In the land of Pizza, Pasta and Gelati!

I know I know, I totally didn't stick to my once a week thing and its actually been about 2 months :S
So I'll start where I left off all the way back in Italy :)
We left at 7am on friday 6th August (wow that really was ages ago). We made a quick stop off at Audrey's cousin's place to collect them and then we began the epic two day drive to Tuscany. So we spent that day in the car talking, reading and listening to our ipods, and in the case of Audrey and I (I'm not ashamed to say), lip-syncing to some of the pop industry's finest :P
So we were just chillin' in the car looking at the french countryside out the window when all of a sudden the scenery pretty dramatically changes and we're now looking at all these wooden houses, that more resemble cookoo clocks than buildings, nestled amongst gigantic mountains with waterfalls streaming of the edges of cliff faces. Incredible! Even the Macdonalds looked all cute and wooden :P

We arrived at the lodge where we were staying (near Mont Blanc), dropped off our stuff and then headed out to the little town nearby. This place was like something from a fairytale, with little wooden shops, stone bridges covered with flowers over the little streams that ran through the town, they even had people driving around in horses and carts just in case it wasn't storybook enough! (ironically there were carts that had disney fairytale characters painted on the back). And it would look even more amazing covered in snow! So we stopped for dinner which was cheese fondue. This is the first time I've ever tasted cheese fondue and I have to say I'm a fan. It even comes with the added entertainment factor of cheese wars. This is where you try and steal someone else's bread or sink it in the cheese. So you could do this, or if you're Audrey you could amuse yourself by covering everyone around you with cheese strings and cheese juices... Yum... Afterwards we were pretty exhausted so we headed back and crashed in our rooms. So Audrey, Robin and their cousins are close, and they must be in-tune with each other or something because I woke up in the middle of the night and they were all talking in their sleep at the same time, except Audrey who was groaning but she made up for her lack of ability to articulate in her sleep by ending this weird noise making affair by elbowing me in the chest. Nice one.

So Saturday we woke up at 6:30am (I know, ew, but it was totally worth it to see the sun rising over the alps, and as the sun hit the tops of the mountains it sent these rays of light shooting out over the top, so pretty!) As we drove up to Mont Blanc I got to see les neiges eternelles which was awesome and would be even more awesome in winter :) We continued through the Mont Blanc tunnel and into ITALYYY!!!! After that exciting milestone it was just another day of sleeping in awkward positions, reading, talking, listening to Ipods and bad lip-syncing with occasional added dance moves :P
When we arrived at the place where we stayed it literally took my breath away, I thought I'd walked into a postcard! It was exactly what you'd expect to find in Tuscany, it was this big traditional looking stone house that overlooked the rolling hills and little clusters of houses below (check out photos on my facebook). Not only this, it had a gigantic bright blue swimming pool! It looked so good and the weather was so warm and sunny. That night we went out for dinner and I tried my first real italian pizza, exciting stuff! :) Afterwards we hung out on deck chairs in the garden looking at the stars which were so bright (and I saw like 4 shooting stars! Which if you know me you would realise that this would have been as exciting to me as lollies are to little kids) So if you look at the map below we stayed near Perugia.



Sunday, our first full day in Italy, was a pretty chilled out one, we spent most of the day in or by the pool, doing the usual pool shenanigans; racing, trying to dunk each other, battling on each others shoulders etc etc..
In the afternoon Robin began to teach me how to play Tarot (which as I discovered didn't involve anything to do with reading my future..) this actually took a good hour because it's complex and I'm rather stupid sometimes :P But eventually I got the general rules. But little did I know the seriousness of this game. Some epic concentration went into this game, everyone was counting the cards, making calculations, making judgements about the next person's move and generally putting on severe expressions. Everyone except me of course who 1. still didn't quite get it and 2. has little to no patience or love for card games, so I pretty much just put down any card, much to the frustration for everyone else who was guessing what cards I had and what well planned strategic move I was going to make and then being confused or annoyed when I did something completely random and idiotic. Their mistake was assuming I would be clever, oh how very wrong they were... however I did manage to win a few games much to the surprise of, well, everyone. Yay for me :)

Monday morning we went to the Market. This took a while because it wasn't where we expected and no one spoke Italian (you can kind of see why we had issues) but we made it eventually. We bought lots of fresh fruit and veg, some drinks, checked out the stalls with odd bits and bobs, and then headed to a lake nearby for lunch. We sat at a park bench right next to the lake which was huge and very pretty. Later on we hung out in the sun at the end of the pier with our feet dangling in the water. While we were sitting we were joking about falling in, and just as we stand up to leave, Robin slips on a wet patch, grabs my sleeve and we both almost fall into the lake. Luckily we didn't otherwise I would have killed him... The rest of the afternoon we spent by the pool at the house.

Tuesday we went to Sienna which was about an hour and a half away. We parked near the Piazza Del Campo which is the place where they have that crazy horse race, check it out its insane --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzbjDEgRt3I
We walked through the bustling streets which have these old stone and terracotta buildings. It was so beautiful, I had one of those moments where I couldn't believe that I (ME!) was in Italy! We reached the Piazza Del Campo and ate lunch in one of the restaurants (which are built into the stands, so cool) and I had my first Italian pasta! Yay! After lunch we climbed the Torre del Mangia which is a bell tower in the Piazza. Its got beautiful views but you have to work for them. To get to the top you have to climb a narrow inclosed stone staircase where there was pretty much no room to move. Claustrophobic people do not attempt this. But its worth it because at the top you can see over all of Sienna and there are these giant metal bells that you can actually climb up and touch. Oh and if i thought climbing up the stairs was freaky, going down them was a total nightmare, especially the ones with little or no railing and a massive plummet to the ground... So afterwards we walked around looking for this special ice-cream place that we never ended up finding, but one member of our little party did manage to discover penis shaped pasta which they excitedly pointed out to me saying "Hey look Miffy! Sexy pasta!", with my response being a little along the lines of "oh, umm, ahh, *confused face*.. cool?". Eventually though we did find an ice-cream place we did approve of and I had my first Italian gelati!! Lemon and some unknown berry favour... Oh also we saw the Duomo di Siena which is a big white and rose coloured cathedral. Twas pretty.

Wednesday morning I was asked the very difficult question of whether I liked vegemite or nutella more. I answered vegemite and Audrey looked positively disgusted. Ahh the French, they just don't understand the greatness of vegemite...
That day pretty much involved swimming and sleeping (not at the same time because that would be dangerous and well beyond my skills) But in the afternoon we went to the town near where we were staying, looked around, climbed a big hill and saw some more awesome nature views. Then we came back to the town and were romanced by an old italian man from his upstairs window :P

Thursday we went to a day spa for the very first time in my life. I felt very sex and the city, but italian style. So basically we swam around in this big super heated thermal pool which you know umm heal you and all that... Clearly I'm a master on this subject. But anyway they had these fountain things on the side which pretty much pummel your back with water and supposedly does something therapeutic, they also had pipes that did this too.. But yeah the pool was super nice! and sooo hot!
We had lunch at a restaurant on the way back and it was this cute little stone restaurant with a super enthusiastic waitress. I ate truffle for the first time! That afternoon Robin made the amazing discovery that he could make a wave pool with the blow up donut. Audrey managed to get inside the donut too, so Robin dragged her around and bounced up and down while she screamed (and for such a small person she can make a lot of noise) ...

Friday we went to Florence!! Whoo! This was another 6:30am start. When we got out the house was surrounded by so much fog it was bizarre... I thought it was just because it was early morning but once we reached Florence the weather was looking pretty grim. We started out by walking through the market but only got about half way through before it started pouring down with rain. We broke up into small groups and Robin, Audrey, their cousin Benji and I went to see the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore which is a cathedral. We walked around the small cobblestoned street surrounding the cathedral, they were so pretty with all the little boutique shops. Even though we all got completely soaked Florence was sooo beautiful in the rain and it was funny watching the hustle and bustle of everyone trying to get around without getting wet. So then we met up, had lunch and set off for Pisa (by the way, I saw a restaurant with a tree in the middle, kind of strange...). And would you believe it, it was incredibly hot by the time we got there, like so hot that you feel like you've instantaneously turned into a sunburnt tomato as soon as you step into direct sunlight. We saw the leaning tower of Pisa straight off, which was much smaller than I thought it was going to be but really pretty and bright bright white. And yes we did take tourist shots of people holding up the tower... Then we walked through the streets in search of another famous ice cream shop which we actually found this time :) I had chocolate fondant ice-cream which, true to its name, melted absolutely everywhere whilst I struggled to maintain my dignity and Audrey took photos... After that we walked around some more, discovered that Duff actually exists (was so tempted to buy one but didn't, maybe next time) and then headed off to a beach near Pisa. Here we watched the sunset over the water, picturesque to say the least, reminded me of Australia :)

Saturday, I pretty much read all day, me being the nerd that I am :)

Sunday we went to Castiglione Del Lago, which is a town next to Lago Trasimeno (really close to where we were staying). This place was really pretty and it was sunny with lots of people about so had a really nice atmosphere. We just walked around the streets looking at all the shops then went for a short walk along the lake and had lunch on the balcony of a restaurant right next to the lake. Awweesome. Stayed here until late afternoon :)

Monday we went to another small town whose name I can't remember but will attempt to find out. This place had some pretty cool old architecture which you can check out on my facebook. Again we just walked around the town soaking up the culture and checking out amazing views of italian countryside. We had fanciful ice-creams at a restaurant in the main square, there was actually an ice-cream spaghetti option on the menu which was exactly as it sounds, spaghetti made out of ice-cream, weird huh? So there's actually so much to see even in the little towns and I can't even begin to describe it all because unlike the big cities I don't know the names of the things I saw and even if I did, well you probably wouldn't know what I was talking about. But I really loved these little town because even though they were still a little touristy and not quite as spectacular as say Florence or Sienna, it was a lot quieter and you actually had the space to take it all in.

Tuesday we just hung out at the house again.

Wednesday was our second day in Florence and YAY it was SUNNY!! So we started off at the Boboli Gardens, which were really pretty (must find new words for pretty but really its not my fault that Italy has so many pretty things) Robin made a song about it which maybe he'll sing for you if you ask him nicely, but anyway, he repeated this song over and over the whole time we were there, much to the annoyance of everyone :P reminds me a little of someone *cough* Llew *cough*... :D
So then we made our way over to the Ponte Vecchio, and saw all the jewellers and little stores there. There were so many people here it was crazy. After Ponte Vecchio we went to the place where the building with David is (though we didn't see David) and there were so many statues (outside), street chalk artists and statue people, it was cool and kind of hectic. We made our way to a quieter street and had lunch (pizza of course). Then we saw the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore again which is sooo bright in the sun you can't look directly at it. Then we went and saw the Church of Santa Croce which is also prettiful (see the slight variation of pretty, go me and my english skills). I attempted to get Audrey to do a touristy shot in front of it which was an epic fail, I don't even know why I even tried... :P After that we made our way back to the car through all the small streets. On the way back home we stopped at a place which over looks all of Florence, it was actually the most incredible view, especially because the sun was setting over the city :)

Thursday another day at the house swimming, relaxing etc etc

Friday we went to another market in the morning, and I saw a man wearing the tiniest short shorts I've ever seen, it seriously made my day to see that fashion disaster. So we got some food for lunch and I saw a dead pigs head that Robin so kindly pointed out to me, I swear I almost cried. Then it was time to pack and tidy the house a little.

Saturday we headed home, staying at the same lodge. We did 13 hours of travel just on saturday, slightly ridiculous. And sunday we were back in Paris. So that means that CONGRATULATIONS you've reached the end of this epic post and I'm very proud that you've made it! Hope you enjoyed reading my blow by blow description of Italy :P and I'll be putting up another about Germany (and a little on France too) in the next few days, photos will hopefully be up tonight, but you know me, I say blog a week but end up writing it 2 months later... Till the next time!! Missing you all! xx

Ahh yet another week living the life of a Parisian, chillin' out and eating lobster claws...

Hi All,

So thus far I'm sticking to my "blog every week" thing so here goes. Okay so I wrote my last blog on Saturday. Well that day was pretty chilled out, just hung out and ate lobster claws for lunch. Correction; the Cohens ate lobster claws for lunch and I sat there trying not to look freaked out. It was an experience in itself. What made it slightly more confronting was that they used a nut cracker to get to the meat inside and every time they cracked one bits of shell and white juices flew everywhere... hmm.

Sunday we went to Audrey's cousin's place to talk about the Italy trip, and afterwards Benji (the cousin) came back to our place. We played french monopoly which kind of blew my mind a little bit. I mean I'm not exactly the world's best monopoly player in english so as you can imagine I totally sucked when everything was in french. I think I went bankrupt in a record breaking hour, which was only lengthened by the fact that we ate dinner in between. Somehow Audrey managed to lose when she owned half the board and most of the bank... Probably because Robin is annoyingly off-putting with his constant commentating... But that's why we love him.

Monday some friends came around for dinner and we just ate and talked and sang which was fun times. Tuesday Audrey, Robin and I went to La Defense (the part of Paris with all the skyscapers) to buy Audrey some bathers. We met up with her mum and had a drink. We were at this cafe next to where these people hold free dancing lessons in the middle of a massive courtyard/square. It was so cool because people actually got really into it. After we had dinner at an italian restaurant in Nogent. Ate myself a good old four cheeses pizza. A staple in the french persons diet ;)

Yesterday, We (being Audrey, Robin and I; which is generally the case when I say we) went to the Australian Embassy to work out how I can vote because, of course since its me we're talking about, its difficult. It was actually the ugliest building I've ever seen, but the people were nice and helpful (unlike another embassy I know). After we walked around for an eternity to find somewhere to eat and saw an exhibition by Takeshi Kitano, who is this really funny Japanese guy with awesome/completely random artwork. I encourage you all to look him up.

Today I went to the Marne (which is a river) to eat. Audrey enjoys driving so much that we drove around blindly for about 45 minutes trying to find a place 5 minutes away from the house. Not really, she just sucks at orientation. If you ever mention this to her she would deny it, but it is undoubtable true, believe me, she drove around a roundabout 4 times....

Right now we're all packing to go to ITALLLYYY TOMORROOOOWWW!!! YAY!
I'm so excited :)
There is no internet there so I won't be blogging until the 21st. But I'm sure to do an epic blog then, SO DON'T WORRY, because I'm sure you're all just sitting around refreshing this page waiting for the next post to go up rather than living your lives...
Love you all!
Speak again when I'm 10 kilos fatter from pizza, pasta and ice cream!
xxx

The story continues...

Hey everyone :)
Yes, it's true, I'm finally writing my next blog post. Sorry I haven't written for a while, I blame it on the fact that I've been busy, distracted or just profoundly lazy when it comes to writing. So I guess I'll just start where I left off then. Well the last two weeks have also been a bit of a whirlwind; the highlights being playing video games in a museum instead of doing something cultured, brunch in le Marais, following Audrey's uncle around in a hot air balloon (he was in the hot air balloon not us :P ) and Mel managing to walk (or more correctly, slam) into the Cohens' glass door and leave a nose print (in her defense it was freakishly clean but still I thought stuff like this only happened in movies..)

So to give more of an indepth explanation of what I've done I'm going to go by date (would have gone by days but thats way too confusing for me since its been two weeks and I barely know what day it is today, and to avoid this in future I promise to write every week but don't hold this against me if I don't because like I said I'm rather busy and important... and lazy.) So... wait let me just go look for a calendar... found one. So Thursday night after I wrote my last blog I went to someones birthday party. When I first got there it was loud, there were lots of young people and some were drunk so they were slurring their words so naturally I was thinking "Omg I can't understand a single word theyre saying!" but don't worry I got used to it after a while and it was a really fun night overall. I like parties in France because theyre all really chilled out, no fancy dresses or excessive amounts of make up when you're only going to your friends house that you go to every other day of the week anyway. Makes more sense to me.. So, Friday the 16th not much happened in terms of sight seeing, just lazying around the house while the other members of my family went and saw things of which I can't remember so you'll have to ask them :) Assia came around for dinner and I enjoyed annoying her (like I do Audrey) by taking about a million photos of her in short 20 second periods :) mwahaha...

Saturday 17th went relatively the same way except dinner was at Bella Rosa with Assia's family. They were all mortified when I told them that not every pizza/italian place has four cheeses pizza. I don't think Assia's going to come back to Australia after this particular revelation..
Sunday 18th I actually did something cultured, so 1 point to me. Both Thewli (plural of Thewlis) and Cohens joined forces and went to go view some sculptures at the Rodin Museum. And man were there a lot of sculptures.. Like three entire floors (of a mansion might I add) worth of sculptures. Lets just say Rodin was one very talented artist. And the gardens around the mansion were amazingly beautiful (I have photos which I'll put up). This was also the day that I discovered that French people have a weird relationship with Maccas. They don't eat it because its cheap ( because its about 3 times more expensive) or because they're drunk out of there minds and wouldn't know what taste even was if it smacked them in the face, they eat it purely because it tastes good, its a bit of a treat.. interesting. Anyways, after Rodin we went out into the French countryside, which is every bit as beautiful as everyone says it is and I can't wait to go back. Audrey's Uncle had been given a hot air balloon ride for his birthday and we were there to share the experience and follow him in the car. It was really cool to watch, not to mention amazingly cute that the whole family got involved :)

Monday 19th, Mum, Dad, Llew and I went to Montmartre. I love montmartre with all its little bustling streets hidden away beneath the monumental Sacre Coeur. Its picturesque. I'd seen Sacre Coeur once before but I never went behind to where all the artists are. I loved this bit :) just as busy but more cafes and less souvenir shops. And after walking completely in the wrong direction, trying to use the worst map of all time (why they have it there I dont know) and asking some nice old french man, we found les deux moulins, the cafe in Amelie :) sooo cool! Then home again for yet another amazing meal made by the Cohens (the food here is seriously good by the way)

Tuesday 20th, Mel, Llew, Paul and I went to the Inventions Museum, and yes we did see some miniature models of car and train and boats which were cool, but what was more awesome was that they had a temporary exhibitions with video games from Pong till now. And we got to play them!! So I played the original Pong, Pacman, Mario, Mario Kart and much much more, it was seriously the best fun I've had in ages! :)
Afterwards we had beers/gin and tonics in a bar on a busy Paris street (seriously like being in a movie) and the barman was so nice and kept bringing us nuts to eat. After this we met up with the others and went on the Bateau Mouche. It was nice to go on it in summer, its so much better than seeing it through a window :) and they had this cute laneway with lamp posts set up in the middle aisle. sooo cute :)

Wednesday 21st was Robin's birthday so people came over the celebrate and we made crepes :) I seriously love crepes...

Now this is where I get a little hazy so the days may not have happened in this order but I'll give it my best shot..

Thurday 22nd, Mel, Paul, Llew and I went to a contemporary museum which was by far the worst exhibition Ive ever seen. One of the artworks was just a log, nothing done to it, another a stone (same deal) and other an epicly big ball.. of dust.. there was also a skull made out of what we suspected was toe nails... there was only one good piece in the whole museum and it was the first one so it was all down hill from there. There were also films. First one was a robot that followed around a farming family in god knows where and kept saying "where is the horse?", the next was a cushion falling over (repeated indefinitely), the third was a movie with two guys who played all the characters (being a white teenaged boy, a black teenaged girl, a mum, a dad, a naked guitar player and a terrorist. The story was about the son and adopted daughter having a relationship and then going to Iraq together. It seriously sucked...) and the last was a man who walked around in different settings and then ended up crawling through a tunnel of shit. So wacked. As you can imagine we were rather disappointed. So after that we went to a supermarket, bought some food and wine and had a picnic in a park on the Champs Elysees for dinner. Picturesque to say the least.

Friday 23rd we had a picnic in the woods of Vincennes which are east of Paris and next to Nogent Sur Marne (where I'm living). It was really sunny and beautiful until the end where it absolutely poured down with rain and everyone got soaked :P

Saturday 24th, the Cohen family came over to celebrate Robin's birthday. Apparently Robin's cousin has fallen in love with me and every time I'm not there he talks about me, every time I'm there and not looking he looks at me and every time I look at him he turns away... he's 3 years old. and soooooo cute! He was playing the drums with his dad and kept checking to see if I was watching his awesome skills. Such a sweetie.

Sunday 25th we had Brunch in le Marais. It was a set brunch of yogurt, compote, juice, tea coffee or hot chocolate, croissant, chocolate bread, toast, jam, and eggs. Oh my God I ate sooo much. Worst day to wear my tight jeans I swear to God..

Monday 26th I said goodbye to my parents which was a tearful affair. Afterwards Llew, Audrey, Robin and I went and saw Inception (which is awesome by the way, you should really go see it).

Tuesday Llew left and that was pretty much it for that day. Wednesday Audrey, Robin and I had lunch at their friend's place and we watched Asterix in french :) Thursday we had Maccas (special treat remember) with Audrey's cousin Benji. That night we went into Paris with Audrey, Robin, Barbara Zerbib and a bunch of other. We walked along the Seine near Notre Dame looking at all the street artists and just hanging out :) There's this really cool bridge where people come and have little picnics at night and theres all these locks along the bridge where couples have come and put a lock there and thrown away the key. CUTE. After we went to a bar where there were two guitarist playing french jazz sort of stuff (I think, I cant really remember) and we all had cocktails :) Yesterday Audrey got her drivers license so Robin and I got to drive with her for her first time on her Ps. Last night we went to a restaurant at Paris Plage, a beach they make along the Seine with all these temporary restaurants. I was so annoyed I forgot my camera because its soo beautiful :) I'll go back and take photos though don't worry ;)

So thats pretty much it for now. I promise I'll write every week from now on so you don't have to read as much in one go. Till next time! xox

ps. I'm using the french keyboard which is weird and inpractical so sorry about spelling mistakes, also I have french spell check on and I don't know how to change it so the read lines under all the word is rather distracting when trying to be grammatically correct...

pps. I swear I'll put up photos but I have to sort through some 2000 photos so you can see why I havent been in a great rush to put any up yet :P

Bonjour!

Hey Everyone!

Bonjour from Paris! I would have written earlier but it's been so crazy hectic here from the moment I arrived. We (my mum, dad and I) left Saturday night after just managing to fit an entire pool tables worth of stuff in my pack (plus country road bag and backpack, but do they really count?). The airport was pretty cruisey but as far as flights go I'm generally pretty unlucky with the people who sit in front of me. I always have that annoying obese man who has to recline his seat back straight away in order to allow the blood to flow to his stomach. This time was no different, except it was a woman and she was actually thin but the point is, she put her seat back as soon as the seatbelt sign went off and I swear I almost reached over the seat (which was at this point about 10cm from my face) and hit her. If I was older I would have used the elderly person needs their space and respect card but since I'm 19 years old I figured this excuse wouldn't pan out so well so I just had to have my legs scrunched into a ball for 14 hours. And what makes this even more infuriating is she was actually lying across the 3 seats and didn't need it down anyway. Fortunately there was some pretty good stuff on the TV, even if I did get square eyes from watching it too closely :P

So anyways, we arrived at Doha airport at 6am their time, and would you believe it it was 32 degrees already! I practically melted on the spot. I didn't know humans could even survive 50 degree days but apparently they do on a regular basis.. crazy. But Doha looked really amazing from the air. There were all these sandy coloured skyscrapers right on the coast line and huge sandy coloured hotels with bright blue swimming pools and palm trees. And these were all clumped in little cities in the middle of the desert (good thing I bother to re-read this post otherwise I would have said dessert, and that would have just been confusing :P ) but like seriously, there was nothing else. It was great to see something so completely different from Australia.

After another 7 hours we finally arrived at Paris airport which was a pretty surreal feeling after all the build up. Audrey and Edmond (her dad) met us at the airport and we took the "scenic" route back to her place which I only saw partly because after 36 hours without sleep I was pretty ready to collapse into a heap on any flat surface I could find. However I managed to stay away for 45 hours straight in total which I'm rather proud of but still feeling the effects of. When we got back, Audrey's family had made afternoon tea and it was soooo nice to sit in the sun in their backyard (which I finally went in because it was too cold last time (in fact I didn't even know how to get outside :P )) It was so strange to go from such a cold winter to like 30 degrees (especially because I didn't even think Paris could get that hot) But I swear I've never been more relaxed in my entire life. After not so subtly taking a nap at the table outside while the others caught up and ate awesome looking french food, we took a trip to an ice cream place next to Notre Dame on the Seine. It was so beautiful to see it in the Summer :) and even though it was 9pm it was still so bright! Oh and on the way we picked up Audrey's cousin, and he rode in the boot of the car (one of those ones that are actually just the back of the car but still). Paris is characterised but a complete lack of road rules. There are no lines on the road, there aren't that many signs, people just stop when they want, turn when they want, push the car behind to get into the car park better, its pretty insane and so hilarious to watch. It was great to just soak in the whole atmosphere of Paris and be surrounded by all different sights and sounds.

On Monday, I woke up at 3am and thought "are you kidding me?" because I knew that I wouldn't be able to sleep again. Must say a lot of that day was a tad bit hazy. We went for a tour around Paris and walked among the crowds of people preparing for Bastille Day. It was crazy busy. We also had lunch at the top of Printemps which is like a really big department store. The view was awesome :D
That night some of the french girls came around and had dinner. It was sooo awesome to see people again! :D Also Mel and Paul arrived (somehow they made it here without being able to contact us by internet or phone, pretty incredible :P )

Tuesday we walked around Nogent and along the Marne (which is a river). We also had lunch in the garden in the sun. and the French really know their lunches :) Later, we had a dinner party with some of the exchange girls and their parents as well as Llew and Tearlach (who arrived in the afternoon). This involved lots of food, talking, music and (Eleanor you would have been in heaven) Karaoke :P

Wednesday was Bastille Day so we went to Versaille to have a picnic (wearing all white which is apparently part of the deal). I'd forgotten how MASSIVE it is. The rooms are actually never ending. Unfortunately it was pouring with rain so instead of picnicing in the sun, we got soaked in the rain and found refuge in the car :P It was quite a struggle trying to fit like 6 people under the one umbrella haha. Everyone looked a little bedraggled. However it just made getting home to another amazing lunch that much sweeter. Later we went to watch the fireworks at the Eiffel Tower. They were INCREDIBLE. I swear I thought they would never stop and the Eiffel Tower was all lit up and WOW it felt good to be in Paris at that moment :)

This morning, Mel and I went to meet the lady for the apartment Mel, Paul, Llew and Tearlach are staying in and I came home with 3 keys, a massive headache and a irresistible urge to pass out on the couch. Which I soon did. The woman spoke a mile a minute and I swear we followed her around the house for like 30 minutes not really saying anything because she didn't stop to take a breath.
Oh, it so weird have such long days, you think you're more jetlagged than you actually are. You wonder why you get so tired at like 3 in the afternoon and then you realise its actually 10pm and its just because its so bright really late. I think it'll take a little getting used to, but its awesome to be able to do so much in the day.

So that's pretty much it. Sorry I described everything like a 5 year old doing a talk on what they did on the weekend :P I'll upload some photos on Facebook soon :D

A bientot tout le monde!

xox