June 29 Versailles

The sun is blasting, so we make grand plans for Mz. Antionette’s royal gardens. We carry our things down 111 stairs, but before we hit the road, we help this dude jump start his mini.


Instant Karma. And so we weave our way out of Paris. Alas, Versailles fails us. It’s prohibitively expensive to get in, so instead we press ourselves up against the gates for the closest view possible and tromp alongside the barricade looking for a weak point to sneak in. No dice.






Frustrated and irate, we started some fires, piked up some heads, and continued on to Alençon. After our show last week, we were told to come back and stay anytime. And so here we come. On the way we stop at a water closet, where they sell "fweets". I was worried Leatherface was going to be manning the stand, but we made it past unscathed.


Turns out that we didn’t actually play in Alençon the other week, so when we show up, we recognize nothing. Imagine our surprise when we arrive at the address we thought was going to be the venue we stayed at, and instead a cute man arrives on a bicycle sporting a bowtie and asks us if we are from New Zealand. This is about to get rad. Or Blue Velvet-y.

He invites us into his home and gives us water and a menthe aperitif, which is to be mixed in with your water. It explains the crayon green beverages that we’ve seen people drinking in bars everywhere since we showed up in France. It’s, mmm, okay. I’ll chalk it up to acquired taste.

We are led down the street to an empty home. Its got beds. Its got a kitchen. A washer. Wifi. I don’t know who’s house this is, I don’t really know who this man Terry with the bowtie is, but I like it. We thank Terry and mentally prepare to make our way to another random destination. Our friend Romain texted us and said to come to his friend’s house. Rumor is that there is a Pool. SOLD.

Turns out there’s a wee tennis court too. I don’t know if there’s a proper name for this type of tennis, but the court is about half the size of a regulation court, there’s some additional strange markings, and you play with racketball looking rackets. This simple game of tennis is soon BBEized into some bastard version of Assault.

We swim. We eat pizzas. We use bad French. A girl arrives that everyone is chiding and teasing. Turns out she slept with one of their friends last night and then told him in the morning that she’s not interested in pursuing things. I try to give her a high five, but I think she thinks I’m assuming she’s easy to bag and hitting on her. Ah, the joys of not knowing French.

We make a new friend, also named Guillaume. We’ll call him G2. BBE explains the story of the Rainbow Warrior, a GreenPeace vessel that was bombed by two French agents in the Auckland port. France apparently never apologized for this terrorist attack. So Guillaume apologized for France. It has been done. Basically, the eight people at the party are some new best friends. Especially the girl that drinks Smirnoff Ice and laughs like a pig.