I wish I were, richat! I'm sorry to hear your bro is feeling down. How long has he been there? Adjusting to a new city, let alone a new country, can be really hard.

He's only been there a few weeks, in a newly rented, rather expensive flat, and unfortunately, he arrived with a cracked rib or two from impaling himself on his ski pole while spending time with his lovely British girlfriend, in the Alps.

So, he's been a little too sore to venture out too much, and he's not got any work lined up yet, so he's too frugal to get out and be very spendy, even if he felt up to it.

I feel for the kid, but sadly haven't been able to perfect my transporting across the world technique yet.

aww, the poor thing - I am sadly not in Paris but was going to come in and recommend he go for very long walks around the city, but with cracked ribs he probably doesn't feel like it.

I can remember what it's like to be in a new country and feel lonely - in my case, I tried long walks, libraries and eventually joined an orchestra (and started to make friends right before I had to come back to the UK). Perhaps the library would work for him, temporarily at least?

Maybe you should send the poor gimpy kid here.

When I was in a similar situation in Italy (minus the cracked ribs), I used to go to evening Mass. I'm not Catholic, but it was nice to be in a pretty church surrounded by other people. (Well, ok, "surrounded" by half a dozen elderly women.) And they usually passed out cheat sheets for the call-and-response part of the service, which meant I could practice my Italian.

It was just a nice little (free!) way to go and feel connected to the community.