I woke today to a public holiday, every day is good in Paris, work or no work – that’s how life should be everywhere! I read a little, a colllection of French stories called “Le petit Nicolas” (c’est très bien!) and then I ran out into the world.

In République I saw a bill board advertising the sports drink ‘Powerade’. The writing was in French, and translated into English it roughly reads “Powerade contributes to the strength of the All Blacks”. So…lets look at that for a moment. A bill board written in French, in Paris…you would think they’d be backing the French team. But NO!…

I told my boss about it as I popped into work for a few hours. He said the French have great respect for the AB’s (and obviously little faith in their own team, quite sad really but hey!). I have to agree with him though as when I was working at the bar a rugby team from the south of France got down on their knees and bowed at me when I told them I was a kiwi!

This love for foreign might extends further. Recently I’ve seen lots of people wearing All Blacks jerseys, the first three times I yelled out “hey another kiwi!!!”. I restrain myself now as all I got was a funny look and a “soooriieee eiii doownet speeek Eiiinngleesh”.

Conclusion: Using this as one of many examples, a lot of French people in Paris are not proud of being French.

I won’t be at the stadium in Paris watching the All Blacks play during the world cup as the only time they’re playing in Paris is when they make it to the Quarter, Semi final and final and the tickets range from 400-2,000Euros!! (800-4,000NZD).

Small town feeling, big city:

I had to jump out of my seat the other day when I saw a couple of French lads a mate and I had been talking to the night before outside the movie theatre at Jaur̬s. How often in a big city do you bump into people again! Not only them, I turned around while talking to them and my flatmate and his girlfriend were right next to me Рtoo bizzare!

Things people have taught me in the past week:

Drinking water imediately after finishing a run is bad for you, it’s worse if the water is cold and having a can of soda is a shocker. The correct thing to do is to wait until you’ve recovered and then drink water at room temperature (!!!!!) Well I’m sorry, I doubt that’s thing on Frances cultural list but I don’t buy into it!

Solutions for life:

Before my flatmate Mathias left on his adventure to Germany (then to live in Holland) I hit him with a question. “What do you hate most in life?”. I told him that what I hated most in my life was being tired. Easy solution – get 8-9 hours of sleep each night. Mathias pondered for a few moments and then said “I hate pigeons”. I asked him to justify his statement and he told me that when he was living in his old apartment they flapped and mated outside his window and made so much noise that they drove him up the wall.

So, the opposite of tiredness is being awake, and getting sleep will sort that one out. So I said to Mathias that in order to find the solution to his life’s problem he must “find the opposite of pigeon”.

BBQ’d corn in Pantin:

Well…enterprising Pakistani’s are skattering around the city, setting up camp outside métro entrances. The setup is simple, a shopping trolley, fire in a tin, a big bag of corn – a light fry and it’s one euro per cob, ha!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 28th, 2007 at 7:54 am While Dave was in Paris. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.