Paris on a budget

A sunny spring weekend in Paris with the boy I love?  That will do nicely, thank you.  We had a fabulous two days (the only 'problem' being that I was having such a good time I didn't take many photographs, hence the paucity of pictures to accompany this post), and best of all: it was very, very cheap.  Paris is renowned for being extremely pricey to visit, so how did we manage it on a tight budget?  Read on...

Accommodation
There are so many benefits to using Airbnb rather than booking a hotel or hostel room.  Not only was our third floor studio flat in Montmartre cheap (just £75 a night, which was less than a private room in a local youth hostel), but it oozed vintage Parisian charm.  You are really able to get a small taste of how the locals live when you are staying in someone's home, and we would never have stumbled across the slightly shabby but very hip Rue Muller - on the lower slopes of the Butte Montmartre and only a short climb from the Sacre Coeur - if we'd been staying in a hotel.
Total spend: £80 each, inc. Airbnb fees

Transport
I managed to pick up bargain advance train tickets to London, and used Avios (which I collect by exchanging my Tesco Clubcard points*) to book the Eurostar for just under £30.

Once in Paris, the weather was a great help with keeping costs down. Instead of taking the Metro constantly, we only used it for longer trips across the city and walked everywhere else, so we were able to get by with one carnet of tickets between the two of us for the whole weekend.
Total spend: £55 for return trains Leicester-Paris
€13.30 for two for a carnet of ten Metro tickets

 

Food
Our food expenditure was incredibly low for various reasons.  Being able to buy groceries to cook at 'home' made a huge difference.  We used the Carrefour supermarket around the corner from the flat, and €25 bought us enough for two breakfasts and one dinner (including a bottle of champagne, because we were feeling fancy).

I can also heartily recommend Maoz, on the Left Bank, for a cheap, tasty, filling (and vegetarian) meal.  Their pitta stuffed with falafel and salad (they also offer optional hummus or aubergine, for an extra 50 cents), eaten in a sunny park overlooking the Seine, made a perfect lunch on Saturday.

On Sunday we fortuitously stumbled across an amazing bistro in the Canal St Martin area, Le Robinet d'Or.  Not only was it the height of urban industrial chic, but their brunch special was an absolute bargain by Parisian standards.  We both had plates piled high with pineapples, pancakes, potatoes and salad, plus a veggie wrap for him and a salmon steak for me.  Add to that a hot drink and freshly squeezed orange juice, plus a bread basket, and the €17 price tag seemed extremely reasonable, especially because the food was so utterly delicious and the service extremely friendly.
Total spend: approx. €52 each, for two breakfasts, two lunches, one home-cooked dinner, Saturday evening drinks, Sunday afternoon drinks, vegan cake, and one bottle of champagne

Sightseeing
Saving money on sightseeing was a matter of luck for us.  The Boy and I had both been to Paris before, so we didn't have any burning desire to pay through the nose for attractions we'd already visited.  The weather was also glorious, enabling us to spend two days outside: rain might have driven us to pricey galleries and museums.  Instead we spent Saturday wandering the tourist-choked streets of the Ile de Cite and the Latin Quarter, admiring the Pantheon, the Sorbonne, Notre Dame Cathedral and the beautiful narrow streets of the Left Bank, without spending any money.

Paris's famed cemeteries are free of charge to visit and on a beautiful day like Sunday, Montparnasse Cemetery made a peaceful and relaxing place to walk and reflect.  We had intended to visit the Catacombs - which, with an €8 charge, would not have exactly broken the bank - but instead decided to go across to the Canal St Martin area, in the north-east, next to Gare de l'Est.  This hip corner of the city is very much a local area, and Sunday by the canal is a Parisian tradition.  The streets are closed to traffic and people gather to sit by the water or in the surrounding cafes and bars.  A perfect ending to a perfect weekend.
Total spend: nothing

* and which, after four years of collecting, have thus far yielded up a return flight to South Africa, a business class return to Amsterdam at New Years, and this trip to Paris. Seriously- the Clubcard/Avios scheme is totally worth it.

Record Store Day lust list

My current - ok, my permanent - Etsy obsession is prints and pictures.  Oh to have the money (and the wall space) to buy everything in my Favourites list!  I have to admit that if - with the hundreds of thousands of amazing options out there - you still default to a framed Ikea print on your wall, then I will judge you.  Stuck for inspiration?  How about one of these musical artworks, in honour of Saturday's Record Store Day.

This amazing The Queen Is Dead print combines two of my favourite things: music and books.  Also available for most of the other Smiths' albums, as well as Joy Division, Kraftwerk and others, but it's this one that's going to the top of my birthday list.  And it's just £12.50: bargain!

Personalised music lyrics prints. I can't quite decide what I would want - Rocket by Smashing Pumpkins maybe? - although it would definitely not be Lana del Rey, like this one.

I love all three of these Riot Grrrl prints, but my favourite has to be the, 'Riot not quiet' one. Revolution girl style now! 

Nice to meet you

I've been lucky enough to collect a lot of new readers and followers recently: hello everyone!  So I thought it might be a good idea to introduce myself to those who are new to the blog (with apologies for those who have been reading for a long time, or who know me IRL).

1. Do you have a middle name?
Elizabeth, which I have always liked a hell of a lot more than my actual given name.  All previous attempts to become 'Beth' or 'Lizzie' have ended in failure, sadly.

2. What is your job?
I'm an English teacher in a middle school, which is a bit of a cushy age: no GCSE pressure or coursework marking at the upper end; no having to toilet train kids or teach them to read at the younger end... just lots of nice kids (and a few rotters) in their fascinating and fun early teenage years.  I complain about my job a lot (and especially on days when I end up working 12+ hours), but I know I'm very lucky.

3. What is your dream job?
If money was no object, I'd be a permanent student; Manchester University's MA in Gender & Sexuality would be first on my list.

4. What do you look like?
I'm allergic to photographs of myself so you'll have to content yourselves with this description: big boobs, indie fringe, dyed red hair and permanently awkward expression.

5. How tall are you?
Well, I say that I'm 5'4". But I'm actually 5'3". Perhaps even a tad shorter. I have total body dysmorphia when it comes to height: in my mind, I'm a completely average height and some days I even feel tall. But... I'm really quite tiny; a fact I'm having to come to terms with as The Boy is well over six foot.

6. Who is your all-time favourite musician/band?
As I said in my recent music Q&A, Smashing Pumpkins are the band that have endured the past twenty years of music fandom.

7. What is your favourite song at the moment?
My guilty pop pleasure at the moment is Stay by Rihanna and I'm still massively into last year's Eurovision winner, Euphoria by Loreen.  Actual decent songs that I'm not ashamed to have on my iPod are Retrograde by James Blake, Next Stop by Bleached, and my biggest obsession at the moment: Other People by Beach House.

8. Do you participate in sports?
Until reading is designated an Olympic sport, no.  I go to the gym regularly and I walk a lot (at least five or six miles around town most weekends, as well as 'proper' hikes), but organised sports are not for me.

9. Favourite book?
Eek, that is impossible to answer!  Two recentish book Q&A's - one here and one on What Hannah Read - might go some way to listing favourites, but I could never narrow it down to one.  That'd be like choosing a favourite child.  But... if I was forced to narrow it down, it'd be Jane Austen's Persuasion for best classic novel, Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter Of Maladies for favourite short story collection, and Song Of Achilles by Madeline Miller as my top novel in recent years, just edging out Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall.

10. Favourite movie?
I did a movie Q&A on Louise's blog, which mentions all my favourites.  I think Dazed & Confused or The Station Agent take the number one spot though.

11. Favourite colour?
Blue - from baby blue to teal to navy, I love every shade.

12. Favourite perfume?
L'Occitane Ambre is amazing, but it doesn't last long on me (no perfume does, in fact. I think I have very pourous skin).

13. Favourite holiday?
Definitely my train journey across America in July/August 2011, which I blogged about at the time.

14. Favourite place?
Portland, Oregon. Everyone who knows me is no doubt sick of me harping on about it, but I fell so in love with this amazing, alternative, funky city in the Pacific Northwest. It breaks my heart a little every day I wake up anywhere but there. Otherwise, Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire for its independent shops and beautiful views (and proximity to my family).

15. What countries have you visited?
Erm *scratches head*... The Netherlands, Canada, USA, Germany, France, Czech Republic, Hungary, Spain, Italy, Iceland, South Africa... I think that's it.  This year has been - and continues to be - a crazy ride of European trips.  By the end of the summer I will have been to The Netherlands five times, plus Germany, Macedonia, France and Belgium.

16. How do you think other people view you?
Difficult question!  I think people tend to think I'm clever - cleverer than I actually am, in fact, possibly in part because despite living in the North and then the Midlands for the past 28 years, I have a rather cut-glass accent.  I possibly come across as aloof and cold, when actually it's just crippling shyness combined with really low self-esteem.  And I know that those closest to me find my inability to talk about my feelings difficult to deal with; I can seem as if I am quite emotionally closed off.  On a more positive note, I think people also see me as adventurous and independent, well-read and creative.

17. What is your biggest regret?
I try to live without regrets as much as possible, because it seems like wasted energy. I'd rather concentrate on making better decisions in future than kicking myself for ones made in the past. That being said, though, I do kick myself for the years I wasted in my early twenties, pining away for an emotionally unavailable, idiot boy.

18. Which person gone from your life do you miss the most?
The people I've been friends with who have passed from my life for various reasons.  I've had a couple of 'friendship breakups' and, although it's definitely for the best that they ended, I miss those people often.
 
19. What is the most valuable piece of advice you have ever been given?
My mum told me to buy a house, which was a great piece of advice (the financial help she - and my dad - gave me in getting a deposit together didn't go amiss either!). 

20. What five things can you not leave the house without?
- Lip balm of some description - my current fave is Burt's Bees Pomegranate;
- My iPhone;
- A book (or, increasingly and to my great shame, my Kindle);
- A mini hairbrush to keep my recalcitrant fringe in place;
- A pair of earphones, to shut out the outside world and better allow me to retreat into my misanthropic shell.

Music Monday: music to workout to

Not so long ago I started going to the gym again on the regular.  Music plays a massive part in my workouts; without my iPod, there is no way I would push myself as hard as I do on the cross-trainer or exercise bike.  I'm a creature of habit when it comes to a gym playlist, and (with a few additions along the way) have had the same songs spurring me on to ever-greater speeds since I first signed up at a gym eight years ago.  So, my top ten songs to workout to are...

1. Brianstorm by Arctic Monkeys (many's a time I've almost done myself an injury by trying to keep the cross-trainer at the same speed as the song)
2. Have I Been A Fool by Jack Penate (or, in fact, any single from his debut album: Spit At Stars and Torn On The Platform are equally good)
3. Suffer For Fashion by Of Montreal
4. Tarantula by Pendulum (a rare non-indie song on the list, but great to run or row to)
5. Dismantle Me by The Distillers
6. Giddy Stratospheres by The Long Blondes
7. Cassius by Foals
8. The Bears Are Coming by Late Of The Pier
9. Now I'm All Over The Shop by Maximo Park (Apply Some Pressure works a treat too)
10. Bamarang by Skrillex

Independent spirit

At the end of 2012 there was widespread outrage at the revelations about tax avoidance by big companies.  For me, the inclusion of Amazon on the list was the straw that broke the camel's back.  I had long been concerned about their labour practices, and was never happy giving my hard earned cash to a corporate behemoth when I could have been supporting the little guys, but like many people I found their prices and the ease of ordering just too damn tempting.  The discovery that, despite £3bn sales in the UK in 2011, Amazon had paid not a penny in corporation tax was enough to finally get me to break the Amazon habit.

Buying from other online sources or from high street stores and independent shops has inevitably led to me spending more money, however the difference has been fairly neglible (not least because, without the seemingly endless Amazon Recommends list to browse through, I am less likely to keep adding things I don't really want - and certainly don't need - to my basket).  And I'd happily spend a bit more to get that smug, glowy feeling of knowing I'm occupying the moral high ground!

So now, with Record Store Day fast approaching, I thought the time was ripe to let you know about some genuine alternatives to Amazon.

Photo via weheartit

Music

Fopp is, strictly speaking, not an independent retailer, having been acquired by HMV a few years back. No online store either, but if you're lucky enough to live in a city - including Cambridge, Nottingham, Bristol and Manchester - with a shop, then I am hugely jealous. They always have a massive range of CDs as well as DVDs and books, and most stock is at bargain prices. I'm a bit concerned as to what impact HMV's travails will have on the brand.

Record Store is, according to their website, run by music lovers for music lovers.  It is a great source for both dance and alternative music on CD or vinyl, and their prices are extremely competitive (I've just snapped up Tame Impala's second album for £5.99, just a few pence more than on Amazon).

Rough Trade, set up in 1976 and running as a record label and music retailer ever since, has bricks and mortar shops in London and an online presence.  Good for hard-to-find indie and rarities.

And in Leicester, Rockaboom - while a shadow of its former self - remains a great place for a browse of a weekend, and I often come away a few pounds lighter.   Their back catalogue stuff is particularly good value (usually just a fiver), and even new releases are rarely much more than Amazon.  I just wish their range was wider.

 

Photo via weheartit

Books

Online, I now use The Book Depository for most of my literary needs.  They have low prices and free (and fast) delivery: Amazon who?

Powells is my favourite bookshop in the world, in my favourite city in the world.  They offer international shipping, low prices... and for me, the thrill of receiving a parcel from my darling Portland is second to none.

Of course, there still exist many excellent high street independents which need your support.  My local is Quinns in Market Harborough, which I always enjoy visiting.  Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights in Bath is high on my list of places to visit.  And although not an independent, I think Waterstones has really raised its game in recent years.

I would love to hear about your recommendations.  What are the good independent book or record shops near you?  Or have you discovered a great online source of entertainment?

This summer, I want to...

Photo via weheartit

... pack a picnic and a bottle of fizz and go to the park with a gang of friends;
... watch the sunrise with the boy I love;
... go to a small local festival.  I'm currently tempted by Y Not (which is in Derbyshire, so local-ish); now I just need to convince my mates that they want to go too;
... tackle some of those books that I have been promising people I would read.  It is ridiculous, for instance, that I have never read To Kill A Mockingbird;
... visit the Huddersfield Food & Drink Festival with my mum and step-mum;
... put my new bike together and take it out for some rides along the canal;
... try not to wish the summer away... because The Boy moves back to Leicester at the start of September!

What I did on my holidays

Only a few more days of the Easter holidays to go... it has been a weird (but good) break, not really like spring at all due to the weather.  The Boy arrives for a visit later this evening (eep - so excited!), so I have - unusually - been wishing away my days off, just wanting the time to hurry up so I can see him.

 

So what have I done on my holidays?  I've seen friends, read a lot, slept a lot, gone to the gym a lot, visited family.  I have baked and shopped (a slightly ridiculous amount, actually).  Gardened and cleaned (rather less than I have shopped).  Blogged and planned.  I also had a lovely day out in Nottingham with L, culminating in a visit to the Playhouse for a performance of I Was A Rat, a really wonderful play (based on the book by Phillip Pullman) full of music, dancing, comedy and just the right amount of sentimentality.

 

1. & 2. Extremely snowy walk in Denby Dale during a trip to Yorkshire to visit the family;

3. Raspberry cupcakes;

4. Tree with blossom and snow: just plain wrong.

5. Lovely new bed linen on my admittedly overly girly, pink bed;

6. I Was A Rat at Nottingham Playhouse (thanks to Laura, who sorted us out with free tickets for the press night);

7. The perfect afternoon during school holidays: a pint of cider in the pub, with a book about Riot Grrrl to while away the hours;

8. Gorgeous new brogues from Clarks, which I don't quite dare to wear outside for fear of ruining them.

My new favourite shop

I went to Leamington Spa on my day off recently.  Although I don't think the town measures up to neighbouring Warwick or nearby Stratford-Upon-Avon, it does have a Bravissimo shop so a visit is needed every so often. 

However, on this trip I stumbled across an absolute gem of a store that I just had to tell you about. Berylune is the kind of place where you need nothing but want everything. I seriously could have bought the entire stock.

 

The interior of Berylune.  Washi tape, craft paper and Chupa Chups?!  My kind of shop

Look at these amazing rainbow satchels! 

I bought a few of these gorgeous homemade soaps to give as gifts; they were pleasingly cheap and smell amazing.

Being fairly short on funds (I had just spent fifty quid on bras, after all), I had to limit myself to the soap and this fab record sleeves colouring book but a return trip is very much in order ASAP.  And if Leamington is too far for you to travel, you can also buy online - yay!

All photographs from the Berylune website.

Misadventures in internet dating

Ah, internet dating.  Where would we be without it?  Over the past ten years I have repeatedly dipped my toe into the murky pools that are Match, Guardian Soulmates, Ok Cupid and Free Dating, with varying* levels of success. 

I first tried online dating when it was still in its infancy, around 2004.  Things did not begin well.  The first guy I met seemed fantastic; we talked on the phone and seemed to get on, so he came to Leicester for a drink.  A great night followed.  Lots of chatting, a few kisses (I was much bolder in those days), and when he missed the last train home and I offered him a bed for the night, I was ever so proud of myself for not having sex with him and ruining a promising thing.  Second date... he told me he was gay.

I took a break for a year or so before giving Match a go.  This established a pattern for the next eight years: sign up with a service, go on a few terrible dates, have a year-long break - just long enough to forget how horrendous the experience is - before being tempted back to begin the whole cycle over again.  Over the years I...

... met up with a charmer who hadn't even bothered to take off his wedding ring.

... went on a first date with a guy who told me that he admired Hitler's powers of organisation.  There was no second date.

... listened to someone talk about his ex-girlfriend for a good two hours before I could escape.

... got to the snogging stage with one guy who, on the first (and last) night we kissed, declared, "I can locate the clitoris with my tongue in under ten seconds".  Erm, thanks but no thanks (and also, this is what passes for a boast nowadays?!).

To be entirely fair, I wasn't always the innocent party on these bad dates.  On one occassion the guy drove all the way from Peterborough for lunch, only to find me horrendously hungover and trying very hard not to vomit into my falafel.  I dated another person for longer than I should have, just because we made a shit hot team at the local pub music quiz.  Once we hit the jackpot and won the cash prize, it was bye bye to him.

By 2010 I was thoroughly fed up with the whole shebang.  My best friend, Cara, had struck online dating gold; meeting her now-fiancee just as she was about to give up on it all.  I figured she'd used up the internet dating luck in our group and that I should just retire gracefully to live out my days alone.  Deleting all my profiles, I took a longer-than-usual break.

Two years passed, and after doing some thinking about what I wanted from life (ok, after one too many Saturday nights home alone), I decided to give it one more try.  I'd heard good things about OK Cupid, so I set up a profile and waited for the usual mixture of x-rated missives that made me want to vomit, vaguely promising overtures from guys who always seemed to work in IT, and the occasional message that actually got my heart racing.  To begin with, it was really the same old same old.  A few fleeting meet-ups with guys who were clearly not for me.   A few email flirtations that never seemed to go anywhere; that I wasn't convinced I wanted to go anywhere.  And then, as I was just about to give it all up once again, he came along.

Because yes, I am now that rare beast: an internet dating success story.  What made it work, at last, when all other attempts had gone so badly?  I think it was a combination of things.  After years of being very happily single, I was finally ready to commit.  The pleasure I took in my own company - the joy of doing things like travelling alone - had started to pall, and I had reached a point where I definitely wanted to be with someone.  OK Cupid was the best of the dating websites, too, with a system of seemingly endless questions which led to surprisingly accurate matches (The Boy and I are a 99% match, according to their algorithms).  Last, but by no means least, is the fact that I met him.  That 99% match thing is no joke: we really are perfect for each other.

Never mind that it took us six long weeks (and at least twelve dates) to get round to admitting we liked each other**.  Never mind that I spent a lot of those six weeks wailing to my friends (and on Twitter - overshare much, Janet?) "Why won't he kiss me?!"  Never mind that, by the end of those six weeks, I had firmly placed him back into the friendzone, so convinced was I that he didn't fancy me.  We got there in the end. 

Do you want to hear something really annoying though?  I'm the first person that The Boy ever met through internet dating; so as far as he is concerned, the whole thing is EASY.

* and by 'varying', I mean 'no' levels of success (with one glaring and obvious exception).
** this is what happens when you put two shy and socially awkward people together: our 'moves' consisted of sitting on a slightly closer sofa cushion and then wondering why the other one hadn't picked up on our overtures!  He ended up having to send me a message telling me he liked me, because apparently we are both still in middle school.

March reads

1. If I ever want to read something completely undemanding but entertaining, I reach for the Sookie Stackhouse series.  Dead To The World is my favourite for a myriad of reasons, most of which, admittedly, related to the fact that the character of Eric (the hot, blonde vampire played by Alexander Skarsgard in True Blood, the TV series based on these novels) has a central role in the storyline.  I read it from cover-to-cover, curled up in front of the fire, on a cold Sunday recently.  Bliss!

2. I loved John Green's most recent novel, The Fault In Our Stars, so when a friend from my craft & book groups recommended Looking For Alaska I was keen to read it.  I have to admit, it didn't capture my heart.  Telling the story of Miles Halter's first year at boarding school, I found that the main characters - particularly the Alaska of the title - were not hugely sympathetic.  I never felt like I really knew them or was rooting for them.

3. A bit of a cheat, putting this book in, as I've only just started reading it.  But I'm alread hooked and, judging by how quickly I read all of McDermid's edge-of-the-seat thrillers, I will have devoured The Vanishing Point well before the end of the month.

4. Our latest book group choice was Before I Go To Sleep; very much the kind of novel I read in large quantities and then feel mildly guilty about. A thrilling page turner about a woman who has such severe amnesia that she forgets everything as she sleeps each night, the plot hinges upon the question: who - if anyone - can she trust?  Ironically, it's an ultimately forgetable but nevertheless compelling novel:  I read it in one sitting but can now barely remember whether I even liked it all that much. 

5. Both volumes of Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries are as lovely to read at as a 'real' book. Beautiful production values combined with wonderful photography, reliably delicious recipes and enjoyable anecdotes makes this a fantastic read.  I've been working my way through the January & February recipes in this second volume, trying to cook something new every week; I especially loved the chickpea and tomato stew, to which I added some chunks of chorizo.

6. What Matters In Jane Austen? was an utter pleasure.  A collection of essays on questions ranging from 'Is there any sex in Jane Austen?' to 'Why is it risky to go to the seaside?'  If, like me, you are an Austen geek, then this book will definitely be one to savour.  It made me want to go back and reread my favourite of her novels, Persuasion and Pride & Prejudice.