Week 8: "The most surreal night in Boulogne so far"

This week saw both winter and a gunman come to Paris. Winter proved to be the more problematic of the two, when our heating decided to go kaput. This inevitably led to awkward, broken conversations of French between me and the plumber who came to save us from our igloo. At one point, he pointed to the work surface, full of bread, and asked to be passed something I didn’t quite catch. Seeing as he was pointing vaguely in the direction of the bread-board, I passed it to him, confused us to why that would help him fix the pipe…he guffawed heartily, taking the roll of kitchen paper for himself. That was more logical. When he plumber comrade turned up, I could hear him retelling the story and having a good old chuckle at my French ineptitude.

Just stumbled across this after the Quai Branly museum

If my French was laughable, then so was Jeremy’s English in our conversation class on Thursday. We were working on his pronunciation, and he spend about 10 minutes trying to grasp the difference in vowel sounds between ‘beach’ and ‘bitch’  (‘beeeeeech’ and ‘beeeeeech’) by saying them both repeatedly. Sophie found it highly amusing.

Friday night was perhaps the most surreal night I’ve spent in Boulogne so far. I went to the local swimming pool for AQUABIKING. Essentially a spinning class underwater, I spent an hour pedalling along to music provided by a DJ, under the disco-lights that had been especially installed for the night. In between the two classes I did, there was a pool-side buffet (?!) to refuel. Fun, but strange.

I had another new experience on Saturday, when Sophie and I went to a latte art workshop at Café Lomi. The café hosts one barista who won a world championship in Latte Art (who knew that existed?!), and really cares about its coffee, exporting beans from around the world and grinding them before your eyes. Sophie and I both struggled a bit in our latte art attempts, with her spilling it and my ‘heart’ looking like a snowstorm. But we both managed to create ‘mignon’/cute hearts in the end.

Attempt 1 and Attempt 2

On Sunday, Rosanna, Rachel, Hazel and I hit up the Champs Elysée Christmas market and saw the Christmas lights, which were officially switched on on Thursday. The market is full of hand-made crafts, an ice-skating rink, and endless amounts of over-priced food stalls. Rosanna and I stumbled upon two abandoned cups of Vin Chaud, in the exclusive Champs Elysée Village de Noel plastic cups – so, of course, in the spirit of Christmas, we poured away the probably weed-in drink and took the cups as souvenirs.  The lights themselves were really futuristic, and looked like the Champs Elysee was mid-transformation into a spaceship. Still, it feels like the festive season has come alive in Paris! 

In preparation for Chanukah and this week’s Chanukah party, I also spent a substantial amount of my weekend decorating the flat. Time well spent cutting up newspaper, I think.

Rachel and I found the Kosher supermarkets in Boulogne!