Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Rosé tinted weekending

I loved Paris at the weekend, properly loved it.

I spent Saturday at the Parc des Buttes Chaumont having a feast of a picnic with the usual girls and a few new additions, letting the day pass by so fast I was, as usual, late to meet Gael that evening across the other side of the city. Luckily for me, the shop he wanted to show me wasn't where it should have been- I guess it's closed down or moved- because we'd have been too late to catch it open anyway. I really need to get better at punctuality- it tends to get worse the better I get to know someone, which is a bit unfair isn't it, old friends have to wait hours... Anyway I went with Gael to his friend Pierre's housewarming party in a blooming amazing flat in the 6th, 65 square metres compared to my 5, and it's his! (/His parents'.) His friends were taller than I remembered, which was lovely, and I overcame the usual I-don't-speak-French shyness to speak to Pierre, Yves and taller Yves for a bit, and even left at a very reasonable hour. To be fair I had been lying in the boiling sun all day and had had a few beers already, so midnight was late enough for me.

Then Sunday carried on in the same way- this time outside the Louvre. A very relaxing time sunbathing and drawing got gradually more lively, with cartwheels, crisps and wine, Macdo's, more wine and general hilarity that ended down beside the sparkly river- we'd given up on being in Neuilly for 'supper' at Clare's much earlier. But again, start early; finish early: home by 11pm!

It was a weekend that would make anybody want to stay in Paris. But I'm still not sure. Spain seems to be calling- I almost swooned when the Colombian 'manny' spoke to me in Spanish in the park- but is it just nostalgia for last summer? (Male nanny, apparently. It just makes me picture Bill Bailey in Black Books, but my new park friend is more attractive than that.)

After such a lazy indulgent weekend I thought RIGHT, I shall get stuck into this TEFL course, in one week off I can get through a lot of those 125 hours that I have 73 more days to complete... But it's kind of boring. I know about nouns, and verbs, and pronouns even, but I'll be damned if anyone knows the difference between 'present perfect continuous' and, emm, another one. So I'm struggling slightly. To reiterate what I said in another post- I'm sure I used to be good at this, grammar and that. Will I get progressively worse the longer I stay abroad? I'd rather not become incompetent in English, it's all I can (could) do in the first place.

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