petite anglaise

Well it’s “nice week” chez scaryduck and it has inspired me to (attempt to) sing the praises of things I love about Paris today. Looking back over the archives, many of my posts have been rants so far – so it is only fair. After all, I ‘m the one who chose to live here. Before laying eyes on the Frog. I must have had reasons?

*racks brains*

Here goes…

1. I confess I get a thrill out of the dddrrrriiiinnng noise that my navigo metro pass makes when I go through the ticketless turnstile without removing it from my bag. Occasionally the little green arrows light up without the noise sounding and I am left feeling very cheated indeed.

2. The sublime view from my balcony, across the rooftops of Paris. You should be able to see the glorified pylon that is the Eiffel Tower, but it is hidden behind an inconsiderate block of flats across the road. But I spy with my little eye Notre Dame cathedral and the Tour Montparnasse, and those funny coloured tubes on the inside out Pompidou centre.

3. Crèpes sold by street vendors in paper cones – with Nutella dripping out of the bottom, pains au chocolat from the bakers when they are warm and the chocolate is runny. Miam, as a French person would say.

4. The Marais: a backdrop of stately, ancient hôtels particuliers where you can imagine Dangerous Liaisons being played out by aristocrats in powdered wigs. And all that inaccessible modern day male eye candy.

5. Frequenting the kind of cinema that doesn’t sell popcorn and where people have been known to clap and cheer at the end of a particularly good film.

Five things. Not a bad start, but I don’t think I could keep it up all week…

I just noticed a sign on the door of my local Monoprix (urban supermarket chain – French version of Woolworths or Walmart) reminding the public that they are not permitted to enter the shop on roller skates.

Personally I wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing*, but you’d be surprised how many Parisians do don rollerblades and all kinds of protective padding and take to the streets. I imagine they think they look cool. *Grudgingly* I suppose some of the more experienced rollerbladers do – as they glide nonchalantly in and out of traffic, hitching a ride on the back of a bus when they fancy a rest. A guy even grabbed the back of the Frog’s Vespa once. The Frog thought at first that it was my weight slowing him down.

Statistically though, you are more likely to see novices wobbling along the pavement who haven’t yet mastered the art of stopping by doing that nifty little semicircular manoeuvre, and desperately trying to come to a halt at a busy road where there is nothing to grab on to but a pedestrian like myself. I have reluctantly saved several lives this way.

While I am touching on the subject of Parisian pavements and their hazards, let me indulge my poo fixation pause for a moment to reflect on how delightful it must be to clean a crotte off those fancy blades with lots of little wheels on.

The most astonishing spectacle is the rollerblading meet which takes place on Friday evenings, assembling up to 15,000 people for a 30km skate through the streets of the capital. I have on several occasions been unable to cross the road for 15 minutes as they cruised past at a leisurely pace. It’s amusing to watch for about a minute, but I strongly advocate a sneaky beer to pass the time if you are nowhere near a metro station.

My (ahem) “research” for this post also yielded the following: if you are located in Nice you too can join Nice Roller Attitude. Another fine example of the French using the English language in a (vain) attempt to sound cool.

*although I did own some rollerboots when I was ten. I thought they were very fetching indeed: in yellow, blue and red suede with yellow wheels and a stopper thingy at the front. Which I needed, because I must confess I couldn’t execute that fancy stopping manoeuvre either.