Two 'Petits' Weekends

So I’m sitting here about to watch Danse avec les Stars – French equivalent of Strictly, and though it was about time I did some blog writing! At the moment it’s showing the meteo (weather) and how cold it is going to be – meh!

Weekend Number One - Le Petit Prince

Nearly a month ago I decided to actually go to one of those things you see on posters whilst speed walking through the underground passages of the metro:

Free fireworks at La Grande Arche at La Defence,  the business district of Paris, all set to the story of Le Petit Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry published in 1943. The story is about a little prince who lives on a little planet and decides to travel the universe. On his travels he meets different adults learning something from each of them, and you’ll have to read it if you want to know anymore :-)

It was pretty busy! I watched it from the ‘back’ of the arch. The idea was to watch it from the large Parade in front with the fireworks going off behind, but behind there was a good view and not so many people. There were also projections onto the arch, illustrating the story. I think the fireworks put the UK to shame, this was a free event, just to tell the story of Le Petit Prince, and the fireworks were so much better than the UK’s New Years ‘show’! 

The downside was getting home, obviously there was quite a lot of security being the business district and obviously having a large number of explosive fireworks nearby, so it took quite a while for them to reopen the metro afterwards, resulting in me wandering around aimlessly for about half an hour. But all in all, a great evening.

Weekend Number Two - Le Petit Nicolas

My second kid-related thing is slightly less kid-related and happened today. My plan was to go to the Salon du Chocolat, a chocolate exhibition held every year at the large exhibition centre at Porte de Versailles, but I went along pretty late and it was paaaacked so decided to go to the exhibition on at Hotel de Ville instead. This one was an exhibition of drawings by Sempé, a cartoonist also known for his illustrations in a children’s series called Le Petit Nicolas.

Sempé said that the Petit Nicolas series 'c'est d'abord une histoire d'amité' - it's primarily a story about friendship. And I found it quite funny that a lot of the pictures are to do with small kids smoking behind a fence! 

And my interesting fact that I found out about Sempé was that he originally signed his work ‘DRO’ because he didn’t think it was good enough, and he chose ‘DRO’ because it sounded like ‘to draw’ in English!

Saint-Malo and Mont Saint-Michel

Ok I’ve been lazy with the blog writing, but I promise I’ll catch up sooner or later. Going to jump to this weekend whilst I still remember everything!

Friday night I went Salsa because I promised a girl that I would go with her, however, Saturday the plan was to go to Saint-Malo and Mont Saint-Michel very early with Flora and her parents, so it probably wasn’t the best idea to go out Friday night… but I didn’t have the girls number so I couldn’t text her and didn’t want to let her down. I arrived at Flora’s quite late and flopped into bed, knackered.

I got up about 5.30am and had a light breakfast with tea (yays) and we left the house about 6.30am and I slept most of the journey to Saint-Malo – it’s hard work being a passenger! We found a little café, Café de l’Ouest for the morning coffee (well, pineapple juice in my case) and then did a tour walking along the top of the walls protecting the city with lovely views of the sea and port. Of course, then the girls had to go into the town to shop! Flora needed some blinkers (œillères), someone has an obsession with shoes!! Finally she couldn’t resist and ended up going into Promod where she found two tops, one of which I got her for her birthday J (easy birthday present shopping but nevermind!)

We then set off to a little beach not far from Saint-Malo, called Parame, for the afternoon, armed with baguette, cheese, jambon serrano, smoked salmon and Orangina. I actually tanned in northern France in October, unbelievable! Me and Flora went for a little walk along the beach and dipped our toes in the (cold) water. I don’t know how people were swimming, but there were quite a few, including her dad! Despite the long nap in the car I still managed to have a siesta on the beach and learnt that in French they ‘sleep like a dormouse’ (dormir comme un loir) not ‘like a log’. Beaches are great places for learning vocabulary so it seems! Seashells, seaweed, bucket and spade, stuff they never really teach at school…

After the siesta we went in search of the hotel (the reservation sheet had been misplaced, but it wasn’t a problem). It was a little two star hotel by a tiny railway station and we had a family room that had a double downstairs and a little mezzanine upstairs (for me and Flora). I think ‘quaint’ is the word, that translates from estate agent language to English as ‘in need of some work’. Had a quick wander around the village to find a restaurant for dinner and then it was back, ready for this dormouse to sleep some more (faire un gros dodo)!

The next morning, after the hotel breakfast, we had another (reasonably) early start off in search of Mont Saint-Michel, not that far away (11km).  It’s impressive! And not surprisingly it’s protected by UNESCO. Apparently the sheep that feed there produce really good lamb, something to do with the sea salt water. Over the years the tides have stopped coming up to the island because of all the grass and a canal that was created, but the government has decided to restore it to being an island so they are doing lots of work around it.

We went around the abbey and you could hear the monks singing or chanting or whatever you call it! I also experienced part of a French mass and recognised the Lord’s Prayer – oh the uses of primary school! Oh and I did that tourist thing of buying a million postcards but not having gotten round to writing them and sending them… yet. I saw some guys in traditional outfits making the famous omelette from the island, they looked pretty silly but hey ho, all in the name of tourism.

The afternoon was of course another beach trip, this time to a little village/town called Carolles, on passing through the town I saw a little Church that reminded me of the one in Ryarsh (back home), this time ‘quaint’ but without the estate agent connotation. This one was really busy, not quite as nice as the day before and the water seemed colder!

We left about 4pm I think and found a little place to have a crepe (or two, nom) and off we went back to Paris! There was some traffic, and again, this dormouse slept a bit! Got home and it’s always good to get back into your ‘own’ bed. Had a chat with mum, a quick hi to nan and slept like a baby.

Thanks to Flora and her parents for inviting me to explore the north of France a little, I had a lovely weekend :-D