City lights laid out before us and your arm felt nice wrapped 'round my shoulders..

Wow, extremely long time no blog but the last few weeks of my life have been so jam-packed. A continous, and ongoing, buzz of travelling, partying and hardcore studying...by far the best five weeks of my life so far. 

(Excluding Disneyland sis, don't you worry!)
So instead of boring you and cramping my fingers with the ins and outs, I thought I'd take a philosophical route and write about the lessons I have learnt over this time. Whether it be the things my closest people have taught me that have had a definite impact over the last few weeks and absolutely influenced my life or the little anecdotes and funny tales I have gathered over my travels:

1) It's ok to let your heart rule your head. To be completely reckless once in a while. And to make totally rash life decisions half way up La Tour Eiffel with your Brazilian BFF as part of a pact.

Because I have learnt it's what makes you happy that is important and life has a funny way of working things out. 

2) Always get a watertight container to store your belongings in when canoeing down the Dordogne. Otherwise when your Ma and Pa's canoe ends up upside down in amongst the rapids and you manage to rescue everything but the house and car keys, an absolute 'mare will occur.

3) Drink your beer from a boot. Never a glass, zats boringg.

4) Bring an empty shoebox to Amsterdam. Everytime. You will absolutely be able to use it for something.

5) Take a risk and embrace every oppurtunity. The friends you make when you get there will be friends for life. And experiencing life from others peoples points of view and their cultural tastes is the best thing for your soul.

6) Chill out in a park slash climb a prestigious monument at least once a week throughout the summer months. Bring your work, your friends, a french stick and a game of twister and let looose.

7) We love a good pun, we do.

8) Getting absolutely wrecked and curling up in bed with your best friend and two Pizza Base garlic cheese pizzas is the best. And spending the morning after remembering completely random incidents whilst both too afraid to sit up can completely erase the pain of that horrific hangover.

9) Follow your heart. Even if takes you across borders.
Besides, you can re-sit the exam but you can't re-sit that moment.

..And since this post is coming in from the utterly amezin' land of Amsterdam in my now favourite country of Holland, expect a more upbeat, action filled, utterly random and less meaningful post very sooon. As Queen's weekend and todays immense street party for the mere result of a football match proved, the Dutch absolutely do it best. 

I'm sorry Paris, there's someone else. But don't worry, I'll be back in 10 days, if you'll have me. Anyway they kiss three times here, nightmare..

Is it out of line if I were to be bold and say 'would you be mine?'..

Despite thorougly enjoying the absolutely-can't-keep-our-hands-off-each-other stage of our relationship, there is one thing for certain I have come to realise I am not going to miss about mon amour, Paris. It's one of the few cultural concepts I am yet to become acclimatized to and one that does not bode well with my already awkward personality.

Meeting, greeting and bidding farewell to the French..

Considering the Parisiens infamous rude reputation and inability to make small talk, one would think that the last thing they would be eager to do is plant their lips on the faces of complete strangers, but so it goes. I have no problem with sharing the love with mes amis in this way, after all hugging is reserved solely for lovers and two girls embracing are obviously lesbians no? But, walking into a French house party, meeting large groups of friends of friends or even before a hardcore game of Le Spin, one must circuit the entire room kissing each person on each cheek, 9 times out of 10 before even knowing the said person's name and ALWAYS right cheek to right cheek then left to left. I still wait in fear and cringe for the first time I screw that one up. I realise as vent about this that it may sound like much ado about nothing in writing but believe me, IT IS AWKWARD! 

Imagine rushing down the street on your way to University and seeing someone you know or even vaguely know through a friend, you must stop, *kisses*, then after 30 seconds of pleasantries, *kisses* once again. Not only is it awkward, it's bloody time wasting too. Or imagine completing 4 hours of sport on a Sunday morning and bidding farewell to your team mates completely covered in mud, absolutely exhausted and desperate to get into the car and head back to Paris. Surely the guys you've been playing against for the whole morning won't want to start being friendly now, but oh yes, cheek-to-cheek mud transfers all round.

But what if the Frenchie you're being introduced to is a handsome one, a perfect bonus to the kissing game, obviously not the time to become extremely aware of your breath or the smell of your hair. You would think. And if the guy you're kissing smells exceptionally great or his stubble playfully tickles your cheek as you greet, the girlish smile and subconcious swoon that follows can only make the occassion awkward all over again.

So yes Paris, I am completely infatuated with everything you do but please let's take things slower, you don't even know my name..

We watch the sun come up, it’s calling, I want another day with you...

Printemps à Paris and there is a definite je ne sais quoi in the air. Namely because it escapes me why the Parisiens are still walking around in thick coats and wooly scarves in this 18° heat, but also because there is something about the city at this time of year that makes it more irrestible than ever.

The first sign of sun in France and the French don't immediately dig out their shortest skirts and flip flops and head to the nearest beer garden. No, the Parisiens maintain that ever stylish status and take advantage of the outdoor seating at every café, knowing by heart which ones the sunlight spills onto, and continue to sip on their café crèmes and casually drag their cigarettes. They also take advantage of generous amount of incredible public parks situated in breath-taking spots around the city. Still smoking their cigarettes but also sharing a bottle of wine over a gossip with friends, relaxing with a loved one, or taking time out to read a novel, either way they are soaking up the rays without a pint of cider in their hand and their shirts folded up round their waists for ultimate tan exposure. And English as I am, I quite like it. 

Spending my afternoons chilling with my favourites in the Louvre gardens, whether revising for mid-terms, listening to Chase & Status or having general banter, and spending the light evenings swapping the Metro for lazy strolls along the Seine must have prompted my inner French girl to come out and play as this week I have found myself partaking in significantly more French culture, to name a few examples:

• I've found myself purchasing a 90c stick from a regular bakery on a regular basis and boy am I going to miss them when I leave.
• I have been reading my book at every available opportunity, even perfecting the 'I'm-so-used-to-the-Metro-I-can-read-my-book-instead-of-holding-on' stand. I honestly can't put The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo down.
• I have worn a scarf everyday the temperature has been in double figures. In fact I don't think I could ever leave my room without one in fear of the reaction I would get..
• Spent afternoons sitting outside cafés for way longer than required and way after finishing our beverages. Which also nearly always results in taking advantage of the city's free WiFi, getting out a Mac and impulsivly booking travel tickets...'iya Amsterdam!
• Going to a Parisien house party with non-English speaking Frenchies and learning French drinking games...French culture to an extent, no?
• Finding French artists and falling for their musical style and of course, that accent.

Despite however I spend these gorgeous Spring days in Paris, each day that passes leaves me a day closer to leaving this city and from the way my heart sinks every time I remember this I can finally say it's official..

Paris, Je T'Aime

I'm sorry I'm a little late, you know the stripes on a tiger are hard to change..

A visit from the parents en route for their big move to the South of France meant playing tour guide for the weekend and boy, am I glad I played along. Taking them to my favourite nooks and crannies of the city allowed me fall in love with Paris all over again and learn that instead of lingering on what I miss about Britain to thank my lucky stars for what I have right on my doorstep...

We started with Père-Lachaise, a third time visit for me yet still as incredible and spine-tingling as my very first glimpse. The cemetery is host to hundreds of thousands of graves with the most extravagant and intricate tombstones belonging to the Parisian elite alongside some great names of the modern world. The cemetery also features a crematorium and thousands of small plaques, each individually designed, guard the ashes and keep the memories of those behind them. The strangest part about this concept being the plaques engraved with a date of death absent, for those who are still alive! Also a great gentleman called Leopold Fucker has gave me giggles and probably ensured my sending to hell each time.

The most spectacular of all the graves belongs very appropriately to Oscar Wilde, it is tradition to take along a lipstick and kiss his tombstone when you visit. And the small plaque at the foot of the grave amongst all the many layers of lip prints and lipstick scrawled messages of love? It instructs NOT to deface the grave in order to respect the memory of Oscar Wilde, genius.

Next, my potential two favourite spots in the city, the top of the Arc de Triomphe and Pont des Arts. Climbing the 284 steps up a very narrow and steep spiral staircase becomes absolutely worth it the minute you step out on to the top floor of the Arc de Triomphe as the wind hits your hair and the whole of Paris surrounds you. The views are absolutely breath-taking, I can only imagine they are so much better in the summer. This is officially the best people-watching spot in the world! I could also stand flinching and squirming for the fate of cyclists all day looking down at the 10 lane roundabout that surrounds the Arc, being France there is no sense of any system and cars chaotically weave in and out of each other as well as those daring enough to cross on foot all day long.

From the Arc de Triomphe, a stroll down the spectacular Champs-Élysées and through the beautiful Louvre gardens will get one to another breath-taking sight. Pont des Arts at first glimpse may first appear like any other of the 37 bridges that cross the Seine. However, the closer you get, the clearer the blurs amongst the wire grid on the side of the bridge become, and on setting foot on the bridge you are faced with hundreds of padlocks quietly hanging along each side. Padlocks of all shapes and size, some engraved some scrawled on with permanent marker, messages of love and hope, and a sure fire way to leave ones mark on the city. Tradition states that couples attach a padlock on the side of Pont des Arts, promise eternal love for one another then throw the key into the Seine below ensuring their 'padlock of love' can never leave Paris. Each padlock is different, telling a unique and individual story for those who placed it and the whole bridge just simultaneously blows my mind and melts my heart. And yes, lover or no lover, I will be joining this tradition before I leave Paris.

The rest of weekend included walks along the Seine and through my favourite area of Le Marais, where no matter what you wear, everybody will dress better than you and the falafel lives up to its world famous reputation. A trip to the Sacré-Cœur and Notre-Dame and a rub of Saint Peter's foot also ensured luck went with my parents on their travels and I would like to think made up for my giggling at Leopold's tombstone. The weekend was then finished off wishing my parents a Bon Voyage, heading to a vintage fair and sitting out in the Jardin des Tuileries with my girlfriends and the Parisian sun.

My eyes have been completely re-opened to this city of art, beauty, and the occasional French wit that I am so lucky to live in and made any cabin fever I thought I'd felt seem ridiculous.

All that said, I'm now only a small bit sad about missing The Only Way is Essex tonight and am instead going to curl up with Paris Je T'aime and a bowl of Tesco's own muesli.

Paris, you may not be perfect but I am definitely falling for you..

"Shame you had to get Minnie Mouse ears, did they not have any regular sized ones left?"

Whoa, busy last couple of weeks. And despite developing a sense of Cabin Fever in Paris, I have found myself zilch time to write. Instead I have been frolicking at the seaside and getting chased round dark, dingy caves by a surprisingly scary Captain Jack Sparrow...at Disneyland obviously, this is not a regular occurrence around Paris, despite what my last entry might suggest.

So in condensed and, perhaps a little lazy, bullet point style, here's what I have to share/criticize/laugh at the french for this week:

• Disneyland Paris is the best place I have ever been in my entire life. No doubt about it.
  And I got to go with my favourite (don't tell her) big sister when she came to visit me and the Frenchies. The park was also filled with the largest amount of English folk I have encountered in one place since I arrived and I was loving it. Well, initially. The small children who were being thrust through my legs by incredibly pushy parents in the queues for meeting Disney characters, we queued for every one don't you know, became a massive annoyance. On the bright side they did provide an excellent opportunity for my sister to practise her 'ERR NON!', a phrase one comes to depend on in Paris, and for me to rant about how bloody lucky they should feel with me having my first Disneyland experience at the age of 20. Other exciting sister activities included finding 50 euros on the floor in a Metro station; opening a bottle of red wine with no corkscrew and causing a purple explosion onto many white t-shirts, white bed sheets and white walls; and finally, walking 2km in the scary dark 20 metres underground alongside infinite skeletons of French men past.

 

The brief amount of time for which we were not desperately clung onto each other.. 

•  Grown and very suave French men will stroll around Paris walking the teeniest, tiniest, girliest little doggys without shame or a care in the world.
• The French sell and play playing cards in packs of 32. Just weird.
• The French tourist industry is incredibly lazy! Despite the gorgeous weather during my seaside weekend with a very sea and surf hungry Australian, not a single place along the beach was open. Why? Because it is still winter. The beach was busy, the sun was shining but not even the little, old lady who takes your 30c in the public toilets could be bothered to come out, open up and play.
• Spooning in French is en cuillère, literally 'to spoon into'.
• After driving through a village/town in England one is waved off by a pleasant sign informing us we are now leaving the said place, one is wished a safe drive to wherever it may be they are travelling and one is urged to return again soon. In France? In France, you are given a small sign with the name of the village/town written across it, the same as the small sign you drive by when entering, but this one, the exit sign, has a somewhat aggressive, thick, red cross scoring through the name. One is not wished a safe journey or longed for to return. One is simply out of the village/town and no longer its responsibility and left uneasily driving through no mans land until the next sign.
• I can speak more French than Quentin Tarantino. Watching him receive a Caesar in honour of his career and painstakingly make his acceptance speech in English made me feel a small bit happy inside.
• Every other, if not every, French man has a man bag and a pony tail. I quite like it.
• People are definitely beginning to get weirded out by the intensity with which I stare at their mouths when speaking in French. Particularly my teachers.

On a final note, I would like to address a subject I struggle with daily, a constant battle between myself and the French society and an issue that is getting me down...being funny. I'm going to say that 60% of what I say in everyday life is an attempt to be funny, whether it be to wriggle out of an awkward situation or a random but completely appropriate film quote. Making these jokes in French? Impossible. Leaving me with a very lame 40% of my daily thoughts to share, with such riveting subjects as the weather, the time and my plans for the week. It pains me.

But sarcasm, I hear you ask, sarcasm doesn't require a punch line, doesn't rely on timing and can often be formed from everyday speech. Surely sarcasm is a great way to let ones infamous British wit shine, sarcasm that was born in England, sarcasm that surely the French are in tune with being a mere 34km away along the Strait of Dover..

Just No.



Par-Is This Really Happening?

Today I saw a woman walking her cat down Saint Antoine. No sorry, 'walking' doesn't do this justice. She was carrying a vacant lead in one hand and the said cat was perched on her shoulder. Perched up on her right shoulder watching the world go by as they strolled along. Nobody batted an eyelid.

But this is not the only surreal experience of my week. After an evening of American drinking games at the American dorms on Saturday, to which I add that when playing Kings (Ring of Fire to you and me) the 9 = rhyme round does not work out so well with the accent clash, we decided to get the Metro to Oberkampf. And boy, did we chose the right time. We jumped into a lively Metro carriage filled with free styling, beat-boxing, improvising and raving all coming from a small group of French guys. Well I assumed them to be French, as despite how annoyingly sleazy and philosophical these guys are, they freakin' ooze cool. It was a completely surreal surprise and filled with vino we naturally joined in.

Re-calling this the next day, I got to thinking about Metro etiquette in Paris and how the spontaneity of the previous night appeared to have gone against every rule I had learnt. So here we go, the unwritten rules of the metro I have established so far. Take note or prepare to become the object of French glares and mutters if you ever visit Paris:

1. Wait for those getting off to actually make contact with the platform before pushing to get on. Common sense you would think, but there's always one.
2. If you're sitting on the fold up/down seats in the standing area, stand up to allow more room when the carriage gets busy. Glare at those who don't.
3. Don't sit opposite me if you too have unusually long femurs, it won't be a comfortable journey.
4. Give a sympathetic look to the unfortunate soul the crazy, drunk, tramp decides to sit next to.
5. Turn up your iPod and intently stare out the window, even if in a dark, underground tunnel, which 90% of the time will be the case, when a beggar comes round. Don't give into the small child clinging onto them or the tiny puppy they're carrying.
6. Talk to nobody.
7. Be aware of the doors that do not open automatically.
8. Perfect the metro free stand. Perfect it whilst reading a novel and nobody will ever know you're not French...unless you're not wearing a scarf.
9. Know the whereabouts of the exit you will be taking when you get off before you get on the Metro. The closer you get off to it, the more points you get.
10. If the exit has a Poussez door instead of an automatic one, hold it for the person behind you. Always.  
11. When leaving the station, the right side of the escalator is for standers and the left side is for climbers. The stairs are for keenos, take them and feel the frowns of those you overtake from the escalator.
12. If you're going to sneak through the turnstile with someone, ASK. Don't just go in there invading their personal space.
13. Know your lines. Know the 1 takes no mercy when breaking so if you're brave enough to stand up before the Metro has stopped, hold on. Know the 14 is automatic and has no driver therefore sitting in the front carriage is COOL. And finally, know that if you're feeling the beat on line 5 on a Saturday night, don't be afraid to let it out..

It now being the 16th February, I guess Valentine's Day deserves a brief mention in this entry, me being in Paris and all, even though I was surprisingly disappointed by the day. There were no roses, chocolates and teddy bears, I did not see anybody eating a heart-shaped macaroon and not one person spontaneously fell down onto one knee and produced a sparkling diamond in the middle of the street. Pahh.

So, I thought I'd leave you, I did say 'brief', with some food for thought and include a photo of my own very romantic and exclusive Valentine's meal...

... €3 in a University restaurant and followed by chocolate; wine and swooning over Heath in 10 Things I Hate About You. Naturally.

Fr-amazing?

So France earned some cool points this week.

Apparantly the only thing harder than buying a History of Photography textbook in Paris is cheating and looking for one in written in English. After dedicating a whole afternoon to the cause and failing miserably, I decided to retreat to my old friend Amazon and grin and bear the postage prices. As I type the a into the URL bar to which my laptop immediately, and in a somewhat accussatory manner, responds with -mazon.co.uk, I am struck with a thought. A few clicks of the keyboard later and .co.uk is replaced with .fr, I hit enter and ta-dahh...Fr-Amazon! See ya, hefty postage and packaging prices, this company has a base in France as well! French Amazon not only has a Livres en Anglais et Etrangers section but an abundace of books on the History of Photography. With the cheapest edition added to my cart I also threw in a 1 centime copy of Mrs Dalloway and bon condition copy of Never Let Me Go. Being Fr-Amazon, the whole site was obviously in French and my patience with Google translate was worn in my first week here, so whether they arrive or not, I'll let you know.

After my successful (touch wood) purchases I thought I'd cross my fingers and give another favourite website of mine a try and boom, Fr-Ebay!

The only thing holding me back now is Zac Efron, Russell Brand and Johnny Depp...I can only choose one Rolling Stones cover poster for my new shroom.

In other life changing news, I hit the Soldes in Go Sport and got me some new running gear. Choosing to pack plimsols over trainers in light of my limited luggage weight did nothing for my calves. Plus the only thing worse than being seen as a female running in Paris is being seen running like Pheobe through Paris. So new cheapo trainers it was. Mens trainers naturally. What would a French woman want with such things.