Batueax des mouches

The second to last day of freedom (that is before classes start, where I hasten to guess that I will barely see anything other than the inside of a text book and the roof of the library which I will sit staring at when I'm supposed to be looking at the inside of a text book) so SP set up a boat trip for anyone who wanted to join. We had bought a ticket for 4.30 so decided we had to time to go shopping at Chatelet - Les Halles beforehand. We caught the metro there (late, we slept in such a long time I can't even admit it to this computer screen) and arrived at Chatelet with a couple of hours to spend perusing the racks at strange stores.

Chatelet is huge. Its actually a train station but the Parisians thought 'hey, lets add a shopping mall to this already gigantic train station' and hey presto, you have the biggest mall in Paris. Its currently in stages of renovation as its in one of the oldest parts of the city and they want to be 'modern', totally un-Paris if you ask me. As long as they don't go for the inside-outside approach like they did for that of the Centre Pompidou. (I still can't look at it without wanting to go hydrosliding).

We went crazy looking in the cool shops (H and M and Zara included, it has become an obsession to visit as many of them as possible) and we definitely didn't hold back. (This is in an attempt to fit in with the insanely well dressed, thin and stylish french. Read: never going to happen.)

Unforunately we got stuck in a huge line at H and M (it was massive, the only line I've ever seen this big in NZ is at a fish'n'chip shop on a Friday night) and so we were running late. To add to this difficulty, another member of our group (who will remain nameless for fear of embarrasment) led us to catch the metro the wrong way. It had to happen sooner or later, but I was counting on a time when we weren't stretched for time and already running late. Needless to day, by the time we found out (which was actually only one stop later) we were now running VERY late.

We rushed home, were dying for a shower (it was insanely hot outside, and being in the metro was about 20 degrees hotter) but instead had Maori baths and were on our way. We only got marginally lost trying to find les bateaux (and picked up a member of my methodology group who had been hoplessly walking back and forth across the bridge for 40 minutes) and arrived 30 minutes late. In NZ, thats manageable. In France, thats deplorable. When they set a time here, they mean arrive before that time. Thats the second time I've learnt that the hard way. But we were able to get on the next boat at 6.30 so we grabbed an Orangina and sat in the shade trying to imagine we were in the Arctic to psychologically cool ourselves.

Once we were on the boat it was awesome. The sun had got cooler so we didn't fry, we met the last NZ'er at SP and her Australian friends (enough said) and we got to see all the amazing sites of Paris from water (which sometimes felt like an earthquake).

Amusingly, we had just passed the Eiffel Tower when it started to rain. And by rain, I mean rain buckets. It pissed down. More bad timing meant this was when the boat trip ended and so we were forced off the boat into the streets amidst rain, lightning and thunder. Great.

We made a run for the nearest metro station (by this stage I had ditched my shoes and was running through the streets of Paris with about 50 other SP students barefoot). By the time we arrived at the metro station we were drenched. Like, I've just been for a swim in all my clothes drenched. We even saw one guy slip on the white part of the pedestrain crossing but it was raining so hard that the gutter had filled with water and when he fell over he just landed in water. Like an incidental, spontatenous swimming session.

More to come, but I have a Buddy Program meeting at the Champ de Mars (here's hoping we don't play name games, there is a level where you can no longer repeat your name 10 times to french people that don't understand your accent and I've met it).