Second moulin to the right and straight on til lunchtime

I like a good challenge. Any follower of past escapades such as #GM10 or Drinking the Snail can testify to that. I particularly enjoy challenges that didn’t previously exist and that no other idiots before me have embarked upon.

At brunch a couple of weeks ago, a new challenge was born, with the most self-explanatory name yet, Paris without a Map. Hashing out the details took the best part of 5 hours of face-to-face meetings between the participants, an extensive email thread which includes the phrases ‘I think you should be allowed to run but not to take a bus,’ and ‘It is a Sunday after all and therefore dedicated to relaxation.’ I also had various suggestions from friends and family. (For ‘suggestions’, read sceptical comments such as ‘You’re doing what?’ and ‘Oh god, not again.’)

In a nutshell, the rules were thus:

2 brave teams would travel in a subterranean manner to their respective starting-points. Over the next several hours, each team would race to the rendezvous-point finish-line with ABSOLUTELY no map / GPS assistance, whilst completing various check-ins and tasks devised by the opposition on the way. A complicated points system was established, and there had to be a possible route of between 9 and 9.5km.

Impartial adjudicators (my friends Ana and Will) selected the teams, by drawing names out of a hat. ‘Names’ being pots of UHT milk, and the ‘hat’ being my hands. George and Jen vs. Pam and Olivier.

Each team held a preparation meeting before the big day. Pam and Olivier went first, and so did all the serious point-setting for easy, medium and hard challenges. George and I asked ourselves important questions like ‘We can get them to go outside Paris for part of it, can’t we?’ and ‘Where would be the best place to get them to do an impression of a bat?’

My Paris A-Z goes everywhere with me, so I was somewhat nervous at leaving it at home that morning. I googled how to make your own compass, but the requisite magnets and shallow vessels of water weren’t really feasible at short notice. And I thought I was onto something with a vague memory that you can orient yourself using the nave of a church, except that there are about a million churches in Paris facing every which way, and I barely know my apse from my elbow.

You don’t need to hear the details of how we wasted valuable time buying chocolates shaped like rabbits and lambs, or visiting a Belgian cultural-centre-slash-épicerie for no reason at all. Or how we spent ages looking for wild fish and a macaron company headquarters, both to no avail, and took a series of entirely unnecessary photos of bus-stops.

The important thing is, we achieved. We accosted tourists and made them take selfies with us. We took a composite image of the Moulin Rouge in the past and now. We found a specific type of German high-speed train. My personal high-point of the day was George frantically making an about-turn signal at me and hissing, ‘Not down there. There’s a bishop blocking the way.’

To cut a 14.8km journey short, EGG-O ENER-J (clever Easter-themed Jen-George anagram team-name) lost. Amazingly, there were only 9 minutes in it. Our elated selfie in front of the Philharmonie de Paris building is full of victory and sunshine, now sadly tinged with defeat as, unbeknownst to us, Pam and Olivier had arrived moments before and nipped to the toilet.

I’m choosing to take the high road and not quibble about the fact that one of our challenges was not achievable or that there was an ‘on-foot/as-the-crow-flies’ miscommunication somewhere along the way.

Instead, I prefer to see Paris herself as the loser; being without a map was ironically the least challenging element of the day. Not once did I feel lost or disoriented. Seeing the Arc de Triomphe side-on or using the shape of the lake in Parc Monceau to gauge directions, and assessing distance using the faraway sight of a particular Métro bridge on line 2, made me realise how well I know my way around these days.

I have realised whilst writing this that all these ridiculous challenges have involved me enlisting entirely different friends each time to take part, which I think proves that you all secretly want to do them. If you know me, and haven’t yet been roped in, watch this space. I’m sure to be harassing you soon enough. Future projects currently being workshopped involve finding all the original water fountains in Paris and something to do with the classic Meg Ryan/Kevin Kline movie French Kiss.

It’ll be first come, first served, so you’d better get your name down asap.

A Brush With Death

Today I got my cheveux couped. That’s right kids, a haircut. Exciting times.

Now me and my hair have never been the best of friends, so spending an hour in front of a mirror being forced to look at someone else who’s being forced to deal with it is not one of my favourite things to do.

And then there’s the small-talk. And the challenging task of saying yes to a coffee (because it’s free) but then having to drink it without moving the position of your head, all before the hairdryer blows thousands of tiny hairs into the mug.

And now imagine doing all of that in French.

Yes. Exactly.

After 4 months here, my French is still basically rubbish. So I sensibly spent a bit of time researching the situation online. For your own sake, please never google anything remotely like ‘Paris hairdressers just a trim’. There is a very large, very dark part of the internet filled with horror-stories about trips to French hair salons. Most of which are variations on, ‘She just kept hacking away at it and refused to listen to me’ or ‘She did the whole thing with just a RAZOR’.

Apprehensive, I asked people for advice. My friend Kate just shook her head and jabbed furiously at the pony-tail she’s been sporting recently; apparently, a recent victim of the hacking-away treatment.

Then I asked my friend Steph, who’s lived in Paris for years. She’ll know what to do, I thought confidently. Not so. It’s very hit-and-miss, she said unhelpfully. You just have to go into one and hope for the best.

Then she added, Just don’t ask for a petit coup, because that means sex. Super.

And as an afterthought, she said darkly, And whatever you do, if they offer you a swan, say no.

And so this morning saw me nervously entering World Cut armed with a picture of Rose Byrne growing out a fringe, and a post-it reading ‘Trim = une coupe d’entretien. Stop = Arrêtez.’

Don’t worry. It wasn’t so bad. As the hairdresser pointed out, my hair is really very thick so all the hacking-away she did hasn’t left me scalped. But the experience was markedly different from getting a hair-cut in Britain. Par exemple:

1. My idea of what I wanted was incidental. The first 10 minutes involved Hairdressers number 1 and 2 umming and ahhing like speculating builders, shaking their heads about the chances of putting in an extension. My French might be pretty crap, but I could follow their conversation, which included some great phrases:

We need to put in more movement here.

You have quite a long face, you know.

You last had it cut when?

Did you know the top half is a different colour to the bottom half?

Oh look, here are a few little white hairs.

I helpfully contributed that there’s a certain part of my forehead that I don’t really like, but they weren’t really interested. Even the little old lady having her highlights done next to me joined in.

2. Turns out a swan is a soin, a conditioning treatment that costs an extra 15€. Pah, no thank you (merci Steph).

3. The add-ons didn’t stop there. If I wanted any mousse putting in, that would be 8 further euros. I opted for a regular blow-dry, un brushing, thank you very much.

4. And the brushing was the strangest part. The whole experience had been quite Edward Scissorhands throughout, blades and bits of hair flying about enthusiastically. But this was something else; I’ve never seen such violence expressed with a hairdryer. If she was Rod Hull, then the hairbrush with my head attached was Emu trying to attack her.

In fact, I presume this was excessive even by Paris standards, because the manager marched over shouting ‘What are you doing?’ and took over. She was equally brusque, but seemed less angry about the whole thing. I was just starting to feel part-proud, part-relieved that the whole thing was nearly over, when she said, ‘Hmm, frizzy. This bit’s very dry.’

And hairdresser number 1 chipped in from across the room something which I didn’t hear, but which undoubtedly meant ‘That’s what you get for not having a soin’.

Cultural acclimatisation rituals for the day = 1.

Soins = 0.

Celebratory pains au chocolat consumed = 2.

Relief at not having to visit the hairdresser for at least 3 months = priceless.