J'ai un peu de la gueule de bois

Well I've been a bit lazy about posting so far. Plug the title of this post into Google Translate to find out why. For those who are interested 'gueule de bois' actually means 'mouth of wood' ... Quite appropriate indeed.

I'm staying here in Paris at my friends parents (who are actually back in NZ at the moment) apartment. It's really fantastic. It remands me so much of the apartments from The Hedgehog although the gardienne is a lot nicer here. So far I've really just been doing 'touristy' stuff like wandering up and down the champs-élysées and standing aimlessly outside the Louvre. However soon I'm going to get stuck in to the parks next week.

I've only been out for a drink the one night here so far. I headed up to the Montmartre district in amongst the red-lights of the Moulin Rouge and many other less desirable institutions. Met up with a couple of Yanks and some French-Canadians. We breezed around ordering drinks in broken Franglais and talking about hockey (they didn't know anything about cricket). Certainly not a habit to get into if I want to learn French, but it's ok for once.

Of coarse I'm not the first to have a big night in Paris. This picture here is of the edge of the pont neuf  here. The story goes that all the nobles told the King he was an idiot when he proposed to build a bridge out of stone instead of wood. So when it succeed he threw a party to rub it in the nobles faces. He got them all plastered drunk and then made his artist in residence to draw quick characterised sketches of their drunken faces. The next day he got his sculptor to make the face of each noble and stick them up on the bridge to further shame his critics. As you can see they've made a recent addition.

Well, actually, that's me in Edinburgh after a Scotch two. Didn't think to turn the camera on myself at all during the obligatory party snaps last night. Scotland was fantastic though. Really enjoyed Edinburgh, I honestly think I could live there comfortably; it's nice and windy. Hilly too. The Parliament (which was the main reason I visited) is fantastic. I focused mostly on the exterior elements, however I did get inside for a while and even watched a little bit of a session (most of the ministers where of on a coffee break though, much like your average Beehive session). The best part of the project for me is defiantly the way Arthur's Seat (the large plateau pictured below) is dealt with, borrowed to become a part of the site.

That's it for now, expect more posts soon.