Aggressive Beret Wearing 101 . Part 2.

My usual take on bad experiences that come in quick succession (TWSS), I picked up watching The World According to Garp, a movie a recently named a fish after.



My all time favourite movie scene is when Garp is inspecting a house prior to purchase when a light aircraft flies into it and wrecks it.


He instantly announces, "I'll take it!", later explaining that by his reckoning that the house is "pre-disastered."

Pre-disastered. An excellent concept.

Well, with this in mind, I figured that Paris had thrown all it's garbage at us nice and early and that we were therefore all set for an exquisitely easy and blissful few days.

Nuh-uh.

So we moved hotels and had breakfast at the new place. We are now relieved and happy.

We walked across the Seine and found Saint Chappelle, which although tiny, is spectacular.
Even has a tiled Rabbitoh on the floor and a red and green door. (see pics)

Pity that almost half of it is taken up by the gift shop.
Jeez it's gotta be bad for me to say that, hey?

Then we trudged a good distance to the Hard Rock Cafe to pick up our Paris passes. We had lunch there which was a God awful rip off.
Found an Aussie staff member who was a Souths fan. How do I do it?

He was telling me that as of January 1st, France went smoke free in restaurants etc. hahahahahahahahhaha
That explains why so many really angry looking French people are loitering around outside every cafe.
It's really quite intimidating.
They don't look happy. Or friendly.

Actually, they all look the same. Parisians I mean. Can I say that?
It's outstanding.
Less than a day here and I can tell them at a glance.
Dark, small, pointy and cranky.
They stare at you for inexcusably long periods of time, stand way too close and they walk right into you - even when it's not crowded.

Who walks into an 8 stone woman?
So far, there have been at least half a dozen encounters that I genuinely believe were deliberate.
I don't think I like it here.
Jeff always walks behind me, so I don't think he's noticed any of this yet.

hmmmmmmmm I'm getting all riled up just remembering this stuff...

Trudged back, got lost - everything looks the same here.
It's surreal.
If you turn your head for a second, you're done for. It's impossible to tell which direction you came from (TWSS).

Well, we both turned our heads...so.. yeah. Octagonal blocks don't help any.

And it rained, so by the time we made it back to Notre Dame, we were kinda scruffy.

Notre Dame is nice - but after visiting the cathedral at Cologne just a few days ago and seeing St Matthias in Budapest, meh.
I don't see what all the fuss is about.

In fact, if they ever re-name Paris, my suggestion will be..."what's all the fuss about?"
Everything is smaller, dirtier and less interesting than I've been lead to believe. I feel I've been had (TWSS)

It seems to me that lots of things about Paris are over rated. I don't really know what I was expecting, but so far it's just not hitting me.
Which is good because the aggressive pedestrians still are.
Crossing the road here cannot be any worse that in downtown Calcutta.
The vespers are just ridiculous.
We've seen things on these roads here that defy many of the most basic principles of physics.
And lets' not forget that we've only been here 24 hours...

On a positive note, we did see the Notre Dame cats though- all fat black ones enjoying their dinner.
Why would you look at Jesus when you could be looking at cats?
Contiki have no idea. They should let me re-do their itineraries.

Have yet to see a single blade of grass here. Plenty of dogs though. You do the pavement math.

Now, I like berets.
I wear them even in Sydney, to the football even.
However, I believe I have enough good taste to choose alternate head wear whilst in Paris.
That was until this morning anyway.

After having so many rude experiences, I got a little testy myself (TWSS) and marched into a souvenir shop and purchased 2 green berets, 1 pink, 1 blue and 1 brown - the better the be able to annoy the locals.
Tourists seem to be their Achilles Heel.

I'm wearing my berets aggressively from now on.
Without intermission and without apology.

Fuck it, they're all playing prison rules, why shouldn't I?

And I'm not going to utter a syllable of French either.

Not to alarm you, but I believe we are now in a state of war.

Anyway, I'll sleep it off and hopefully Paris and I can reconcile tomorrow. We're off to the Pantheon, the Louvre, Concorde, Champs d'Elysee and the Arc de Triumph.

I'm counting on the Louvre to save my opinion of this narky little city.

Did I mention that there's something insidiously annoying about this place?

Something ain't right. It just isn't.