Back to Paris, and back into my apartment though this time I'm on the third floor instead of the fifth due to pending renovations they're doing here. That being the case, this is my new view - not too dissimilar to the old one ;) And to celebrate (or something) I took an old can of whipped cream I had kicking about, and squirted the whole lot off the balcony (as you do hehe) - video here :)

It did occur to me when I rode off for work this morning that it seemed a lot darker than usual. Mind you the weather has been so bad lately I put it down to cloud cover and didn't give it a second thought. Turns out it was this - cool!

Yeah, or it could just be that.

Another day, another protest (or something) here in Les Halles. Video here. Where's my whipped cream...

It was a very grey and gloomy day on the brink of raining at any moment, so Kristina and I decided to stay local and scope our hood out a little more.

We starting wandering north from our apartment in Les Halles and quickly noticed we live in a really horny part of town hahaha! This is the city of love after all, and love takes many forms ;)

Further north again in the Montorgueil area we found Passage du Grand Cerf, containing "33 fashionable and trendy designer shops as well as craftmen's workshops, advertising agencies, and even a Brazilian restaurant", and a mannequin with severe jaundice.

This is what happens when you leave your white vehicle parked in one spot for too long hehe.

Hahaha!

Parking is such a bitch in Paris that once you've found a spot you tend to leave your car there as long as possible, leaving it at the mercy of spray cans, parking attendants, and pricks touch-parking against it.

After about an hour of meandering we made it up to Montmartre - the only hill in Paris at 130 metres high and nicknamed the mountain hehe.

Montmartre was the district where I stayed in Paris when I first came here over four years ago. The black fellas were around back then trying to sell unsuspecting tourists bullshit they didn't want, and they're still doing it now.

View looking south over Paris from the 'mountain'.

Full-size panorama here.

The Eiffel Tower through the trees and chimney tops.

We stayed in Montmartre for a while and found this awesome wee square with art galore!

I can draw a pretty good smiley face ;)

Art aside there was also this whack job juggling while balancing shit on his head. I guess the rent isn't going to pay itself.

From Montmartre we wandered south again through the cute wee Parisian backstreets, with scary-looking Parisian blokes people-watching from their windows.

Galeries Lafayette - a massive 10-storey department store in northeast Paris selling a myriad of crap including the erotic-looking chocolate edition of Cluedo hehe. Colonel Mustard in the dining room with the chocolate dildo.

Couple random spots en route back to the apartment.

The Palais Garnier, also known as the Opéra de Paris or Opéra Garnier, but more commonly as the Paris Opéra (phew!), is a 2,200-seat opera house on the Place de l'Opéra which was the primary home of the Paris Opera from 1875 until 1989.

Looking south along Avenue de l'Opéra towards the Louvre.

10kms and three hours after leaving the apartment, and a bit of Mozart or Tchaikovsky or something later, we made it back just before the heavens opened and let rip.

After a bit of a nap we caught the Metro to Place Monge in an area full of bars and pubs to wet our whistle.

Rue Mouffetard - student central as it turns out but still a good spot for nightlife.

In mid-2007 Paris launched their Vélib' scheme (short for vélo liberté in French or bicycle freedom in English). Similar to other cities around the globe (including London recently) the idea is that you can hire a bike from any of the hundreds of automated rental stations throughout the city and surrounds (roughly one station every 300 metres throughout the city centre), and return it back to any station when you're done with it. Each station has space for at least a dozen bikes, and according to Wikipedia there are currently around 17,000 bicycles in circulation and 1,200 stations making Vélib' the largest system of its kind in the world. So I jumped on my beast, Kristina jumped on a Vélib' beast, and we went for a Sunday cruise. Video of Kristina doing her thang here.

Sweetheart, you're doing wrong.

I'm not sure whether you're allowed to cycle in here but regardless we took a spin through Jardin du Luxembourg, either the largest or second largest public park in Paris (depending on who you ask) at 22.5 hectares.

That kid has a lot of hair.

Luxembourg Palace and Gardens - bloody nice though winter doesn't do it justice. So some fun facts about Vélib': at least 3,000 bicycles were stolen in the first year of operation, some have been stolen and taken to Eastern Europe and Africa, and about 20,000 bikes have been replaced due to vandalism including several hundred pulled from the Seine hahaha! The bikes are serviced and redistributed regularly but even so many are still in a pretty piss-poor state. It took us three attempts just to find a half-decent one after the first had no handle grips and a busted gear lever, and the second had its rear brakes locked up hehe.

I'm sure we all know by now what's happening in Brisbane and the rest of Queensland, but just in case, stories and photos here and here.