Friday, December 14, 2007

Met zweepslag naar Parijs

I had so much fun yesterday. Was on a day-trip by bus to Paris.





At the time I ran across the advertisement for this trip, I didn't have any health issues. I asked two friends which I'm close with locally but neither could join. And didn't think this would be something for my 5-year old. Or my husband either. So I just signed up myself. After all, this was to be my third visit to this city so I knew my way around a bit. And with the guide book and street plan, should be a blast!





And it was a blast even though I managed to tear my muscle (first I heard a sound of the whip and then realized I can not step on my left leg any more, so indeed a hit of a whip, locally known as zweepslag). I still payed for the trip and hoped for the best. Now, I've never heard of this injury before, but it turns out recovery time is quite long. Which makes it extremely difficult since life goes on around and doesn't stop for my leg to get better. So, I spent the most difficult first days on the couch, then started by taking and bringing back my son from school. It felt ridiculous, since I couldn't walk normally and then only in high heels. I didn't wear those in a few years now, good I didn't get rid of them yet. Never thought they might be even handy. I couldn't bike either so had to use the car for this 2min trips to school. Oh well, if others who don't have any medical excuses can do it, why not me for these three weeks?





I feel bad most about having to abandon my tennis practice (I sustained the injury in the last 5 minutes of the game). And that I can not sit behind the computer! I feel the pain in the leg even now. So, for the last three weeks I have been mostly parked on the couch, with knitting and crochet. And managed to finish John Stocking. And lots of snowflakes which are waiting to be stiffened and hung up.





And so, the day of the Paris trip arrived. I prepared knitting and reading material in case I would need to sit down and rest the leg. None of it was necessary in the end. I managed to do what I always do on vacations in cities: explore all day long till I drop. I dropped in the end once I had to walk from the car to the house and bed, but managed those last few steps, luckily.





Day started at 3am when the bus departed from neighbouring village. We arrived in Paris at 9am and I started my tour by first paying a visit to Brentano's. I was disappointed in the extent of craft book offer. Not much interesting when it comes to knitting and crochet books and priced (in my opinion) high so I ended empty handed. There have been on the shelf also Interweave Crochet and BHG Knitting magazine. I have the first and didn't like any projects in the second. There were loads of quilting books but the few I have are more than enough at the moment. There have been lots of japanese crafts books, but again, none that I liked. So I walked out with a nice compact street register in search of other interesting spots.





One of the turned out to be La Droquerie. But with a few days before Christmas, it was a zoo. And with my limited knowledge of yarn and non-existent french I didn't dare to buy any since they sell only their own yarn. So, next stop was Le Bon Marche. Now, that was a nice surprise. This is a very high end department store with extremely nice merchandise. So, I did some "window shopping" to end in the extremely nice craft section. There was Noro, Debbie Bliss, Rowan and some other yarn by manufacturers unknown to me. I had hard time separating from Debbie Bliss silk yarn but just didn't like any of the colors available (pink, light green, light yellow). So, a final pet and on to the overcrowded Galeries Lafayette. Yarn section here was small and represented only by Phildar yarn. All of these yarn stores have nice selection of needles, buttons, ribbons and the department stores also carry needlepoint supplies. All books are in french, even the nice Noro yarn kits. Had to give it all a miss.





So, for the last I managed to visit the british W.H. Smith store. That was a nice surprise. Book selection was even smaller than Brentano's (no japanese books) but managed to find two knitting/crochet and one quilt magazines that I liked.





And that was the only score of the Christmas shopping trip to Paris. And a nice fish in one of the pricey bistro's accompanied with a glass of wine and irish coffee. Had to sit a bit for all that alcohol to work through the system before I could attempt those dangerous looking stairs to the toilet! It was a sunny but cold day so a bit of warming up from inside was more than necessary!



Feet are still a bit swollen but the leg is mostly OK so am going to try to bike tomorrow. Without high heels, of course!