complete distraction.

Hunting for Quasimodo at the Notre Dame...

 ...found him? Or maybe Billy found God?
Either way something profound is happening here.

Tiny snapshot of Lover's Bridge which is covered completely in padlocks and little permanent marker declarations of undying affection. 

The romantic vibe is somewhat killed once you know that they cut off the locks from time to time to remove rust and rebolster the bridge so it doesn't collapse under the weight of all that love/metal. Not so far away, and also bursting with Parisian whimsy is the famous literary dive Shakespeare and Co. 

Here we are being sneaking poetry kids in the poetry cage at the Shakespeare & Co. 

That place is an institution if there ever was one. Hemingway, James Joyce and Gertrude Stein among other famous folk have hung out in this bookshop-come-commune* for close to a century.

After soaking in literature we went and soaked in (damn expensive) caffeine and went off to a house party by the canal. Paris only has one canal - amateurs. 

The next morning I slunk off to the one tourist attraction I was dying to see - the Catacombs. It's an ossuary under Paris (in the old mines) dating back to the 18th century. The basic story stands:

1. The houses of Paris were collapsing into the over-mined, empty tunnel space below the city

2. The Parisian graveyards were overflowing and spreading all kinds of nasties around the city

so some bright (if very, very strange) chap decided to kill two birds with one stone and move all the buried skeletons into the tunnel space. What resulted was one of the most beautiful, eerie spaces in the whole world. 

! WARNING !

The next few images are of dead people (seriously).

Sorry if that's not your cup of tea.

It was silent, cold and awe-inspiring down there. I felt like I held my breath for two hours as I negotiated the crypts.

Alexander.

Me 'touching' the bones. I like this photo cause it looks like I'm less tangible/ more of a ghost than the dead. Does that sound like ridiculous Arts student drivel? Probably. But it's funny what strikes you when you go to places like this - that just turn your world upside down. 

A Five Star Francesca Rating is awarded to the Catacombs.

So as not to leave you on a morbid note, have a picture of the Eiffel Tower. What Parisian blog worth its salt doesn't include a picture of this bad boy?!

Here is the view a short walk from Billy's, outside an adorable Boulangerie (you buy baguettes and croissants at a Boulangerie...NOT lingerie as I stupidly suspected when I first heard the word). 

Ugh embarrassment.

So we stocked up on snacks and hoped back on trusty Megabus (it's only 15 euro for international travel if you're wondering why I seem to be bussing everywhere!) and drove bake up to the 'Dam. I brought Billy back to with me to reciprocate his hosting efforts and show him how the Dutch celebrate Queens Day. Stay tuned for more on that soon. Things get orange.

Bisous

*The bookshop has since changed location, but the thrill of borrowing the same books the Hemingway did in the 20s is pretty epic.