Tummy trouble – arghhhhh!

3rd – 5th July 2013

Warning, warning – discontent and upset approaching!!!

All I can say is you must have to be awfully sick to die. For the last few days I’ve felt like death warmed up and it’s been terribly hard work to keep going to school and do a little sightseeing. All I’ve felt like doing is curling up on the bed and sleeping – in between visits to the bathroom. I’m positive my sickness has been food related – and not food I’ve bought in the city either.

I think I’ve worked out a system though for not eating suspect food at my place of residence. If Josette is eating, I eat, if she’s only feeding it to me and has no intention of eating with me I don’t eat. And tell me, if you knew someone had been sick for three days would you try and give them bought frozen fish fingers for dinner? Bloody hell, I wouldn’t feed anyone frozen fish fingers at any time, let alone someone who is paying me board and is suffering in the tummy already. Thank goodness for Deb and the people in my own class at school, without them around I think I would have just sat in a corner and cried.

Courtyard of LSI Paris building

Okay – enough said, but I’ve spoken to the school and hopefully things will improve next week, because, who wants to be in Paris and only see the inside of every toilet you pass? And to top it all off, I’ve lost my coat in the last 3 days too – the one I bought in Brighton after I left my first one in a restaurant somewhere!!

Rocking up to a chemist and getting antibiotics over the counter from a pharmacist who claims not to speak English but then gives me the instructions in near perfect English was an experience worth remembering. I learnt that day that asking a French person if they speak English is just asking for trouble. Thank goodness I followed up with my really quite terrible French and was rewarded with smiles and helpfulness.

Fountain just donw the road

I headed back to the 12th straight after school one afternoon, to, I’m not sure what, maybe feel sorry for myself, explore my ‘hood or be close to the loo. I ended up doing all three, then bought myself a new light coat and sketched the fountain just down the road too – pretty good for feeling like c#%p. I just love the typical Paris apartment blocks, especially the ones with the tall grey rooflines, I seem to walk around with a permanent crick in my neck from always looking up.

I got my first glimpse of La Tour Eiffel from the Jardin des Tuileries one afternoon on our way to see the Musee de L’Orangerie. It just sort of crept up on us and all of a sudden I realized the spire I could see way way off in the distance couldn’t be anything else. Wow, what a moment, think this was when I finally believed I was in Paris!

My first view of the Eiffel Tower

Then to see the two rooms of Monet’s Water Lilies was just the icing on the cake.

Even before we got into the gallery I had another nice surprise. Deb and I were waiting in line when I saw a woman I recognised, but couldn’t remember for a little while where I knew her from. Then her family joined her and we all realised we’d sat together on the Eurostar last weekend. What’s the chances of running into them again at one of the lesser known galleries in Paris?

Claude Monet’s Nymphéas (Water Lilies) paintings were captivating – two large oval rooms with his gorgeous canvas panels lining the walls. We could, both of us, have sat for hours, I think, just looking at them. We stayed so long there that we didn’t see much of the rest of the gallery before closing time, but we both left happy that we’d had time to really sit and savour Monet.

Beautiful wrought iron work

So Parisienne!

Paris’s lovely apartment buildings

rue de Rivoli, Paris

Trying out a new brown pen

One of LSI Paris’s illustrious neighbours

Window shopping!

More doors – just can’t resist

Just around the corner from school

But wait there’s more!

Chillin in the Jardin des Tuileries

Fountain in the roundabout

Paris apartment living