Here is a combined post brought to you by the letters G and T

Admiring the Paris skyline by night on the Pont des Arts:

Glor: Is that a light-house?
Tor: No, it's the Eiffel Tower.

Cool stuff Glor and Tor did down and out in London and Paris

1. Travelled on the metro and got into the Sacre Coeur half price and the Louvre for free. (By sheer cunning and intelligence!- Tor) Actually, the Louvre bit was 'cos it's free on Fidays after 6pm for under 26. (The metro and Sacre Coeur? Well, go figure.)

2. Accidentally discovered a place called Cafe Psycho, when wandering in Paris - it had notebooks masquerading as menus - that you could write in. Glor had the best hot chocolate of her life there. We chilled and lim-ded kopi facing the Jardin du Luxemborg.

3. Stumbled upon Shakespeare & Co. without even looking for it! Tor bought another Theroux there. It's the bookshop where Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy re-met in Before Sunset, a film which has informed Tor's personal philosophy ever since Tor first saw it.

4. Got chased out of the Louvre at night cos they were closing. So much nicer when it's deserted.

5. Spent an afternoon on the Rue Mouffetard in the Latin Quarter, and used many euros. It was a street lined by shops on both sides, infuriatingly, nothing was in English.-- Glor. Hello! It's France!-- Tor. Also it had the most romantic square Glor saw in Paris. The trees! The lights! The hobos!-- Tor. There were obligatory clumps of french students lim-ing kopi and plotting revolution.

6. We also witnessed a procession at night! Must have come from Notre Dame. It was headed by several alter boys and priests, with a bunch of people carrying a statue of Our Lady. The people followng that were all holding candles, singing and there was a van with a speaker on the top, with the lead priest's voice coming from it. Very cool, there must have been a few hundred people in the thing. The procession I mean, not the van. The priests looked like they were wearing lace table cloths.

7. Had chocolate fondue that burned at the bottom. Oops. It had seemed like a good idea at the time- Glor.

8. Discovered what a tarte au sucre is. It's a pastry with holes full of sugar! Yum-- Glor. Discovered what a triangle frangipane is- Tor. No, it's not a three sided flower, it's a sort of flaky, fragrant pastry. Mmmmmm. Miss Paris. Miss fruit tart wossname stuff-- Glor.

9. Almost got killed several times on account of looking in the wrong direction-- by which we mean the correct direction, of course.

10. Glor comes to the conclusion that Parisien boys are cuter than London boys. Tor wonders why Glor's hot guys all look 16.

11. Glor mistakes Eiffel tower for a lighthouse. What to do, it had a bright light coming from it, going in circles-- Glor.

12. We ice-skated at Somerset House! It's a grand old mansion on the strand that was beautifully lit with fairy lights and proper flaming torches edging the rink. We (almost) had mulled wine and mince pie. (I was carded and didn't have id. How strange)-- Tor. There was the biggest real christmas tree Glor's ever seen. Ice skating is actually really fun.

13. Glor got pissed, threw up and passed out. On a pint of cider.

Away from Tor's watchful gaze (when I was with her, Glor was all 'I hate alchohol, I don't drink man' etc, so I gave her a vodka mudshake, a drink I thought was suitably fun without being an alcopop... baby steps, remember? And she was alright. But then when I was at school, the first thing she did was get shit-faced and fall over.)

14. Glor made her first meal - pizza, with Ian. Tor: she just put the topping on top and bunged the whole thing into the oven. Wot? Glor: Woot.

15. Glor went to Camden market and saw lots of clothes she wanted there. Glor thinks goth lolita cosplayers would be very happy there. We went to cool shisha cafe and had moroccan spice tea.

16. Frequently had nice dinners in Soho, usually followed by coffee at an italian cafe that's got a hot waiter. Tor: Bar Italia, my friendly neighbourhood coffee place. And he's gay. It is Soho.

17. Tried out French laptop of Julien's at a party in King's Cross. Still not sure how to get the full stop out.

18. Glor's spent more than a total of 12 hours in various museums. Her favourite is the National Gallery at Trafalgar Square, though she thinks the Natural History museum is good too. Ogled many unfortunate pickled things in the Darwin centre there, like worms from whales' stomachs.

19. Glor got haircut in Soho by Tor's Japanese hairdresser. Looks muchly better now.

20. Saw Mary Poppins the musical! It was very good. *sings* Just a spoonful of sugar, helps the medicine go down~ It cost £25 each. Tor: ow.


The traffic in Paris is really crap. Number 1, they drive on the wrong side of the road. Number 2, there must be something wrong with the traffic lights there-- or maybe it's the cars. Whatever it is, the movement of the cars do not correspond in any way to the light signals.

Number 3, you've got to have balls, or 'avec la peche', to cross the street. (Literally-- to have a peach, don't ask about the spherical imagery) That is, you must ga ga lai and cheong! Once you hesitate, you are lost and will never actually be able to get to the other side.

Glor enjoyed the hostel we stayed at. I'll let her write about that. The only interesting thing that happened for me was that I was able to cross off one item on my list of things I should do while travelling: bring up the sheep-and-cow-fart tax in NZ in conversation with a kiwi. First off, you learn that it's a methane emissions tax. In my opinion, it doesn't matter what you call it, it's still a tax on cattle farts. As the rounds tot up though, we slowly discover that the problem was the grass the cows were eating. It was the wrong type of grass. So they started feeding them happy grass and the cows started asking for big macs.

It's a well-kept secret.