Memories of Paris - Part III: The Bois de Boulogne and my Fellow Stagières

(As requested by both Renee and Alan. Go here to make your own request)

There were three other Engineering-with-French students with work placements in the Paris region at the same time as mine: Kevin Mulvenna, a slightly older Irish guy, and the twins Barry (pictured) and Nigel Franks. Kevin was stationed a little further out and we didn't see him much, but I hung out with the twins on a regular basis. They were all about girls - Nigel had a girlfriend at home, but Barry managed to find himself a French girl while we were here. She was short, fairly attractive and lived at the very end of the RER line. I remember her car was an old Citroen 2CV (deux cheveaux, or 2 h.p.) with tires that looked like they were ready to fall apart at any moment. However, I do not remember her name!

Our times together would typically consist of visiting a Monoprix supermarket and picking up the cheapest bottle of wine (or 2), a couple of baguettes, butter, cheese and perhaps some tomatoes or paté. We'd then head for the nearest place with grass and park benches, which might be somewhere along the Champs-Elysées or further west in the Bois de Boulogne, a 2,000 acre park filled with families during the day, and prostitutes at night, (It wasn't uncommon to see half-naked women clambering out of the minivans which served as brothels, between customers.) We would sit and drink the wine out of cheap plastic glasses, or even straight from the bottle, and just watch the world go by until it was dark, when we'd head for the nearest bus stop or Métro station to go back to our separate lodgings.

Towards the end of our stay, a few of our other friends came over for a short visit. They'd had the dubious pleasure of spending their work placement time in British engineering factories, thanks to not taking the foreign language part of the degree course. To them, Paris was exotic, fun and everything that Sheffield wasn't! In this photo, we're celebrating Phil's birthday at the Tuileries gardens, by giving him "the bumps" - that old British tradition of throwing someone up in the air once for every year of their life. Paul is holding Phil's legs, while Pete and Martin have one arm each. You can see me in the back, near Phil's head. Barry seems to be just smiling at the camera and not helping at all... as for Barry's nameless girlfriend, she has her arm out ready to ... well, feel free to speculate in comments. :-)

The group photo is courtesy of the birthday boy, Phil Rowlinson, who recently scanned in some of the many slide photos he took while at university. The photo of Barry in the rowboat is courtesy of my mother, who also visited for a few days and went on a picnic with us.