Got to Paris at about 1:45 on Sunday afternoon, Paris time. Had to grab my bags and such from the airport, then figure out where the hell I was going to catch the RER into town to Gare du Nord. Wasn’t that difficult, really. I even got a discount on fare because I looked under 26 years old! It was fantastic. From Gare du Nord I was quite happy that I had a map as I got a little turned around. Thankfully my navigation skills are generally pretty good, and was able to find A’s place in very little time at all. Dumped my stuff at A’s place and contemplated heading into town to do something or see something, but wasn’t sure what B and P would want to see or do over the next couple of days, so played it safe, and stayed at A’s. That was an experience in itself. The apartment is actually her parents’, but is so quintessentially Parisian… It’s sort of U-shaped around a central courtyard, and when you’re standing in the hallway on one side, you can see into the hallway on the other from the windows across the courtyard. I was in awe – the stairs up to her place (on the 3rd/4th floor depending on which English you speak) were marble-y, and the door looked like something out of a movie set in Georgian times (yes, I know Georgian is an English reference, but I study English history… what do you want from me?). It’s white… bright white… and has plasterwork on the ceiling in the sitting rooms… the kitchen is 20th century IKEA, sure, but other than that…

So I sat at A’s and read for a while, and then watched the England game (which England won), and then read some more until P and B arrived. We went for dinner at a Quick (think French version of McDonald’s, as it was late and everyone was tired).

Next morning was pretty laid back. We eventually made our way down to the Ile de la Cité to see Cathérale Notre-Dame. Last time both B and I were in the city it was covered in scaffolding… and finally, it wasn’t! Yay! So I got to take all sorts of pics of the west end that I missed last time due to bright green scaffolding. We then moved on to the Musée National du Moyen Age, where there are all sorts of great medieval artefacts and furniture and the like. It is also home to the tapestry series “La dame à la Licorne”, which is absolutely beautiful and if I had thousands of dollars to spare I’d by replicas and decorate my home around them. As it stands, I bought postcards that I can frame when I get home to Canada. Seriously. A cushion cover for a standard sofa-size cushion was 33 euros (that is, about 55 dollars Canadian!). And the replicas go for about that price everywhere, so if you want an actual hanging, you’re looking at about a thousand bucks. Oy. But I digress.

From there we went and had lunch… and then we did the Paris for Tourists walk… we started at the Palais du Louvre, then wandered through to the pyramids by Pei (I honestly don’t remember them from last time, though they must have been there…), past the Arc du Triomphe du Carousel du Louvre, past the obelisk, down the Champs Elysées, to the Place de la Concorde, where we then got to see the Arc du Triomphe proper. We then copped out and went home for a bit. B is only about my mom's age, but she’s got health problems like you wouldn’t believe – severe sleep apnea, diabetes… probably doesn’t help that she’s a fair bit overweight. Makes quite a bit more determined to try and keep it up with the exercising. She did really well, considering that I think she’s in worse health than my grandma! But we sat for a bit and gave B time to rest, time for P to catch up with A… and then went up to Montmartre and the Basilique Sacre-Coeur. The views from Montmartre are fantastic. We had dinner there (by this time it was getting quite late), then it was home for tea, and off to bed.

Next morning we needed to do some shopping. P’s in the process of opening up a guest house down in Toulouse and needed to get some small things for it (teapot, soap dish) and needed to get some shoes for her daughter. While she was doing the latter, I hit a pharmacy. Parisians SMOKE. Like you wouldn’t believe. Honest. It’s disgusting. You can’t walk down the street without inhaling a LOT of second-hand smoke, and smoking is permitted in every bar and café, and you don’t think twice about lighting up in most places. I’m blaming this bit of my cold on that – I had an extremely scratchy throat that degenerated during the rest of the day until towards evening I couldn’t speak in anything more than a whispery croak. Thank god for Strepsils.

We then wandered down to the Marais, to Place des Vosges (posh area of Paris in the 1700s, still really posh), past the Centre Pompidou (not necessarily an ugly building, but it looks WRONG in its setting), found someplace to eat lunch, and then wandered off to the catacombs. I’d not been, B hadn’t been… and it was fantastic. It was awesome in the most literal possible sense of the word. Literally millions of Parisians are now interred there. It’s a consecrated space, a massive ossuary. And it was necessary. There were a bunch of Americans (about my age or slightly younger) down there at the same time we were, going on about how ‘gross’ it was and how ‘morbid’ the French had to have been to come up with something like that. I felt like turning around to them and going “no, what was gross was the Parisian cemeteries at the end of the 18th century. You couldn’t dig a new grave without disturbing an old one, disease was rife, and quite frankly there was no other way of solving the problem this respectfully. This isn’t just some tourist attraction. It’s a sacred space.”

We then returned to the apartment. Poor B. She got stuck with me and P on this trip. P and I watched the end of the Brazil-Ghana game (which, predictably, Brazil won), did a bit of reading (P, after all, was partly on this trip to get some necessary evils done – she owns two apartments in Paris and needed to see her tenants about some proposed remodelling), and then headed out to the Marais again to find someplace for dinner. Someplace, that is, with a big screen TV. Wasn’t hard. Ended up in an Italian restaurant, watching France take on Spain. For 90 minutes, B got very little conversation out of P and myself. France wasn’t supposed to win, but they did. And I couldn’t even cheer along! My voice was totally gone. Disturbing, I tell you. The city was celebrating that night. Cars honking, flags waving… Even the cops got in on the celebration. It was great. At one point B asked what they’d do if they won the final. Lord, that’d be a street party of enormous proportions. But seriously, I’d not experienced anything like it since ’98, when I was in London and France won the cup. It was fantastic. The atmosphere was incredible.

Unfortunately Wednesday morning was pretty uneventful, occupied mostly with packing and the train ride to the airport. I had to say goodbye to B and P on the train, as they had to continue on to a different terminal, which was sad… and then I flew home. I've not done much since.

Further photos can be found at:
http://www.kodakgallery.co.uk/I.jsp?c=jb6f3x1.c09x8zct&x=0&y=-kphmbr

Enjoy!

I'd just written a great post about Paris and now it's gone.

Please put up with my while I swear for a few minutes, and then get on with writing another great post about Paris.

The glorious Mrs Glyde has sent me some beautiful photos of summer past...

And I can't resist sharing one of them.

#1 - Meet me and Muffin. Muffin being one of the feral cats at the park that we quasi-tamed. This would be one of the better shots of me in recent years.














She also sent me a great photo of the movie set i worked on (see September archives), but I'm still not sure if I'm allowed to post it, given that the hype for the movie is only just getting underway.

I really have nothing else to say but 'adieu'. See you on Wednesday or Thursday.

I Am Reading
No change since last post

I won't ask you which you want first, because, for my first item, it is the same piece of news.

Brazil is back. And Ronaldo's back with them.

They have finally played a game in this cup with the style and ass-kicking skill for which they are known. Ronaldo may not have been great, but he at least _did_ something for the team this time around.

This is great if you are, like me, a fan of Brazil. This is bad if you are, like me, also a fan of anyone else that might possibly end up playing a game against them. England and Brazil will need to both make it to the semi-finals before that happens (god willing), and then I will be faced with a massive dilemma.



The good news: My throat issues would seem to be a virus connected to the sinusitis that I had a week and a bit ago.

The bad news: I miss the ENTIRE group of 16 whilst I am in Paris. What the fuck is up with that. Why the hell did I not go with a mobile provider that has roaming? Why does my phone give me 5p/minute calls to Canada, but not the ability to recieve text messages from FIFA while in France? I'm seriously thinking of buying a French SIM card whilst there just to keep up. For serious. Really. I'm not kidding.

The good news: My supervisor didn't rip the bits of my thesis that I'd handed in to shreds.

The bad news: I still have 14000 words to write.

The bad news: I need to clean my room.

The good news: I somehow still feel fairly positive about life, the universe, and everything.

I Am Reading:
Academically: The Construction of Martyrdom in the English Catholic Community, 1535-1603 (Anne Dillon)
For Fun: The Scarlet Letter
Pile of Books on my Windowsill: 6. 1 read, 3 unread, 2 half-read.

So England didn't win.

But they drew, which is good enough that they don't face Germany in the next round.

Hm.

Fuckin' hell, they need to step it up.

(oh, and have I mentioned that after 90 minutes and a few pints my vocabulary goes straight into the toilet?)

My apologies for not having updated in what is, for me, quite some time. There are a few things of note.

1. I feel like I have something stuck in my throat. It's not blocking my airway or anything, or else I'd be choking or generally having trouble breathing. But it's there, and no matter how much I finger sweep, I'm not finding anything. I've done just about everything possible short of having someone ELSE dig in my throat or make myself vomit (which is harder than it sounds, I can control my gag reflex fairly well). It's really bloody annoying. I may actually end up going to the doctor in a couple of days if this doesn't go away - it's been a few days now.

2. I battled sinusitis, and won! Yay me!

3. Going to watch more football tonight with the same person that prompted the comments below. Pray for me. Please. And it would be nice if England could pull off a win. Pray for that too, eh?

4. I'm slightly burnt out. I spent about 5 hours in the library today and got next to nothing done. I'm getting sick of it, and need to find somewhere else to work. I'm thinking the coffee place next to the library. It could be deadly on the wallet, but perhaps more conducive to work

5. I've heard that my friend T is coming to visit not this weekend coming up but the weekend after! She's just finished her dissertation down at Cambridge, and we've been meaning to visit each other since the beginning of the year - means I'll have to clean my room. Hm....

6. I leave for Paris on Sunday! How cool is that?! Perhaps that will revitalize my work ethic.

I watched football with one of my classmates this evening (England vs. Trinidad and Tobago, England finally getting their shit together in the last 10 minutes and pulling off a 2-0 win (that would have been 2-1 if whatshisname hadn't been offside)). Nope, not the brown-eyed boy. One of the other ones. The ones that have confessed their complete and utter indifference to football. And as a result of this, I have come up with the following.

I. Thou shalt not invite thyself to the football, then spend the entire game whining that thou art bored. You chose to watch it. Suck it up.

II. Thou shalt not interrupt me when I'm texting my friends in the UK and Canada that _DO_ care about the football and with whom I can actually discuss the unfairness of the foul committed on/by player X and other such important matters.

III. Thou shalt not accuse the players of being shit when thou dost not fully understand the game. That privilege shall be reserved for those of us who know and understand the offside rule and what constitutes a foul and other 'obscure' trivia.

IV. Thou shalt not whine when thy favourite player gets subbed off - especially if he's only your favourite because you think he's hot.

V. Thou shalt listen to me denigrate a player one instant, then laud him to the skies the next (*coughcrouchcough*) without commenting on my lack of steadfastness.

VI. Thou shalt not interrupt me to discuss players' appearances. At least not when the ball is anywhere near a net. During stoppages in play, however, this is acceptable (hey, I'm a straight female, what do you want from me?).

VII. Thou shalt not tell me that the team that won did not deserve to win. Granted, they might have played like crap for MOST of the game, but in the end, they DID manage to score those goals. Although there has been the odd exception to this rule (*coughenglandparaguaycough*).

VIII. Thou art allowed to ask questions regarding the workings of the game - the rules, why X got a free kick, etc. If, however, you have to ask the same question more than twice in a game, I reserve the right to stop answering and perhaps even make wicked fun of you for your lack of comprehension.

IX. Thou shalt not call the celebrations of all the others watching the game "silly". Maybe you feel no national pride, but I'm betting a lot of others in the room damn well do. This especially applies when you are talking about MY reaction, which was quite minimal when compared to others. You are, however, allowed to point out my potty mouth, as I'm well aware that over the course of the 90 minutes my language goes straight into the toilet and am endeavouring to remedy that problem.

X. Thou shalt not say the players are "doing nothing". I'd like to see you out there for 90 minutes, keeping the ball mostly in your opponent's end. If you must use this statement, please qualify (ie: "They're doing nothing! Their defense is totally missing!" or... "There's absolutely no offense out there!" or... "they're so not covering player X"). The players are NOT inactive.

XI. Thou shalt not whinge about the dramatics of the sport. Yes, all football players take a drama course called "Faking injuries 101" in order to make fouls look particularly deadly and convincing. It's part of the game. It just is. Deal with it.


Anyone else out there have any suggestions to add to the list of commandments?

**Edit - sorry, forgot this bit. Got wrapped up in my self-righteous indignation**
I Am Reading
Academically: A Briefe Treatise concerning the burnynge of Bucer and Phagius at Cambrydge in the time of Queen Mary with theyr restitution in the time of our most gracious soverayne Lady that nowe is. (Arthur Golding, 1562. Bucer and Phagius were already dead... they exhumed their corpses to burn them!)
For Fun: What is this fun of which you speak? I seriously haven't touched a non-school book in about a week now.
Pile of Books on my Windowsill: 9. 1 read, 6 unread, 2 half-read

I know I borrowed the title from Delly Bean, but I couldn't think of a better one.

At 8 p.m. on Sunday I watched Angola take on Portugal over in the common room. It was fun. The game was well played.

But my heart was elsewhere. At that point, it was 1 p.m. back home in Alberta, time for the weekly Sunday hymn sing at Fort Edmonton Park.

Time to say goodbye to Bill.

And I couldn't be there.

I've heard it was lovely. Odd, but lovely - the cast of characters has, of course, changed somewhat since last summer.

It turns out I'm going to wax poetic about Bill, after all, because I think he deserves it.

Bill drove us nuts at times. What 80-something year-old doesn't? They're fixed in their ways, have a preference for certain things to be done in a certain way, feel that because they've always done something they should continue to do it... and although it drives us nuts, they've lived for long enough, they might not have that much time left, so we let them do it without complaining too bitterly.

But Bill can probably best be described through an anecdote.

I don't feel that I got to know him all that well, but we shared music as a bond. All last summer I played the organ at hymn sing - being the only trained pianist on the street, the skill was easily transferred onto the pump organ. Mr. Spaans would lead the singing, although there were a couple of occasions on which he was absent and I had to do that as well. Never have my years of vocal training served me better... Bill had been the organist in the past, so I would often hand over the keyboard to him to play a few hymns each week (arthritis was slowly getting the better of his hands), stand behind him, and join in the singing.

My parents visited the park one day last summer. I think it might have been Highland Gathering... in fact, I'm sure it was. But they spent a lot of time chatting to "a lovely older gentleman in the church." Bill, of course. When they had explained that they were my parents, apparently the praise for me and my musical talent couldn't stop flowing. I've always hated hearing myself praised, and so at the time I was embarrassed.

I guess what threw me for a loop (see last post) on hearing that Bill had passed away was regret. Regret that I'd never thanked him for saying such nice things. Regret that I hadn't listened more carefully to his stories as we sat in Ottewell. Regret that I hadn't gotten to know him better. Regret that I'd taken for granted the closest thing I've had to a grandfather in years (one of mine died before I was born, the other when I was 9, and we never lived close to him, so I didn't see him much). As Kevin said, he loved us all, and I regret that I didn't realize that he was, more or less, a grandfather-figure to all of us, and not just to those with whom he was particularly close (like Stop and Go, or Delly Bean).

And then there was the regret that I couldn't be there on Sunday. I couldn't play the organ or sing one last time, knowing he'd enjoyed it so much. I've never really had a personal reason to use my talents and the one time I did, I couldn't be there.

isn't it, that I spend my days reading account after account after account of a person being horribly killed at the hands of official justice, and yet the news of the death of an 80-something year-old former co-worker who's been in ill health recently can throw me for a loop.

I could wax philosophic about all the things that made Bill so amazing, but it would be rather pointless, wouldn't it?

Take care, Bill.

Woohoo!

My fantasy footie team, after 2 matches, is # 51,946 on the McDonalds/FIFA competition. Considering they have more than 420,000 entries from all over the world, I'm actually rather impressed with myself.

Both games yesterday were well-fought, and it's always nice when the underdog wins (yay Ecuador!).

I'm still battling my sinus issues. I may have to make a doctor's appointment for early next week if this doesn't resolve itself. I can deal with the sniffles, it's the killer headaches that are driving me absolutely nuts. I actually had to leave the library early on Monday and Tuesday, my head hurt that much. And I was in bed by 10 both days. After having napped for several hours after getting home. Although now that I've loaded up on the decongestants, the headaches aren't so bad (go figure!).

I have about 4500 words of a dissertation written. Only 15,500 to go! And I'm getting slightly more confident that as I continue to work on the said dissertation it will just get easier and easier... until the last few hundred words. They're never easy. Although if it's only a matter of a few hundred words, I might hand it in short, so long as the content is all right.

I'm going to Paris for a few days at the end of the month. Very excited, as the last time I was in Paris I was jet-lagged, tired, sick of the people I was travelling with, and feeling like they'd brought me along only to haggle with the ticket salespeople (seriously, my most vivid memory of that time, just under 8 years ago now, was chatting with the ticket lady to figure out the cheapest way to get a bunch of teenagers and a couple of adults out to Versailles - I was the only one that spoke fluent French. My other most vivid memory of Europe was being hit on by drunk army guys on the trains in Scotland. Not the architecture, not the pretty sites/sights, not the languages or the scenery, but the ticket lady in some train station in Paris and drunk Scottish guys... although the Scottish guys were pretty cute...). Hopefully I'll get some good pictures and get to spend some time doing what _I_ want (selfish of me, I know, but that's why I like travelling quasi-alone with few set plans beyond what flights I'm booked onto and where I'm staying at night).

Am off to the pub in a few hours to watch the England-Paraguay game. I had to find a Canadian to go to the pub with. And ironically as I watched the games yesterday, my company was an American. What is up with that? Seriously?!

I Am Reading
Screw reading! There's football on! (Ok, seriously, it's Bellamy's "Criminal Law and Society in Late Medieval and Tudor England", "The Scarlet Letter", and I can't be bothered counting the books on my windowsill at the moment).

Yup, that'd be me. In my ongoing quest to figure out what the hell I want to do with my life, I've accepted a temporary volunteer position (1 day a week) at the York Minster Library helping them do a shelf check on their pre-1801 collection. Should only take a few weeks, to be quite honest, as I can probably get one bay done each 1/2 day, and there are only about 20 bays, and there are already two bays done. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I get to spend my Mondays hanging out in a medieval chapel playing with the old books. And there are some pretty intriguing ones. Especially the Latin bits. I can't think of any good ones off the top of my head, but if I do come across anything cool, I'll let you know. Especially awesome are the incunabula (pre-1500 printed books). I'll get to play with those later. And, hey, it'll look good on a CV, right?

Had lunch with the gang today. Have a feeling the brown-eyed boy is into someone else. Ah well. Such is life. *sniff, sigh*

Am rather spaced out... hay fever + allergy meds + decongestant = floaty-brained Kate

Have mangled my feet by walking into town in a pair of shoes I haven't worn in quite some time. Like, literally mangled. The entire bottoms of my feet (well, the heel bit) are one giant blister. Wandered around campus barefoot for the better part of the afternoon. The things we do for fashion.

Am trying to hold off taking more meds but the sinus issues are coming back with a vengeance. Might be time for another dose of Sudafed (it's been about 5 hours since the last...) Have tried to find local honey with little success - mostly 'cuz I haven't been into the village shop in a while, and last time I was in I noticed they had local honey... but I wasn't feeling like ass then.

Have about 3700 words of my dissertation written. All crap. Only 16300 to go!

I Am Reading
Academically: Surveiller et Punir: Naissance de la prison (Michel Foucault - it's just Discipline and Punish in the original, but there are nuances in the original that you miss in the translation...)
For Fun: Still the Scarlet Letter
Pile of Books on my Windowsill: 8. 1 read, 1 half-read, 6 unread

Only in blog-land can I whine about red tape and have it cut for me within a couple of days.

Not that I think anyone at the IND is actually reading my blog, I just think there's something slightly cosmic about the fact that only a couple of days after I wrote a fairly major rant about not having my passport, the IND sees fit to send it back to me.

Today has been fairly uneventful. Wandered into town to run some errands (fathers day card, contact lens solution, dress for dinner in a couple of weeks), watched the England-Jamaica friendly at the White Swan (good times, although rather like watching the English spear the poor little Jamaican fish in the little barrel that is a German soccer pitch - final score was 6-0), ate at McDonalds for the first time in a few years (nope, hasn't gotten any better...) and walked home, checked the mail, and, voilà, my passport! Woohoo! Time to email P and see about getting myself to France for a weekend! Score! Anyone wanna come? Seriously. If you can make it to London Gatwick to join me on an easyjet flight to Toulouse...

Ciao for now!

I Am Reading
Academically: The Sicke Mans Salve (Thomas Becon, 1568)
For Fun: The Scarlet Letter (Nathanial Hawthorne)
Pile of Books on my Windowsill: 11. 3 read, 1 half-read, 7 unread.