guilty blogging: time flies in paris

yes this is a guilt blog and it won't be long because i have to run home
i am using free - yes free and no blog - at the yann (french boyfriend/"lover" as they say) of katie goulds. the suburb is 'issy' and it's out of town 10min on the non-metro lines which, for hardcore central parisians like myself, is a bit of a mission. not really but it just feels like it because the trains are big and come less frequently... or something

anyway due to these confounding factors and the deadline for my return home i don't have time to write a blog
shock horror
so i am reverting to list mode on the things that i have done over the last two days; i believe this is only the third so far so i'm not too worried.

• have been introduced to the french university system by the lovely annabelle ducros, daughter of birds friend here, who went to the effort of showing me around and sneaking me past the security guards (yep, big guys with uniforms) to allow me to see the uni. which reeked of 70's UTS cell-block architectural functionalism but wasn't all that bad. most astounding was the lecture size which peaked at about 1500 students all listening to a professor drone into a microphone with no visual aides. quite intensely boring for the students i am sure. the cool thing about being a student in france has nothing to do with the universities and everything to do with hanging out with all the other students in cafe's around the latin quater. had lunch in a cinema/theatre/cafe (think dendy but a non-chain version with actual character) and attempted to see my well dressed companions through the cloud of smoke. europe isn't exactly strong on the anti-smoking laws
• spent the afternoon with katie which was a pleasure. met her at notre dame and managed to get her french counterparts to actually go into the church. we walked past the beautiful sorbonne university campus and up to the pantheon (which we tight-arsed on and didn't go inside) and then sat in a beautiful and quiet part of paris outside 'cafe de arts'.
• made my first risotto sans mum and turned out a cracker - vegetarian!
• went out to dinner with the famous annabelle and her sweet freind margarite to 'the footsie' where the drinks change prices according to both demand and an artificial market index... tequila's went down to 3euro a shot in one of the "crashes". the weather was unfortunately bad so we're getting a taste of a parisian october: cold and rainy. lucy the subway wasn't too far from the bar...
• up'd the anti on my museum count and went to the musee d'orsay. it's built inside a gorgeous old train station with an arched glass roof and is consequently quite large. not unmanagable but still too big to see all of without a lunch break which i didn't quite have the time/money/patience for. so i stuck to the impressionist level: not a bad ploy because some of the best art in the museum is definitely up there. matisse was a runaway favourite but closely followed by cross, who's work i had never seen. oh shit can't forget van gough, and was also quite interesting to see some of maximillian luce's work - a famous anarchist artist who came up in a couple of history lectures back home.

the train and dinner calls. have to try and make it out to a local gig tonight with one of annabelle's friends but it's looking dire.

proper paragraphs nexttime i swear! until then...