La rentrée, c'est si sucrée!

I am very much back in Paris after two weeks of seeing family and friends, rediscovering the convenience of being in England, and far too much alcohol. I was pretty much hopping, skipping and jumping out of the metro station, I was so happy to be back in my adopted city. Although this does mean that I had to go back to being a proper grown up, doing proper grown up things like going to the bank and cleaning my bathroom on my day off, rather than sleeping in and watching 'Sex and the City' all day. Sad face. 

Views worth getting out of bed for.

On Sunday I grabbed a quick coffee with friends in Ternes. This turned into a not-so-quick coffee and croissant, and huge Camembert sandwich, when we found an adorable and anomalously cheap café where the waitress actually looked kindly on our attempts to speak French. We also went over to Les Grands Magasins to see their Christmas displays, forgetting that they were all closed on Sundays. Quel cauchemar. But the walk home, which I'm confident burned the sandwich off in its entirety, was fabulous: all the way down Boulevard Haussmann, through the Marais, across Ile de la Cité and through the Latin Quarter once more.  It makes me sad to realise that my year here is already rapidly disappearing, but more determined to make the most of it at any cost, whether it be my wallet, my energy or my sanity. 

This is why I shouldn't be trusted with cameras. I go to a beautiful Parisian café and only take a picture of my sandwich. But still... cheese...

 On Saturday I visited Jardin des Plantes. The Parisian parks are all stunning in different ways, but this one had red pandas, so that's pretty hard to beat. It also had an Eden Project style greenhouse with inexplicable household cleaning items everywhere (brooms in amongst the trees, dustpans with the flowers). Plus, of course, what Paris does best: trees and beautiful landscaping. I'm told by people who ought to know that spring is the most beautiful time here, but judging by how pretty autumn is, I have to beg to differ thus far.

Today's shopping trip to Ikea was certainly an interesting one. Turns out, it's pretty difficult to buy furniture when the only languages in the shop are Swedish and French. "Je veux la housse de coussin, mais pas le coussin! Tu ne me comprends pas?!"  It was a sweet reminder of Coventry, getting hopelessly lost in Ikea (and this one only had two floors!), and several hours and two train journeys later, my studio looks really cosy and I have glogg, ready to mix with red wine and eat with the stollen I've already stockpiled for when the nights get colder.    

Just one more gratuitous "I'm back, I'm back!" picture. This was the view on the walk home from my second job on Tuesday, taken at Place du Panthéon. I also had the pleasant discovery that two doors away from my building, there are both a wine shop and a second-hand book shop. Next door's a Eurolines travel agency, so that's probably not quite so useful, but nonetheless I'm one macaron away from cloud nine. 

Je suis une flâneuse

Since I returned to Paris a week ago, I've taken to bringing my camera with me as I go about my day-to-day routine. I was missing too much by forgetting it all the time! So here are some photos taken while I was doing boring stuff like food shopping. No actual tourism on my part, this city is just that amazing that this is my daily scenery. The title of this post means "I am a loafer/wanderer", because when I'm not feeling too lazy it's so much nicer to walk around rather than taking in the sights (and smells) of the Metro.