Keep off the grass, man

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Not being able to breastfeed meant that Gabor drew the short straw and had to pick up the car from Peugeot in the morning, so we could hit the road early on Friday. Using all his street cred’, together with a good dose of the Force, and some French hiphop blaring on the car stereo, he made his way back to the apartment (despite some unexpected one way systems that don’t appear on the current map) in good enough time that we still had the afternoon to spend out in Paris.

So we sped down to Jardin du Luxembourg which was pretty, but very anal. In a GARDEN that was perhaps 1sq Km, a skinny section of grass no more than 100 sq metres was dedicated for people to walk or sit on. I mean, come on, it’s a freakin’ garden! Loosen up a little. So the idea is that free seats are provided, you know, the hard metal type that you used to have at primary school, so you can sit most uncomfortably near the grass, and watch it, but don’t you touch it. Lovely.

The flowers were very pretty at this time of year and the espilliaring (look it up www.websters.com) of the apple trees was most exquisite (read: “anal”). We did, in fact, inadvertently cross the line, so to speak, when checking out a 40 year old variety of NZ apple, and we were given the “excusez vous” from the grass police (actually real police that had been naughty and were on 3 weeks of gardening patrol).

Seriously though, it’s a lovely place, and the grotto down by the right hand side of the Chateau is most spooky and a great place to pontificate the meaning of life, the universe, and the ridiculous price of diesel in France (which, in case you’re interested is over $2.50 per litre in some places, but if you’re after a bargain buy your gas from the supermarket…no kidding it’s the cheapest…and they sell absolutely everything. Today I saw you could buy a wooden chalet kitset at the Carrefour supermarket, including doors, windows, the works for around $NZ3000. At around 20sq m, if you knocked half a dozen together you’d have a decent pad for under $20k).

Spent another afternoon wandering unknown side streets in the 3rd and 4th arrondisements on our way back to the apartment. Kaspar couldn’t hack it and fell asleep outside Notre Dame, but we kept on and happened across all sorts of bizzarro including a man carving flora and bird life out of carrots, the Paris equivalent of CHiPs headquarters, a falmencow dancer, some stunning lions and of course a few doors.

After dinner we wrapped up the little man in his yoda hoodie and headed down to La Tour to check out the flashing lights we’d heard about. Although it wasn’t dark, it was still a most impressive display. La Tour all lit up in sparkling white fairy lights which twinkle for 10 minutes on the hour - very cool, but the still photos wouldn’t do it justice. We shot across to the Arc and wandered with the cool cats down Champs Élysées before heading home. Kaspar the little champ stuck it out most of the way and then went straight to bed when we got home, ready for a day in the car heading South on his first international roadie.

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