a little concerned she might be about to lose a toenail.

Picking up where I left off - I did manage to open a bank account after all of that, AND I did it in French. Yay me!

I spent the weekend with Ellie and her sister Margot. We went for a big walk from the Bastille, past the Hotel de Ville, via Notre Dame, up the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomph. We also climbed (so to speak...in a lift) the Eiffel Tower (pretty cool, but a lot of waiting around for a foggy cold day) and went up to Montmartre and Sacre Coeur. It was nice to hang out with someone from home, and see a few of the tourist sites that I hadn't yet made it to.


Yesterday I used this time to go out to the Vallee, which is like the Paris equivalent of Harbour Town. It cost about 6 coffees to get out there on the train but I went becuase they have a Camper outlet shop. It turned out to be quite the letdown, but it was still nice to wander around and look at pretty things that are still way out of my price ranger (discount Chanel is still many many espressos). On the way back I went to H&M again. I am getting so predictable.

In the evening I had a spontaneous picnic with my Adelaide friend Phil, and then we went to an organ concert in a beautiful old church (maybe even a little cathedral). I don't know the name of the piece, but it was a work by Messiaen written specifically for that particular instrument. It was pretty incredible, and the acoustics were amazing.

Today I went for a run, had lunch with a friend of a friend (protein, yum), and then went to check out the Bon Marche, which was a bit of a letdown. I thought it was like a massive posh supermarket (interesting) but it turns out it's just a massive post department store (not so interesting - seen it before - can't afford it). But they do have a nice wool section - not that I could find what I was looking for becuase it turns out that conversations about pattern substitution are beyond my capability at the moment. I also stubbed my little toe worse than I have ever before in my life and my whole toe has gone black.

I think that is all for this week so far.

Oh no it's not. I discovered that there is a Marriage Freres near me which is a super famous fancy pants French tea house. Right after I had decided that I would try to rein in the spending. That was a resultion which thus lasted for not a very long time. I bought the minimum quantity of a fragranced green tea ('Provence') that the nice man recommended and I haven't even tried it yet (becuase I need to buy a teapot or a teaball...probably the latter - as much as I miss my teapot they're not the most practical of travelling items) and it's making my bedroom smell delicious. Next time I'm feeling like a treat, I think I will buy one of their little tea spoons - they're so cute.

My most happiest thing (can't put it better I'm afraid) this week was that I went to a local brocante (street antique market) and bought some old woden movable type 'E's. Becuase they are French lots of them have accents, and they're all different fonts and I love love love them. I'm thinking I'd like to collect more, but it's such a nice compact, elegant little bunch at the moment that I'm hesitant to tinker with it.