My first run-in with the law

So I went for my first haircut in France last week - I thought the French were meant to be good with hair!? My hair currently looks like an angry, fluffy porcupine. I spend ages picking out a haircut I like, give it to the guy and what does he do but chuck it to one side. Hairdressers here seem to have their own "beautiful vision" of they want to do your hair. 

Taxi drivers and barbers are among the best therapists our society has to offer and I'm pretty sure the barber's chair and driver's back-seat have solved a lot of people's problems. However, my several attempts to strike up a conversation were met by a stony French wall of silence.  French people continue to welcome me with open arms.

A dead week at work

Boredom + middle-aged French women = you're gonna have a bad time.

August is a dead month in Paris, it might as well not exist. My colleagues, all middle-aged women tackle the boredom by singing/dancing to English chart songs. On Wednesday we had Call Me Maybe followed by Moves like 'Jigga' by 'Maroon Cinq'. Then they got so bored they started calling each other on the internal phones - hilarious. All the while I'm sitting there pretending to look busy willing the clock to tick faster.

Lunch that day was a blessing: 

Looks more like a post-lash meal than a Parisian lunch

The Dark Knight tries to sell me something

Also, went to see Dark Knight Rises twice last week - wow. After the Savoy's 50" screens and tinny sound system, Christian Bale's gravelly tones and Bane's barely comprehensible mumbling blew me away.

The waiting area at the cinema - nice

On the way back, one of the metro gates at the station was open so to save all of 0.5 seconds I go through. Some guy comes up to me, says something incomprehensible and flashes something fluorescent orange (not what you're thinking). 

Thinking he's trying to sell me something I give him a quick "non, merci" and try to get past. He shoves the orange thing at me again and it turns out he's a RATP officer; the metro gate was open on purpose to tempt innocent souls like me into waltzing through.

Coincidentally, my caucasian friend did the exact same thing but didn't get stopped by the dodgy-looking Arab guy. Racism (it's only racist when it's against me). Either way, that's got to be entrapment.

The metro redeems itself

I usually don't have anything nice to say about the metro but something that happened last week restored my faith in humanity just a tiny bit. It was a fairly busy time for the metro and there weren't any seats free. Before I could even offer mine, two typical Parisian rudeboys (complete with sagging trousers) gave up their seats for an elderly couple who had just got on the train. Goes to show - don't judge a book by its cover, but by its actions. (Well, books can't physically do much but you get what I mean).

I'm a big ol' softy really.

Peace from Paris.