Monday 11 April 2016

The Last Paris Post


me cyling!
Hi everyone!

So the blog is a day late today but I have a good reason (like always), it was my very last weekend here in Paris and I spent it in the best way possible - with Lukas. It was a special weekend for us as things began here just a couple of months ago and it was our last chance to explore some more.




He arrived Friday afternoon and after taking the metro back to mine we cooked dinner. Lukas isn’t a vegetarian (or to be more specific, dairy free pescatarian) like me but fortunately he is very open to trying veggie-friendly food, which makes cooking something we both enjoy a lot easier. We made a delicious vegetable chili and served it with quinoa and garlic bread and then we took a blanket up to the roof to enjoy a few coronas while watching the sun set. That night we went to a bar round the corner from mine, had a few cocktails and played a few games of cards (I won, of course). Lots of people seemed to be fascinated by us playing, which made me realise I’ve never seen anyone playing cards in France. At one point we were interrupted by a guy who wanted to show us some magic tricks which was a slightly awkward experience as he failed on his first attempt and kept calling the ace an ‘ass’ which made us both giggle like children. We ended the night by watching How to Lose a Guy in 10 Day which is one of my favourite films and Lukas had never seen it. I’m not sure he enjoyed it as much as I did but I’m a hopeless romantic.

rowing at Versailles
Saturday morning, we had a wander round our local market and picked up some olives, strawberries and other yummy things. Then we went to the shops to get some more picnic supplies, which mainly consisted of dip, because we are obsessed with dip. We then took the bus to Versailles which was pretty unremarkable until the end when a woman turned around and asked where in England we were from. After a quick conversation we discovered she was from near Bath, and then later that she was actually from Pensford! It was uncanny! The day in Versailles was absolutely perfect. We had our picnic in the gardens, hired bikes and cycled around for a bit, and then hired a boat and went rowing on the lake and ate our strawberries and grapes. I was surprisingly good at rowing and Lukas managed to get there in the end after watching how I did it!

Saturday afternoon, I surprised Lukas with a night in the hotel round the corner: here in the flat I have a tiny bed so that isn’t ideal. He loved the surprise and we spent the night munching on crisps and watching Merlin – heaven. Sunday morning, we checked out of the hotel and went for a swim. It was quite eventful; we had our first fight (we both think we started it which is a change!), did some gymnastics and then an alarm started blaring and everyone had to get out of the pool. 15 minutes after freezing in my bikini, the alarm stopped and we were none the wiser about what had happened.  We ate sushi in the sunshine for lunch and then headed to the catacombs, which are the largest in the world according to a sign we saw. It was eerie down there but really interesting, I’d recommend it as long as you’re not claustrophobic or afraid of bones.
Versailles!

Sunday evening, we went to Montmartre, explored the flea market and had dinner and got chatting to this lovely French man who was impressed that we ate mussels how they’re supposed to be eaten – with another shell, not a fork. We then wandered up to the Sacre Coeur, watched the sunset and listened to some musicians who were busking. We ended the night last night watching more Merlin and eating more strawberries.

Today was really sad, Lukas left and we were both gutted that our time in Paris is over. We’ve said we’ll definitely come back some time next year so that’ll be lovely!
So, I have three days left of school and that’s it. My year abroad will be over. I can’t believe it.
Thanks for reading all this time.
Bisous a tous!
xxx

Sunday 3 April 2016

What I won't miss about Paris...


Hi everyone,

I’m back! I feel bad for not updating, as last time I said I was back to regular posts (oops!). I haven’t written in three weeks and even before then I’d slipped from my pretty rigid weekly upload schedule. I do have a few excuses for this (obviously). Firstly, I have been very busy! I only have two weeks left here and things have been non-stop at school, with Clémence and preparing for Madagascar. Secondly, I’ve been jetting about a lot: since I last posted I’ve been home again for a little weekend and back to London for a long weekend, both of which were really lovely! My third reason which might prove unpopular is that sadly the novelty wears off a bit. My weeks here over the last month or so have been very repetitive with lesson planning, babysitting, teaching and more lesson planning. So other than the weekends in England, I’ve not had much to report on. 

I have spent a lot of this weekend packing, so things are really hitting home. I have 12 days left in Paris and 24 days until I go to Madagascar, oh golly! I have filled three black bags with rubbish from my room and chucked out/or donated to friends about a quarter of my wardrobe. Right now I don’t feel sad about leaving. I feel incredibly proud of myself for getting through this year despite initially being petrified. I am excited to go home, go to Madagascar and ultimately finish my degree (something that at one point I had completely given up on). One of the reasons I’m not too sad about leaving is that I’m already planning on coming back. After I graduate I will be coming back to Paris to work as an au pair for a year (if all goes to plan), so I won’t really be saying goodbye to the city, rather ‘à bientôt’.

Something I thought would be fun to write about this week is things I won’t miss when I leave. It’s quite a short list, of course.

1) Risking my life every time I cross a road
Something that I’ve only just got to grips with is the Parisians’ (maybe all French people) attitude to any kind of road crossing or red light. Here, a red light means a) if no one is on the crossing: the car can definitely go b) if there are only a few people crossing: the car might risk going through c) if the crossing is filled with people then the car will very impatiently wait until b) is true. This understandably makes crossing a road a hazardous experience. The trick, I’ve learned, is to cross with the confidence of a Parisian and not the hesitancy of a tourist. I’ve not been run over yet so I must be doing something right.

      2) Expensive food that should be cheap
Obviously living in a capital city has its downfalls – one of those being the cost. However, there are a few food items that just seem ridiculously overpriced in comparison to Bristol, or even London. I have paid over 4€ for peanut butter, nearly 7€ for a bag of frozen prawns, about 4€ for a butternut squash and nuts have been completely unaffordable – I’m talking like 6€ for a tiny bag of cashews. I cannot wait to go back to shopping in English supermarkets (even if LIDL and ALDI are ironically the cheapest…).

3) Rude customer service
I think I’ve spoken before about how the French don’t do customer service but more and more it’s getting to me. Me and Sapphire went to try and sort out cancelling our phone contracts and Wi-Fi but the guy we spoke to was so rude and patronising I wanted to swear at him (which I probably could have done seeing as he didn’t understand English…). There are a lot of ways in which I think the French attitude is really good – their attitude to lunchtime makes sense, their attitude to make up suits me perfectly and their attitude to wine makes me never want to leave. But customer service is somewhere where the certainly fall short of England and I can’t wait to go back to having a nice chat with the cashier in Tescos.

4 )My flat
Not all of it. But the 80 stairs will certainly not be missed, nor will the temperamental heating, tiny freezer, broken shower, dangerous oven, uncomfortable desk chair and my bed. My bed is probably the thing I can’t wait to be rid of. It’s definitely smaller than your average single, it’s positioned so that I get an icy cold breeze on my face all night from my crappy window, the mattress is made of foamy stuff, the slats are broken so it dips in the middle and makes it really awkward to sit on and there is no real bed frame so the mattress slides around willy nilly while I’m asleep (I’m a major wriggler). Bring on home where I…wait, I’ve been kicked out of my room. So I have a freezing cold games room with a sofa bed. Still an improvement I suppose.

So that’s my next update for you all. Speak to you all next week on my last Sunday in Paris (eek!!)

Bisous à tous
xxx