It’s been a few weeks but I thought I’d scribble a few words about my birthday. Scribble. What's what proper writers say isn’t it? Oh I’m a scribbler. I think they do anyways. Maybe it was a joke I heard someone say once.
The pen is mightier than the sword! And a lot easier to write with.
That was on a poster in the window of the waterstones on my university campus and it made me chuckle every time.
So yeah, my birthday. It was very exciting cos my lovely boyfriend surprised me and whisked me away to gay paree! It was meant to be a surprise, but actually he showed me a text someone sent him that said, “have fun in paris” a week before. It was still a surprise of course. And I was glad cos then I had a week to prepare and also scrounge spending money and buy a “paris jumper”. And plan outfits of course.
So off we went on the Eurostar after spending days checking the eurostar website obsessively wondering if we’d actually make it. This was when there was snow you see. Remember that? Remember the snow? I think it’s coming back you know this weekend. Just in time for TRAVEL CHAOS FOR CHISTMAS!!!!!
SO off we went. We got there early and got on a train no problemo but the train was really packed and everyone was stressing out and going excuse me that’s my seat. And I didn’t have time to go and buy mini cavas and breakfast to pretend we were in 1st class. But you know, we were ON.
And our seats were on a fourseys. So we had another couple facing us. And they had an ipad and 2 blackberries and an iphone and she was wearing a lot of beige and had blonde strawlike hair and he had messy hair and was a bit fat and had a jumper on WITH NOTHING UNDERNEATH!! I hate that. and they were really posh and murmuring and he got a call on his blackberry that went something like this:
"hallo? Oh hi. Did the team make it in OK? Guffaw. Are they talking about going out last night or are they pretending nothing happened? Chortle. Yeah, I got in about 1am. Sozzled, mate. We’re on the train it’s fine. Yah. Yah. It was a good night wasn’t it? Not as good as Vegas though eh? Ridivulous time. No. so who’s in? is Jono in? why aren’t they in? What about Marko? ok I'll text you their numbers. It’s unacceptable. It’s 8.30. they should be in. ok. Ok. Right. Look just hire him, ok? Get it done.”
Me and the boy were texting each other about their awfulness and laughing and tweeting and there was a lot of camaraderie there but then he fell asleep and we went through a long tunnel and when we came out the other wise we were all blinking and stuff and then my phone texted me about going abroad and the rates and stuff. wow I thought. We’re headed to France and it just KNEW! It’s psychic. But then I realised that massive tunnel must have been the channel tunnel. I went “oh! Are we in France?” and the awful man said yes. and then he started chatting to me about Paris and they’ve been there before and go here and here and then they were telling me about all their holidays. They went to Thailand twice in the last 2 years. They went to Egypt this year. She went travelling to Nepal when she was younger with her sister. He hates germs. They live in Blackheath. They have 4 HD tellies and 2 mac computers. And a non mac computer. But aren’t macs easy to use? Their hotel is on the Champs Elysee. He wants a 3d telly now. They work long hours and he can’t cook. And so on.
The boy woke up and you could tell he was positively livid. The camaraderie was over. I was one of them.
He kept pretending to go back to sleep but I KNEW.
When we got to Paris we said goodbye and I hoped I’d never run into them again. If we’d seen them again in Paris we’d have had to go oh hello! How are you and pretend we liked each other.
So anyways here are some things I noticed about Paris:
1. They have really good street signs on every junction so you always know what road you're on. In England you have to walk right down the other end sometimes and there still might not be one.
2. It’s not as pricey as everyone says. Everyone said, oh it’s 8 quid for a diet coke. Yeah right. Only if you go to a café opposite the Eiffel tower or something. Go down a backstreet and have one there.
3. The wine is cheap as chips and NEVER TASTES BAD. It was incredible. That’s unless you accidentally order one for 35 Euros. Don’t do that. It tasted nice, but the one that was a fiver tasted better.
4. They're not even rude. I thought everyone was really friendly and understanding about my lack of French vocab.
5. They LOVE chemists. There are about 6 on every street.
6. The streets are really quiet, almost no cars around and no traffic. Weird.
7. The shop owners don’t care about their leccy bills cos they leave the lights on all night.
8. They like balconies.
And there you have it. My outfits looked really good too if I don’t say so myself. But cos I got a video camera for my birthday there are almost no photos. I'll have to set up a you tube channel so everyone can watch me pretending to be an American Davina mccall doing a feature about the Eiffel tower. I'm sure they can't wait; they really enjoyed all those videos of me and Hen pretending to be Amsterdam tour guides. And billy Connelly. And JK Rowling. And pretending we’re on wife swap.
