Devon's finer things

Explored the 'moors' today after years of not having been to it but it was as amazing as I remembered. There is something strangely fulfilling about clambering on to a bunch of rocks that I'm pretty sure were caused by some sort of volcanic thing ages and ages ago. Went with Lydia, her boyfriend Callum and my good friend Dan...oh and of course the three pups - Nyanja, Nika and Guiness. After a few hours of exploring the moors and visiting the quarry we headed to the Rugglestone Inn for lunch, the food was amazing but the portions were huge! Lydia actually got Dan to move his truck forward so we wouldn't step in any horse poo and then she somehow managed to step right in a fresh pile of dung. It was however, highly amusing.

Callum is currently making us his famous korma curry and I am looking over the photos from today. Dan will join us later for curry and a film, what a perfect way to spend a Thursday evening.

Bisous

The UK's not a OK

It's weird, the UK has always been my home and granted I still love my friends and family - like my friend R reminded me I will never replace a few of my special friends here. I have to admit though I was much happier in Paris, working most of the time without a care in the world and always laughing with Canadian au pair. Unfortunately sometimes in T where I live in the UK the world is just too small, some people are still living in bits of the past and refusing to move on, still holding grudges from over five years ago because frankly there is not much else for them to focus on. I don't mean to cause any offense but it is often the case that your night is ruined by people stuck in the past, which in my case happened last night. Oh well...life goes on.

Coming home simply reminds me who the important people are here at home and how much I love Paris and my friends there. My attitude has completely changed, when I first blogged in Paris I explained how I felt it didn't fulfil all my expectations but now my opinion is totally reversed. I intend to stay in Paris for as long as possible and in my mind, if I can get the right job teaching english as a foreign language, indefinitely. I love Paris, the people, the culture, the lifestyle. You never get bored of anything, or sick of seeing the same sights, there is always more to explore. And I already miss speaking the language.

Don't get me wrong the UK will always be my home (of sorts) but France has always been somewhere I've loved and Mum used to joke I should have been born French...today I am going into town with mum and walking along the seafront I miss the most while I am away and then later going to my second family's home for dinner. Looking forward to meeting D's new pup - a little border collie :) and eating his dad's wonderful home made food. Some bits of Britain I still love.

Toussaint

Toussaint for those of you who aren't familiar with French holiday's is the half term holiday in October which has now officially started. Had a pretty stressful night with the boys yesterday which isn't a normal occurence, normally as I have often blogged they are good as gold! I think that the sweets they were given in school made them have a literal sugar high and low. They were so over excited and then it was like the sugar ran out and they were so tired. Poor N dropped a chicken nugget with ketchup on his jeans and burst into tears...so bizarre this would never happen normally! But after a full night's rest...for all of us the boys are their usual happy selves again :)

This morning we have baked pancakes and I have made shortbread biscuits with chocolate chips in for them this afternoon. At ten ish we are going to the park with Finish au pair and her two boys who are the same age...hopefully this might tire them out and perhaps a little afternoon nap will be possible. If we're lucky! Currently they are watching Thunderbirds whilst I am blogging away next to them.

For me the holiday hasn't really started but it will tonight as I fly back to the UK on Saturday morning, although with all the RER strikes and protests I am getting the Roissy Bus from Opera, means leaving my house here at 7.45 though...ouch. Fingers crossed all goes well but according to the flybe website my flight is looking okay. Also haven't started packing so must do that as soon as I finish work because I am seriously lacking organisation. Note to self - clean bathroom before I leave or there will be even more tarantula's when I return...eww.

Last little update - I have been to two Irish bars in the space of a week. Once of Saturday with Canadian, Texas and GB au pair where we met a group of very funny, very drunk english guys. I hope to go there again soon as it was the first place I managed to get cider in my 2 months of being here. I also laughed so much my tummy hurt. Then this Wednesday I visited another Irish bar...surprisingly full of French people but according to French Jacques they go there for the music because it's the best, I agreed of course :) The pub was in the Pantheon, a district named after the amazing structure that was built in 1790, originally it was just the rebuilding of the Abbey of St Genevieve but after many years it has become a secular mausoleum containing the remains of the most distinguished French citizens including Victor Hugo and Marie Curie. I have yet to go inside but after Jacques telling me all about it I can't wait to explore it. We had a very good evening talking in a mix of French and English (Fringlish as my friend's kid calls it) and discussed surprsingly our love for each other's countries. What made me laugh is that he absolutely loves Marks&Spencers so I have promised to bring back some hot cross buns from the UK. However the night went far too quickly and before I knew it I was catching the train at midnight and cycling home at a crazy speed because it was so so cold!

Trains, planes and automobiles

When they said the French were always on strike, they weren't lying. Oh mon dieu, the grève is driving me crazy. Let's start with the first keyword - trains. The RER and the SNCF have been on strike for nearly two weeks now on and off. It hasn't really affected me apart from it taking an hour to get into Paris yesterday morning but it is causing uproar for people trying to get home from work. It took my au pair dad nearly 2 hours to get home last night. After a long day behind a desk I imagine it's the last thing you need.

And it continues...now there is no fuel. All the petrol stations are pretty much empty of fuel as the oil workers have gone on strike against the proposed pension plan. So no fuel for cars means no kerosene for planes...not good when I am supposed to be flying to the UK on saturday. Buttt luckily it looks like its mainly planes from Orly and only french airlines, thank you Flybe. Plus Sarkozy has to make his decision on the pension age change by Friday and it looks like he isn't budging and to be honest...good for him. I understand that the French fight for their social system and that is why they strike but really two years isn't too much of an alteration. 62 is still younger than the retirement age in the UK and most other countries. My au pair mum also thinks they will stop striking because they want to go on holiday too and if they keep striking they can't take advantage of the Toussaint holiday! Let's hope so anyway.

After waiting weeks I finally got to go to the Paris Motor Show (Mondial de l'automobile) and it was everything I expected it to be and more. The cars were incredible and with the help of Boy Brit's press card for mini we managed to get into the sealed off areas. American au pair and I felt like we were V.I.P's. We definitely got treated like it too, we sat in two £400,000 Rolls Royce's, one being a convertable and got to check out all the gadgets. I also got closer to a ferrari than I ever have been in my life...! All in all it was a fantastic day and such an experience. I would recommend it to anyone who hasn't been before.

Le week-end

Okay so my blog is not up to date at the moment, but realistically it's because I have been having far too much fun to have time to really write a lot. Le week-end dernier c'etait tres bien! (As you can see the French obsession has started...)

On Friday me and the girls ended up going to Cafe Oz in Place de l'Opera (near Paris Opera House) and literally dancing the night away. After standing outside waiting for a group of guys we were meeting I seemed to consume a lot of red wine which helped a) keep me warm and b) allowed my French to flow rather more fluently than normal, perhaps this was what I thought anyway...maybe I was slurring? Ha, just kidding, seriously le francais was impressive when I had finished off the bottle of red. So....anyway we were waiting for these guys because basically in Paris guys have to be with a large enough group of girls or they can't get in to places, translation = too much sausage in France, evidently.

The club was swarming with people and it was such a brilliant night, drinks weren't cheap but the music and the atmosphere made drinks barely necessary. Bar staff were stood on bar tops pouring vodka into people's mouths, every man was metro-sexual so had on some crazy outfit or was throwing out some interesting shapes on the dance floor. Although it was difficult to tell who was gay and who was straight (I actually asked a French guy how you tell...blunt but worth the information) it really didn't matter. The fact that all the guys didn't care about grinding up and down a pole or dancing like a crazy person to make the girls laugh made you just feel safe and comfortable. You could dance with any guy and not get groped in the process, everyone was out to have a laugh and dance with as many people as possible. We danced until about 4.30, walked to a cafe near St Lazare where the first train goes from, had a coffee and a croissant and got the 5.21 train home. I drunkenly stumbled into my room at 6am - failing to get undressed in any way and went to sleep still buzzing. I love Paris.

Saturday was a bit of a haze - I had a fuzzy head and only slept for about 5 hours but then German and American au pair came round to make home made enchiladas and guacamole. Admittedly although the host I did the smaller cooking duties generally just because I am still a minor disaster unit in the kitchen and American au pair is a great cook. Leave it to the professionals I always say. It was seriously delicious, even my host family ate the leftovers on Monday, definitely one for the book. The evening consisted of babysitting for the most adorable American kid ever who was like the 'ideal child.' They didn't have a TV so the kid was so into reading and his car toys etc...makes me realise how good it is to not let kids watch TV. Saying that my dad used to record South Park for me to watch without telling my mum and it never did me any harm. Apart from the fact that I went through a stage of imitating Cartman for a while which my mum couldn't comprehend. But hey...I was young maybe I wanted to be a voiceover, who knows.

Sunday was as good a day as I'd hoped to finish the weekend off with. I managed to watch my sister opening her birthday present's on her 18th which made up for not being there :) she had a hangover but had really enjoyed her birthday which was great news. She had also been sick and therefore had done me proud - 18th in the bag, Congrats Lydia, almost as good as you coming to my university...getting drunk...devouring a hot dog...and then chucking it up in my sink. Haha love you Sis. Apres I headed to the Jardin de Luxembourg to meet the girls, after a long day reading and chatting in the sunshine American au pair and her friend joined us and we all headed to a church for an organ concert, bit random I know but we enjoyed it, was nice to do something different in Paris and the churches here really are stunning. Later on we headed to La Maurais which is the Jewish area in Paris, we were on the hunt for their world famous falafels and we found them. The queue for this falafel place was out the door! It was delicious though and if you haven't tried it before I would recommend one. And if you are in Paris La Maurais is worth a visit, it's metro stop St Paul and it really is a beautiful and cultural change to the rest of Paris (plus the Jewish rest day is Saturday so La Maurais is one of the only places alive and busy on a Sunday).

Now I have a cold and want to curl up in a ball feeling sorry for myself. Definitely got it off les enfants but to be honest I was shocked I hadn't fallen ill sooner. Thank god it's my day off tomorrow.

Cartman: I'm not fat. I'm big-boned.
Stan: No, Jay Leno's chin is big-boned. You are a big, fat ass.

Que voulez-faire avec le français?

I have to answer this question for my French homework this week and it got me thinking....what would I like to do with the French? In this case it actually means the French language but today 'je pense que' it would be more appropriate to talk about French men.

I am going to confirm all your suspicions about French men - yes they are in fact all pretty damn handsome. Going into the centre of Paris is like walking on to the set of a Bridget Jones movie - Colin Firth's and Hugh Grant's are casually walking and lounging about everywhere. It has even been suggested that if you sit alone in Paris in one of the many parks within the city, it won't be long until one of these floppy haired strutting beauty's is sitting beside you. This hasn't happened to me yet so I clearly need to sit on a park bench alone for an hour or so and see what happens.

On the other hand a friend of mine who is currently also in France but down South has had the opposite experience of French 'gentleman.' She joined a French dating site after missing her guy mates back in the UK and perhaps in the hope of finding a floppy haired French boyfriend. When we were skype-ing today she explained very clearly that she was "going off the date site, 62 year old Uggo asked for tit pics." I kid you not, I was in stitches and couldn't breathe for laughing. Perhaps dating sites aren't the way to go in France...despite the success of them in other countries.

Either way my aim this month is to meet some more French guys, my French is gradually getting there so it's about time I make more of an effort 'a parle le français seulement.' Or let's be a bit more truthful...meet some Hugh's and Colin's.

Time's are changing...

Well let's be honest it hasn't be a great couple of weeks for the Brit's here in Paris, not forgetting to mention our American friends, who incidentally aren't having a great time either. There have been several threats made during the last week or so and a number of places evacuated including the Gare St Lazare and La Tour Eiffel. There was only so long I could turn a blind eye to it...

I was silently reassuring myself with the fact that I had not yet been affected by either evacuations so, at present, it must not be too concerning. However when the US government issued a "travel alert" to all Americans travelling within Europe they were very quickly and closely followed by Britain, who also recognised the possible threat for tourists in Europe. But before my mother starts reading this and having a panic attack...yes I became aware that the situation was more serious than I originally first thought (and I think that can be said for a large number of people) it is however fair to say that I am barely classed as a 'tourist' any longer anyway. I have been here for nearly eight weeks now, my French is at a higher standard than ever before and I surprisingly, don't spend every weekend visiting the tourist attractions in France. And to be perfectly honest, in light of the recent warnings American au pair and I have discussed steering clear of certain monuments for the next few months, or at least until all of this calms down, which fingers crossed won't be long.

So just before any of my friends or family start freaking out I am taking every precaution possible in the current, difficult situation. Paris itself carries on as it always does, throngs of people always rushing rushing rushing to get to work/to get home/to get somewhere. Of course the warnings have had an impact on the public, as people visit Paris all year round. But for the most part life goes on as normal, the smell of fresh croissants still tinges the air every morning and as Autumn has crept its way in the city awaits winter when the Eiffel Tower, covered with snow, sparkles like it has been encrusted with diamonds.