Up at the crack of dawn this morning (which for me is about 8) to take the Eurostar over to Paris.  N booked first class, so this was a real treat as I've never gone first class on anything before.  But don't worry, I'm still down with the people, I'll never be able to afford first class again.  Not even on 'Northern Spirit'. 

Through some parts of London that I'd only heard about on the news, past the Battersea power station that I'd seen on album covers, into darkness for about 20 minutes, then out to the French countryside. I could tell we were getting closer to Paris when graffiti became more frequent. The graffiti, by the way, is completely impressive, and fucking everywhere! When we got to Paris, Nigel and I couldn't figure out who should buy the Metro tickets. I thought he'd do all the talking because he's European and has lived so close to France all his life, but I guess he thought I would because I speak Spanish and that's a foreign language. We probably should have learned a little bit of French before hand. I ended up saying "Oui" to anything anybody asked me... which didn't help me much when the first thing I was asked was whether I wanted tea or coffee. People always started by speaking to me in French, but automatically started talking to Nigel in English. I don't know why this was.

Then over to the hotel... i was hoping we would be staying the cutely named "Mr. Bed" that we passed... but we didn't.  I switched on the TV to see what delights TV here had to offer and the first thing I saw was Baywatch dubbed in French, then the Simpsons in German (with some bizarre voices I might add... Millhouse sounded like a grown man), and then The Commish, a show not even fit for American TV screens.  Then of course "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" (they're totally shafting them because it's only £400,000).  I was pretty disappointed to find also that ...ahem... "Wassup!"  has just made it over there.  It was pretty hard to avoid too as people all over were yelling it, even from the Eiffel Tower.

I was pretty disappointed in the things I found from American culture:

The latest movie starring Jean Reno is "les visiteurs en amérique".  Too bad.  I'll try to give it a chance...

The next thing we set out to explore our block and find the nearest café and CD store.  We found FNAC around the corner where I scooped up all the Dominique A cds they had.  He's my favorite French crooner.  I'm not really sure what he's singing about, but I'm sure it's something like, "stacey, let me be your secret lover and take you away to live with me in France you sexy Texan minx".  Maybe not.  I also found a Dimitri in Paris album that I'd not seen before, and bought a couple of albums because I liked the covers (and they were in the French electronica section), that turned out to be pretty good. CDs there are about 2/3 the price they are in the UK, so it was worth the risk.  The didn't have any Toog albums (he's Momus' french friend), which as a music snob I was happy about.  I don't want to have too mainstream a taste.

In the evening we settled down in a cafe and sampled French cuisine.  Actually, I had steamed mussels, Nigel had something with an egg on it that looked English.