more coats, from france
Part of literally is keeping you up to date with my clothing.
Because the thing about moving to a new place is all about the clothing.
Previously in Melbourne, I had no coats, in fact for years i owned no coats or jumpers.
Obviously in London this is not an option.
So i picked up my harris tweed coat that i got at the jesus store.
But the Harris tweed, shown surveying Cornwall and beyond, is a light coat, an autmn evening type affair.
Apparently you need a few over here.
So while i was in Paris i found myself a little second hand clothing store in Jewtown (also known as Le Marias) and went digging for gold.
This was a couple days into the trip, and the tweed just wasn’t getting the job done, at the eifell tower i was envying everyone elses warmth.
Shopping at a second hand store, whether clothes, books or records, is the only shopping i enjoy, and doing so in Paris, even if it was a necessity was proper cool.
So i made my to the male coats section, after a quick look at gentleman’s trousers and what i found was a wonderful array of old war coats.
There were heaps of them, and they all looked like they would actually keep me warm.
They weren’t long, but they had insulation, were water proofed, and they were tonnes of them.
I tried on about 15 before i found one that fit, and i was a little disappointed because it was only like 20 years old.
I thought this was a great find, only 20 euros and a pretty good fit.
That was before i was alerted to this.
A genuine world war 2 coat.
A swedish world war 2 airforce coat (i think).
made in 1941.
The above one is slightly different, mine is more grey.
As its swedish it has blood stains in it.
It was only 35 euros, on the net they range between 80usd and 200usd.
France has given me warmth, and Quick.
Not bad france, not bad at all.
Literally an aussie in Paris: EIffel tower
Had i thought through the Eyeful tower trip, i may have informed the guide, who had been before, that there was no reason to go.
Instead we went out there on a cold night, with millions of tourists, and looked at the big bastard.
I must admit it is probably worth the look.
Although the flashy hourly bit seem a bit unnecessary.
You couldn’t help but notice how many trinket sales man there were.
Mostly because they had glow in the dark trinkets.
The question you have to ask once you are there is, is it worth 2 hours of my trip to go up the tower?
For me, no.
I really don’t get views.
And lining up with loud kids for ages doesn’t help the case.
After all the lining and stuff we only spent 15 minutes up there, it was night, so you couldn’t see that much.
I think the time could have been better spent in a restaurant.
Although the night did prove one thing, i needed a warmer coat.
Also i took a couple of photos.
literally an aussie in Paris: Louvre
Pronounced Love ree.
Apparently in paris it is one of the things you do.
So I went along.
And oh my god was it fucking boring.
I love art, but how many pictures of rich people posing can you look at?
It bored the shit out of me.
And the worst one is the fucking Mona Lisa.
What a waste of breath.
Firstly you can’t get near the fucker, it’s behind glass, and about a million dickheads taking photos.
But you get a bit of a view from it side on, and it’s nothing special, it wasn’t a magic experience, it was meh, very meh.
There is a cool painting just near the Mona though, it’s of a dude and his entourage, and in it is a dwarf, it may be the most hip hop painting in the louvre.
There is a whole Louvre outside of the paintings section, it’s just that almost no one ever seems to go there.
There is Jesus art everywhere, I think this is because people had no TV back then.
Outside of the main area there are lots of little statues and general knick nacks.
I think I liked the little statues more than the portrait and scenery paintings, but there is so many of them they started to fade away.
The dwarf with snail stuck out though, because it’s a dwarf riding a snail.
Awesome.
While I was in the unpopulated areas, I saw Julie Ann Moore, who was probably more beautiful than most of the art, and like the dwarf riding a snail, very small.
I was alerted to her by the guide, and had to pretend to be looking at some porcelain elephant until I was sure.
I did have two non small thing related high lights in the Louvre.
Napoleon’s Apartments was fucking awesome.
That dude knew how to live.
It was a pimp daddy palace.
The chandeliers were so blingy they hardly needed to be lit.
The chairs were designed to be looked at not sat on.
And the whole place was just cool.
The second main highlight was Mona Lisa Jandals/thongs/flipflops.
All the merchandise is so boring and tasteful, and then to find Mona on thongs is the good news you need as you leave the place.
Literally an aussie in Paris: Quick
People like to say, oh you can’t do this or that there, that is not right.
Fuck em I say.
These are the same people who only ever travel in tour groups or get up early every morning on holidays.
There are no rules on holiday.
If i want to not go to the arc of whatits, i wont.
If i don’t want to wear a beret, i wont.
And if i don’t want to watch a french film in french, i wont.
Paris is Paris, explore it your way.
My way is via fast food.
Every international country i have troubled too i have eaten fast food, mainly via hamburgers and fries.
It started in America (the heart of the cheeseburger), but it has gone with me to South Africa, England and now France.
Luckily for me, in France they have Quick, a burger place that seems to fill the hole of not having any burger kings.
McDonalds still reign supreme here, but Quick is the thinking persons fast food (like burger king).
Why are they good, well they seem to have some form of real steak in their burgers, they have real cheese in there as well, and they have an assortment of buns and burgers to choose from.
They have this thing called the Quick N Toast, which has steak bacon and blue cheese, and has a toasted sandwich exterior.
It’s shit hot, and yes i said bacon, only place i found bacon in France at a lowly fast food establishment, because as well all know, fast food restaurants are the truest form of humanity.
The bacon was of McDonald’s quality, but who was i to argue about the quality after living without the hope of bacon for days.
I got my food for take away, and awaited the usual walk with bag of food in one hand, drinks in the other that i had done so many times before.
Quick don’t see why you should have to use both hands, like an animal, when carrying food.
They have a carry all box, a box with a handle, that can fit 2 drinks, 3 burgers, deux frites and so many condiments.
It’s like the the swiss army knife of fast foodery.
So not only did they give the world fries, but they gave the world the perfect carrying implement.
I suggest to everyone that they eat Quick when in Paris, fuck the tourist fascists who prey on the fun of everyone.
Look at all the space, much more room than the average french apartment. And way cleaner. 
The design is practical, and yet has a certain style to it, it’s Andy Warholesqeu with traces of early cubism. 
The handle is red. 
Literally an aussie in Paris: all blacks @ the pompidou
I had a surreal moment at the centre of pompousness, centre pompidou.
I was going through a exposition of Jacques Villegle, and i caught up to a tour group.
That in itself was not surreal, but at the tail end of the group was a man in an all blacks coat talking in fluent french about the composition of the works.
He didn’t look violent, his neck wasn’t thick, he was speaking french, he didnt seem to have any scars from previous brawls, and he never once said in french or english “make the man some eggs woman” or anything like it.
He didn’t seem like any New Zealand rugby fan i had ever seen before.
Unfortunately there were no positive reinforcements for straight sport loving Australian men in the centre, as i couldn’t find a way to talk about futurists and Collingwood in the same sentence.
I did quite enjoy ol’ jacques art though, not so much the posters, which looked cool, but got a bit boring half way through.
But i loved the alphabet system he came up with.
I thought you could do great graffiti work with it, put something up, and by the time people decipher what you have wrote, all it says is lick my jingle jangle balls.
There was also a futurist section, which had some amazing moments in it, and was also the first time i stared at an empty point on the wall for 30 seconds to see if i could get anyone else to look at it.
No one did.
Eventually i made my way down to the new art, first was a big red reflective thing, then there was shit, and more shit forever.
But then i saw a piece that made it all worthwhile, a whole cabinet of world war one gas masks.
How could anyone not like old gas masks in a cabinet?
The next section was mininmilism, which has never been my thing in pictures, and then i saw three white canvases in a row on the wall.
Fuck me son, get some ideas, staple a rubber chicken on the wall at least.
The good thing about art you hate though, like sportsmen you hate, is they encourage you to unburden vitriolic bile onto them, and then you leave and get steak and frites (pronounced frights).
Literally an aussie in Paris: menus
France is pretty well catered for in terms of English, even in the non touristy bits you can see enough English to get you by.
Most of the locals know enough to help out, even if not all of them can hold any kind of conversation.
A few restuaraunts even go as far as to have to english menus, which for someone like me is an aliensend.
But these don’t run as smoothly as they should.
As few of the waiters/esses actually speak english.
And almost none of them read it.
You get the feeling the owners, and managers, thought this will keep the tourists happy, but never really worked out the logistics.
So if they give you the menu and you pronounce it, or point to it, they have no idea what you want.
Almost every time.
It’s actually quite funny everytime, but not helpful.
The simple solution to the proplem should be that the menus have French underneath the english come for the waitress/er can work out what it the meal is, and so the english person can learn the french words to order next time, but that never seems to happen.
Instead they have to go get a french menu, but this is where the fun part starts, the french menu has the food in a different order to the english one.
Why, i don’t know.
So everyone at the table gets confused.
I think ordering from the french menu is the better bet, although with my french I probably get the odd surprise as well.
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