Paris - Journée 1

Travellers' stories are always the most interesting ones and so I'm not to blame for keeping my blog only up to date when travelling or about to do so. As my latest journey somewhat doesn't fit within the China-range of my usual blog, I've decided to transform this old one from a book blog into a travel blog. Hope you'll enjoy it!

So we'll start with the first day of a trip d'une Allemande (qui confond toujours le français avec le chinois) à Paris ...

With a tiny little delay of only one hour and 20 minutes (bomb warning between Ulm and Stuttgart - live coverage on FB) I arrived at Gare de l'Est this noon, where my patient flat mate was still waiting for me (just kidding - of course I told him in advance that I'd arrive late. Honestly, what do you think of me??). The flat is really part of Little Africa and there are some streets I being a woman would not walk through on my own, but besides living in this quarter (18. arrondissement) is quite inspiring. As a special welcome I was greeted by a colorful demonstration parade of sans-papiers (illegal immigrants) - if my flat mate hadn't told me I'd really have thought it to be some late version of carnival. The flat itself is chaotic, but rather clean and I'll be definitely able to call it home for the next six weeks (watch the countdown!)
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After I had settled in, J took me for an outing with his brother, his brother's wife and his cousin - pour profiter de la bonne journée. So we spent a really French evening: first we watched the crowd around Centre Pompidou while eating some flower ice-cream (okay, it really was Italian ice-cream advertised in English, but yummie nonetheless). The scoops are called parfums here which I personally find rather interesting. Then we went for a free view of the skyline up on the roof of Centre Pompidou - you just have to tell the guy on the left that you want to visit the restaurant up there and he'll give you a piece of paper you can use as a ticket. Superb!

After a walk over the Ile St Louis, we got some food in a small épicerie and had a picknick at the bank of the Seine. Obviously French people are fed up with their delicious baguette because we had American sandwich toast instead, but otherwise it was a very French thing to do and great fun, too. And last but not least we hit one of the open-air dance floors along the Seine for a few steps of Salsa (I'll spare you any videos, but a Salsa class is definitely one of my top priorities once I'm back to Munich).

Well, it doesn't sound like much, but I really enjoyed myself and it looks as though I've get to know some French life style outside the lab, too! And now, considering that I woke up at 4 am today, you might excuse me ...*zzz*

All the photos ...