Spain will have to wait a bit longer. My memory is playing tricks on me. Let me catch up what’s been happening here in Paris during Rogers sejourn. Last week included:

An epic walk around the 5th arrondisement that included a visit to Notre Dame (technically the 4th, but it was on our way) where we caught half a mass and sat obediantly heads bowed taking in the atmosphere of the diligent and the just. We visited all the chapels around the edge, something I’ve never spent the time doing before and read all the inscriptions before heading back outside into the freshness. Continuing we visited the Pantheon where the crypts of Voltaire & Rousseau amongst 71 others are housed – as well as the most amazing exhibition called Les Justes de France on those French men & women that risked their lives for Jews during the second world war. We also visited the market street, rue Mouffetard, the Grande Mosque of Paris and the Jardin du Plantes where we saw real live wallabies jumping about as part of the zoo that is housed there. It was a lovely walk on a lovely day with a stop at the Cafe de la Nouvelle Mairie for a lovely simple lunch.

One of the highlights (for me at least) was the meal at Brasserie Wepler at Place de Clichy. A huge old fashioned brasserie that specialises in seafood. We took Roger along with some old friends of mine for a feast fit for kings. I chose a lobster by weight, the first time I saw it it was brought to me still squirming about trying to grab hold of anything in it’s path, the next viewing was cooked whole on my plate, and finally in front of me, the waiter expertly took it all out of it’s shell for me, arranged it with some vegetables, a sauce meuniere and a bernaise sauce and placed it in front of me where I happily spent the next 90 minutes sucking and cracking and enjoying. Roger, Ahmed, Valerie and Michelle went ahead and ordered the most giant platter of seafood on ice to share. There were prawns (big ones, little ones, tiger ones, sand ones, mud ones), oysters of all sizes, mussels, sea urchins, clams, sea snails, crab, and at least another 3 or 4 slimy wet things I would hesitate to name…. Bottle and bottle of Alsacien white wine and the evening ended up back at Ahmeds bar at the bottom of the Sacre Coeur drinking digestifs and shooting the breeze on all manner of topics.

The next day after spending 4 hours at the prefecture, where I still didn’t get my carte sejour(!) Roger and I went on a walk through the Northern End of the third arrondisement. It’s a grittier part of Paris, and perfect for a walk of discovery after a big night out. We discovered together the amazing Passage Brady full of Pakistani and Indian restaurants, a few streets full of ‘ladies of the night’ who are not afraid of working during daylight hours(or showing their not so lovely bodies to passing tourists), a lovely artsy, grassroots kind of street full of pricey french local bistros and a cafe that’s decked out as an apartment where we sat and caught up on the local news reading the free press and drinking hot chocolates while the sun went down.

Friday we took a walk in the 13th arrondisement. Famous for Chinatown, we were headed to an unknown quartier for us called the Butte aux Cailles. We started by the market on Auguste Blanqui which was full of the usual uber fresh produce as well as clothes and shoes and lots of other bits & pieces, then wandered around the quartier, along passage Barrault where the houses resembled something like a small village in the Loire not the steamy high rise quartier of the 13eme arrondisement. We came upon a crest with a selection of good restaurants and food shops and then the magical street of Villa Daviel full of single home houses like an Alsacien village. The end of the day, with icy winds blowing, had us traipsing up and down the streets of chinatown where like all the other chinatowns in the world all the signs are in Chinese, the inhabitants are Chinese and all the restaurants are Chinese, except one – where we had lunch, Cafe Biarritz. The Buttes aux Cailles area was lovely, and in the early evening we took ourselves along to the nocturnal opening of the Louvre. From 6pm until 9.45pm I am allowed to bring a guest to the Louvre free of charge. Since Roger has never been to the Louvre, and he has been to France at least 5 or 6 times previously (!) we made it a ‘Must Do’. At least the Mona Lisa and the Venus di Milo have to be viewed when you visit the Louvre for the first time. So we did. We also managed to continue the Islam theme after Seville and visit the Art d’Islam pavilion full of amazing carpets and bowls and items carved with the signature islamic style before heading off to the Comptoir du Gastronomie on the rue Montmartre for another full on, full fat, full taste, full texture meal. Perfect.

Add to all this all the work Roger did, building and painting a stand for my printer, re-assembling the wardrobe that he painted the previous week, wallpapering the interior doors of said wardrobe, fixing our laundry step so I don’t fall over backwards and break my neck, fixing a painting onto our angled walls (we’re on the top floor) and installing a doorbell just in case someone comes to whisk me off for a long lazy lunch at an infamous Brasserie(!) or local cafe, either of which I would hate to miss ’cause I couldn’t hear the door bell chime, it was a pretty full on week.

Not to end there though… Saturday morning bright and early we were off to the Marche aux Puces in St Ouen. We got lost in all the allees from about 10am till 1pm looking for some special door handles for our new look wardrobe. We left disappointed, only to find the perfect handles imported from a flea market in India (by the look of them) in the Passage du Grand Cerf right here in the 2eme, not two streets away from where we live.

It was a busy week, we managed to fit in quite a bit, and with any luck we’ll take it a bit easier this week. I’ve come down with a flu so I’ve been moping around the house today, Roger had a bout of bad luck on Saturday not feeling so good and today he’s been busy installing all our gorgeous new handles. With only a couple of days left we have big plans for some big walks around some of the typical Paris scenes, tomorrow is Montmarte followed by the 8th and 16the arrondisements on Wednesday.