A weekend with Esme and a fresh start

The weekend with Esme was great, she seemed to really enjoy showing Georgia and myself all her favourite spots. The Spaghetti bar is a real find; 3 euros for wine and 6 euros for cocktail and they keep on bringing out trays of pizza, pasta, couscous and salad. It was basically a free all you can eat buffet! Later we went a looked around the Shakespeare company book store which is a little gem near Notre Dame. When you go inside you have the impression it is literally made out of books! There are books everywhere! People are encouraged to sit and read the books too so the shop has loads of people just perched in random corners browsing. Apparently they have free accommodation for writers, providing they write and read a book a day! Then we went to a jazz club which was in a cellar, it was very full and the music was good.

Sunday morning we went for brunch in Montmartre. We had a huge bowl of hot chocolate each, a large slice of brioche with honey and jam, a croissant, and a soft boiled egg with soldiers. It was sooo good! I will definitely go there again! Then we climbed up to the Sacré Coeur and looked out over Paris.

Next we went to the market and I again decided it would be a good idea to buy bowl fulls of veg; I got loads of tomatoes and loads of peppers for €1.50. We also managed to get some free ends of pumpkins which we were really pleased about! Then we went to the Marais which is about the only place where stuff is open on a Sunday because it's the Jewish Quartier. We had yet more food (fallafels) then browsed the vintage clothes shops. We ventured to the top of the Pompidou centre to look out over Paris from another vantage point. We decided against going around it seeing as it's all a bit weird! Then we headed back to Georgia's and cooked a really good meal with our purchases from the market, roasted pumpkin was delicious! Georgia's apartment is really nice and right near the Eiffel Tower.

Monday I went for a lovely lunch with Esme, Georgia and one of Georgia's work friends and then saw Esme off. I decided to go and see Paris and got as far as the Notre Dame. I hated it; there were so many people inside it had just lost all feeling of spirituality and just become one big tourist attraction. I went to join the queue to climb it seeing as it's free for me as I'm under 25 but they had already shut it for the day when I got there. I went and got lost in the second hand book shops, I bought a book I'd been looking for "Etre Bénévole à Paris" which means roughly "Volunteering in Paris". It is full of some really inspiring ideas, such as helping homeless people (there are a lot of them in Paris, it's quite distressing), volunteering with ill children and helping them to forget their illness for the day, connecting children with their parents who are in prison etc. Unfortunately a lot of them require a long term commitment. I also bought the northern lights trilogy in french. Then Georgia and I went to a student bar that did cheap sangrias.

Today I was fairly productive; I completed my personal learning record and found myself two volunteer jobs in soup kitchens. I'm really looking forward to them seeing as there are so many homeless people in Paris and I want to do something more to help other than give them spare change. Hopefully they will be interesting, I'm really looking forward to meeting all sorts of interesting people. If the university agrees I may be able to take them on as my main jobs and leave Point Par Point once and for all which means I won't be as the Boss' beck and call anymore. The first one starts tomorrow at 10 so I'd better get to bed! I'll try and keep the post shorter next time!