The Animal Inside

Another superb day. Wowee, I’m on a bit of a roll here! This morning I went into Paradise-that-is-known-as-Paris, and did some shopping. I started off at Concorde, with good old WH Smiths (‘THE English bookshop in the whole of Paris’) giving in to my magazine addiction and coming out with British Vogue (a super duper edition this month) and Heat magazine. Then I worked my way up Rue Rivoli, towards Chatelet stopping at nearly every shop, and taking photos of all the designer shops (miu miu, Dianne Von Furstenberg, Gucci, CHANNEL, Mulberry, D&G, you name it). H&M had the top I wanted, the Super-size Sephora store had the soap I wanted... It was pretty much perfect. My aim for today was to buy a fur coat, so I was heading towards Rag and Vertiges, near Centre Pompidou. Finally made it, and spent a while trying on a LOT of dead animals. Who knew it could be so fun?! Although I put on one coat and it was so heavy, the goat/yak/mammoth might as well have sat on my shoulders! 

So, Super-Aunt said my bag LOOKS like a mauled cat, but now I have a coat that IS a mauled cat. Bad joke.
Had to take a photo of the pretty Patisserie windows - they really are a piece of cake! :P TWO bad jokes. 

  

 

Also, each time I do a Christmas shop in Sephora, they ask if it's a present (which is is), and then they put the items in a plastic silver bath with fancy paper and gift wrap it all up... Which is very lovely and all, but I now appear to have three silver baths in my room, and a mission of 'reasonably' light packing when I come home for Christmas. Oh well... IT'S CHRISTMAS. 

So, I returned home, with several shopping bags (I guess the feelings of delight from my half-term shopping spree in England have worn off), a huge fur coat (so, so beautiful), yet another silver bathtub, and feeling pretty exhausted. But, no rest for the girls in Paradise, as I was off out again at 7 to meet up with some French friends for the evening. And it was pretty amazing! And a bunch of nationalities – Morgane and her friend were French, but one guy was American, another was Irish, another was Italian... and so we all spoke French. It was a really good evening, and SO NICE to have people speaking English – able to translate, and to hear such beautiful American!! 

We went to a African bar in Jussieu (a hangman killer!), which provided a whole new experience for me! We sat underground in a small 'cubby' area, with sofas covered in hide and little African-carved stools. One of the guys ordered for us, and soon we received a huge dustbin-lid-sized dish, full of [I'm not exactly sure...] but included onions (always a winner with me!), and a plate of plain savoury crepes. The trick it to tear a piece of crepe, place it over the mush-in-the-dish, and scoop it up. It was a very similar action to picking up that accidental dog poop with a tissue in a children's playground, or the dead mouse the cat just brought in with some kitchen roll. Lav-ly. Despite being totally appalled by the whole idea of eating-with-your-fingers, which I still find utterly yukky, it was an eye-widening experience particularly for Paris, AND they even (thankfully) gave us sachets of warm hand wipes after. Saved! And if I ever go to Africa, I now know to take an extra suitcase stuffed with wet wipes.