I can't believe we ate the mini bar...

4 flights, 4 metros, 2 buses and 4 trains later and we're back from the best spontaneously booked trip to Cologne. 

Myself and Olivia worked together on Sunday evening, this doesn't happen very often so is a bit of a novelty and we treated the few residents who were around reception to a fantastic rendition of Fairytale of New York and a rather over enthusiastic game of charades. 

Then we were up at 6 the next morning to start our 'holiday'. We managed to get to the airport via metro and bus without any major issues. We had the usual panic at security where despite having packed our own bags and meticulously checking them before leaving we still feared we may have accidentally packed a bomb but all went smoothly and we had breakfast before heading to the gate. 

Now previous to this trip I had only been on 3 planes in my 20 and a half years of life. Yes, 3, once I flew there and got the ferry back. So naturally I get very excited by the whole flying process. But I think as I never got a plane as a child, I never had a chance to ask all the questions in the world that I would have usually asked my Dad and he would have bullshitted his way through an answer that would suffice to shut me up. Olivia unfortunately took the brunt of these questions that I now at the age of 20 needed the answer to. 

I'll give it to them, airberlin are doing it right. Free snacks and drinks on every flight. Bravo. 

Finding ourselves in Germany was weird. It was so strange to be surrounded by a language that I didn't understand or speak a word of, except 'my hat it has 3 corners' I can recite that till the cows come home. Thanks Dad. 
Despite this we managed to navigate the train system and find our hotel, that was right next to the station.

Now what follows is a rather humorous anecdote, which I think was a combined result of us having lived in a hostel for 3 months and traveled for 9 hours that day. 
We got into the room, were naturally overwhelmed by the fact it was a hotel and there was a bath and actual duvets. We ate all the food in the room, what we didn't realise was we had eaten the mini bar. We opened the pretzels, neither of us like pretzels. It was a foolish error that was set to cost us around 6 euros. We decided to hide the packets and hope they thought they'd forgotten to provide us with any...*

We then headed out into the centre in search of the Christmas Markets. After a 45 minute circular walk we reached them, which turned out to be 5 minutes from our hotel. 
We meandered around the markets had the best piece of chicken on a stick I have ever encountered, and managed to scout out the only French creperie in Cologne. It weirdly felt like such a relief to be able to speak French to them.

After a Baileys hot chocolate we decided to head back to the hotel as it was cold and we'd been up since 6.

I then took full advantage of the hotel's bath. I hadn't had a bath in over 3 months and considering I usually bath more than the Romans did, that's a pretty long time. 

The next day, after an awkward mime conversation with the cleaner, we went in search of the Lindt Chocolate museum. It has it's own chocolate café and when on holiday it's practically obligatory to have cake for breakfast. So we obliged. Along with the greatest hot chocolate I have ever tasted.

The chocolate museum was as amazing as I remembered it 7 years previously, and I probably got more excited this time.

Our flight back was far more exciting than the flight there, I'd never flown at night before hence; more questions. To just make things even more exciting, they served free mulled wine on the flight, so the whole cabin smelt like Christmas.
On arriving in Berlin, we had 7 minutes to go through security and board our connecting flight, which turned out to involve us going on a bus for 10 minutes to actually reach the plane. 
We ended up sat next to the most multilingual woman. She was reading her German paper, asked us to pass her a blanket in French and then explained to me in English that 'no they're not cleaning the plane, that's to clear the fog and allow us to fly'. I had found the woman who could answer all my flight based questions! After a delay of 30 minutes we were finally in the air for the final time of the day. We finally arrived back in Paris and had that coming home feeling.

I had such a good two days and it was so lovely to experience Germany at Christmas again, it does it so well. 

*the conclusion to the mini bar related dilemma. We checked out, she asked 'did you have anything from the mini-bar' I confessed. Couldn't deal with pretzels on my conscience. 

I've resisted uploading all the photos in the world and will put an album on Facebook but here's a snippet. 

Breakfast!

Would you like some crème anglaise with that?

Well a lot has happened in 3 days so fasten your seatbelts* you're in for a good one.

*if you're reading this in the car I applaud you, but safety first.

So on Monday the first day of the weekend for me, we headed to meet Nick for lunch. Now I had warned him about the Monday morning experience. For myself and Olivia this is the most exciting day of the week as while the rest of the world is dragging themselves back to work after the weekend we are hyped up for the up and coming 2 days of fun french based activities we have planned. So we went for a bit of a walk to work up an appetite before finding ourselves in a restaurant at Bastille. All was going well, we'd deciphered the menu, ordered and got our main courses. Then came dessert, we ordered, then like a scene from a black and white comedy movie, the waitress tripped and launched a pot of crème anglaise at Olivia. I don't think she could have been more apologetic or I could have laughed more. 

After this we meandered up the Champs-élysées and then back down again through the Christmas markets, they're very odd, very French. 
Now we made a bit of a mistake during our walk and decided to pop into M and S on the Champs élysées to see if they had any ready meal christmas dinners, we have to work Christmas day so ya know when in France...
However little did we realise just how much we missed certain British food and after getting slightly teary eyed over victoria sponge, mince pies and percy pigs we decided to leave, true year abroad problems right there.

Now don't judge, but we went to Disneyland again. And it was even more magic than normal because 'c'est déjà noël à Disneyland'
We had such a fun day despite having to wear gloves and coats on rollercoasters because it was so cold and the moment of devestation we had to overcome when Space Mountain was closed. 
Everytime we've been to Disneyland I've managed to find myself in an awkward situation with a member of the staff and why change the habit of a lifetime. I was merrily queuing for a ride looking the wrong way when I turned round and there was a Pirate in my face, naturally I screamed and accidently grabbed his hand, it was all a bit awkard from that point on I don't think I'll be going on that ride again in a hurry.

Today it was a really beautiful day so I took myself to Notre Dame to take some photos and visit another memorial. I visited the Memorial of those deported to Nazi concentration camps, it is set out to make you look and feel like you were in a concentration camp with narrow corridors and small windows through which you couldn't see the horizon. The inscriptions on the walls were of quotes relating to the deportation and the names of all the concentration camps. There is also a wall of tiny lights to represent those who left and never came back.

I have a month left here and so much more left to see and do. My blog has now had over 3000 views, when I started I didn't even think people would read it! So erm, thanks! 

Sad because it was a single decker RER

I heart Remy

Merry Christmas

Notre Dame

C'est vraiment l'hiver!

This week has been a week of visitors. On Wednesday my honorary Auntie and Uncle came to Paris and I played tour guide for the day again. We had a lovely (if a very very cold) day exploring Paris via boat and metro and a lovely meal out for lunch!

Now just to mention the weather, because everyone else seems to be. So I know it's a British stereotype to obsess about the weather but little did I know that when winter struck this was going to be my main topic of conversation with work colleagues and customers alike. The entrance of customers is often met with outcries of 'bah il fait froid' and 'c'est vraiment l'hiver' and my personal favourite 'ça commence'. One could be fooled into thinking the apocalypse was coming to Paris. But to be fair, it is cold.

Friday saw the arrival in Paris of my number 1 blog fan Mandie. I know she's very excited to be mentioned in my blog so here goes...
We met up at the Louvre, after eventually finding each other in the maze that the Louvre is. We bypassed the art and went for a hot chocolate instead* then meandered to Pont des arts and then to Notre Dame. Once Mandie had established that Notre Dame Cathedral was indeed a 'religious place' we wandered round making the most of the warmth and the beautiful architecture. 

We then met up with another Ambassador/ French course friend whom I left in the company of Mandie for the evening, wishing him all the luck I was certain he needed.

Yesterday I wanted to show Nick the 'real Paris' little did I realise how much walking the above claim would demand. However, it made a nice change to be able to show someone the little bits of Paris that sometimes go unseen and the bits that I really love, the random streets and bits of the river that truly are Parisian.

Today I slept, not very exciting but extremely necessary. This week at work has been unbearably quiet. In an 8 hour shift I have spoken on average to about 3 people. I'd like to tell you all that I spent the time doing work or something useful, but that would be covering up for the fact that I spent the majority of my time reading BuzzFeed and clock-watching, but I have made a healthy dent into a great book and am spending some of the time blogging so all is not lost!

I shall also take this opportunity to mention the work playlist. Now, on said playlist there are around 30/35 songs, let's say each song lasts roughly 3 minutes that's around 90 minutes of playing time. I work 480 minutes per shift, so I hear each song on average 5 times per shift. I work 5 days a week. I think I have heard Micheal Jackson's 'Smooth Criminal' more times than he himself had, I can now recite the entire lyrics to Love Cats in my sleep and I'm contemplating renaming the Beatles' classic 'Love me don't'. 
Let's hope Christmas brings with it a new playlist. 

Still... 5 hours until the weekend!

*see previous blog 'I will never understand art'

Nostril Cam

Jumper Friends

When the going gets tough...

I think I've reached the most difficult part of my time away. I know this should be the point where I feel most settled and in a way I do. But in another way I feel in the middle; I've not just arrived and I'm not nearly going home yet, so I'm not still getting to know the city nor am I cramming in everything I want to see before I leave. I'm sort of just floating around in a kind of middle way. This is in no way a bad thing, and I'm not saying I'm not enjoying myself, I'm still perfectly happy loving being here and I'm still learning things everyday it's just I have to keep reminding myself the reasons I'm here and persuading myself to go out and seize every moment as, although it feels like it, I'm not here forever. 

I think, or I'd like to think, that everyone gets to a point, not just on a year abroad but anywhere where they find themselves in a routine, when they get fed up of said routine. I love the unpredictability of work, from odd men trying to persuade you that Bear Grylls has died to random backpackers with the greatest stories in the world, every day is completely different and I never get bored of meeting new people. However at times the monotony of having to repeat how to get to the airport, or explaining that we're not a hotel and we don't provide towels can test your limits. 

I think from now on I'm going to refer to this as the 'November feeling' I'm more or less in the middle of my time here, the weather is freezing and rainy and I'm missing Cadbury's chocolate and Yorkshire puddings (not together, now you're just being silly). 

But I still have so many things to look forward to; Disneyland, Germany, Visitors, Disneyland, Christmas, Disneyland, Disneyland. 

So chin up, onwards and upwards...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILtDs0MmRHE 

Vive l'Angleterre

This week at work has been quiet to say the least and the influx of 'strange' guests has been on the up. 

I've spent some quite interesting days, washing and sleeping. But I've also been for some walks, one particular walk involved me unintentionally passing a KFC, a pizza hut and 5 McDonalds. Embrace it. 

Okay, so I'm beginning to get a bit of a protest related complex, in my previous blog I mentioned the protests on the Champs-élysées on Armistice Day. On one of my walks, I was jauntily wandering along when I heard the faint cry of what initially sounded like 'Do you hear the people sing' and I thought I was about to witness a live reenactment of the musical spectacular Les Miserables, before this dream was shattered by the appearance of police bearing riot shields and a protest of around 200 people passed me, then the world carried on as normal. This evening whilst on the Champs-Elysées again, the Algerian population of Paris took to the streets in their cars to celebrate their victory in the football match. Their form of celebration involved hanging flags out of their cars/motocycle/other motorised vehicle and incessantly honking their car horns. This gave the Christmas markets a wonderful festive feel, I really think it added to that Christmas spirit that we all know and love. Didn't spoil my churros though, I enjoyed them with gusto. 

This blog isn't very chronological but what's life without a bit of spontaneity.
Yesterday evening, we headed to the restaurant in the Jewish quartier, the very same one we went to last week, and enjoyed fantastic food and a wonderful cucumber allergy related anecdote from the waiter, can't complain. 

Today we visited Parc de Buttes Chaumont which turned out to be one of the most beautiful places in Paris. The walk around the lake and through the caves was so pretty, even on a freezing cold day. We then walked along the Canal as it was such a nice day. 

In other news, before coming to Paris, I believed I was quite an English looking/ sounding person. I've now begun to think otherwise. So a couple of weeks ago 2 girls came to the hostel proclaiming 'We spoke to a Chinese girl on the phone a couple of hours ago'. The aforementioned girl was me. Yesterday a man came over to me and said 'My mother had assumed you were Polish'. 

I'm contemplating going to work tomorrow wrapped in a Union Jack flag, eating fish and chips and singing God save the Queen. 

Vive l'Angleterre. 

Pudding ahoy

Mignon and what?

Sorry.

IT'S CHRRRRIISTTTMASSSS.

So much more than a poppy...

This weekend was strange for me. Remembrance weekend has always and will always be a huge part of my life and means so much to me. I've discovered through being in France just how well Britain does Remembrance weekend. 

The 11th November, Armistice day, is a national holiday in France and we decided to head to the Arc de Triomphe for the service of remembrance in the morning. It wasn't at all what I was expecting. All the roads coming off the arc were blocked off and heavily policed so we could only stand and watch from about 200 metres away, we couldn't hear the speech and could barely see what was going on. Being British I couldn't help but compare it with the service in our own capital and how un-involved the public here were. 
Remembrance day to me is a solemn day in which we remember those who have died at conflict and those who are still dying today. Being a musician, the music to me forms a huge part in allowing people time to reflect. The music at the service was not sombre or reflective but felt more triumphant and I couldn't help but feel this day was treated more as a day of celebration than reflection.
The main thing that upset me however was the political protests that took part against the French socialist President Francois Hollande. I feel of all the 365 days in the year, choosing this one to actively protest through a ceremony of remembrance was wrong on so many levels. We chose to leave at this point, which was probably wise as we checked later, around 22 arrests were made following this. 
Although this made me sad, I am glad I experienced it. 

I think the difference in these 2 news articles says it all;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24893272http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24896789

Following this we went for a walk all the way up the river as it was the most crisp* day and then walked down canal Saint Martin and got massively judged for taking the worlds most edgy photos. Then had a meeting with our year abroad supervisor in a little restaurant just away from Bastille. It was lovely to meet up and talk about our year abroad and made me realise just how much I am enjoying myself here.

We then walked home. Now, following our drunken affairs last week, the security guards at work that we like to think are a bit like our 'hostel uncles' have had a running joke that we're alcoholics. Which was only further worsened when the handymen at work came into our room to change the curtains and had to fight the way through our growing collection of wine and beer bottles. Needless to say, we've tidied, but we can't tidy away the shame. 

Today was a grim and horribly rainy day, so we spent most of the morning hoping it would stop before heading to Auchan to buy all the essentials we had put off buying in the hope that the toothpaste tube and the shower gel bottle would magically refill themselves. 

This evening we went to the cutest French restaurant (I know, an actual French restaurant) in the Marais and I had the nicest 3 course meal for a bargain 15 euros. Actual Parisian dream.

I can't believe I only have 5 weeks left here, it's going so fast and I don't think I'm ever going to want to leave!**

*British expression for a cold but not wet day, massive fan
**I do miss you all really***
***mainly the dog

The contrast of these two photos, you wouldn't believe it was the same time.

My view.

Never too early for a festive starbucks

It's a very photogenic flag

I'm such a big fan of this photo.

 Sorry for the photos that follow...

Romantic meal for 2.