Today Paris was a veritable sauna. It was so hot and sunny that I felt a few degrees short of holidaying in the equator. I've had such a whirlwind of a few days that the beautiful weather seemed to reflect my constant good mood perfectly, pathetic fallacy in its purest form!
Catching up with Gracie on Thursday night was so much fun, we got so caught up in conversation that we almost skipped dinner, which would have been a travesty to be fair. Luckily we made it to the supermarket just in time, and discovering chocolate, pralines and cream ice-cream was such a highlight. Gracie has been so good to me by helping me settle in, I'm not sure how I could ever fully repay her! I might just continuously ply her with Haagen Dazs until she can't take any more..
Yesterday started with a massive hike through Montmartre trying to find a supermarket, which made me so hot, tired and frustrated that I found myself completely lost and miserable in the backstreets of Paris. However, by some bizarre twist of fate, at the height of my irritation I heard a familiar voice shout "OH MY GOD KAT" from behind me. There was stood Laura Kettlewell, one of my closest friends from uni with whom I had lost all contact due to her lack of Facebook and my lack of a phone. After an emotional flurry of greetings it turned out she was late back to work after her break, so it really was fated that we'd both be in exactly the same place at the same time- such a small world!
I shortly made my way over to the Champs-Elysée to go to Ladurée, the world famous patisserie, in order to celebrate my arrival in Paris. I didn't realise how touristy it'd be and came out feeling a bit dirty to be honest! But that's probably just the snob in me starting to take hold... My choices of pistachio, raspberry (the best by far) and praline macarons were sublime, but the lemon and thyme one tasted like I had just consumed a clump of dirt off my shoe, having sanitised it with Cif beforehand of course. Just awful. (I'm starting to think I should start a 'review blog' of Parisien puddings...). Having never been to Paris before seeing the Arc de Triomphe was awesome, apparently you can climb it which I look forward to doing when it's a bit less hot (otherwise, cue sweaty breathless piglet mode).
Having managed a whole conversation in French with a lovely woman at BNP Paribas, I decided I was on a roll and bought myself French ELLE and headed to the gardens of the Louvre to read it. Again, having never been before I was mesmerised by the world famous architecture, but didn't go in (saving a whole day for that!). Sat in the gardens reading my magazine and eating my macarons, I decided I was being far too French so stuck some Smiths and Kate Bush on my iPod to lower the tone and remind me of my English roots.
Gracie put me in touch with a guy from Durham, Ed, who I met up with later in the evening and who took me to a lovely little square near the Sorbonne, where I met loads of new people and had a few chilled out drinks, chatted, and took in the atmosphere. I love how European drinking al fresco is done with such finesse, and yet in Britain drinking in the street reminds me of my (very uncultured or respectable) youth. We then moved onto an English-speaking pub where a drunken Essex lad bought me and Maya drinks (at extortionate prices, may I add) and a charming French girl told us how cute the English accent is when speaking French- quite reassuring when you're convinced you sound like an uneducated moron everytime you open your mouth. We then moved on to a lock-in at a bar near the Eiffel Tower and stayed there til the very early hours, meeting all sorts of new people, one of whom knew my ex-boyfriend which was horrific and hilarious at the same time. It was all very surreal but a great first night out, completely banishing my fear of being lonely in Paris!
K x
Saturday 10 September 2011
Thursday 8 September 2011
The beginning.
I've jumped on the bandwagon and made myself a Year Aboad blog as everyone else seems to have one, though mine will probably be awful in comparison as so far I've been getting by on luck rather than months and months of planning. For those of you that don't know, I'll be spending the next six months in Paris interning at an advertising company, and the six months after that I'm doing something in Italy (but, true to form, I haven't even started thinking about that yet).
Everything to do with the move over here has been last minute (I got my job 3 weeks ago!) and incredibly stressful. I very rarely cry, and yet last night a lingering glance at the dog's happy face as he received a tummy tickle reduced me to a sobbing wreck as I struggled to think of a life without Insurance forms and Roger's urgent emails. I ask myself, is it worth it?
10 hours in (the day started at 5am because for reasons I cannot fathom a 7am flight was a really good idea), my time in Paris has been pretty uneventful, but I'm going to write about it anyway as I have a lot of time to kill.
First was the hellish wake up call and subsequent half-conscious, 'pissed-off-at-everyone' airport boredom. A ball of fake fur drifting amongst a sea of suited-up business people, I got pointed at by a little girl who proclaimed me a "bear woman" very loudly. My coat's usual reception is something more along the lines of "you look like a tramp, please stop dressing like that Katherine," so I welcomed "bear woman" as quite the compliment. So far, the YA was going well.
I've never been to Paris before. I haven't seen enough of it to fall in love with it yet, but I'm sure I will soon enough. At the moment I just feel generally weird towards the place. I'm really disappointed with the food though. I spent far too much time in Gare du Nord (where I'm storing my luggage until later) and I had a very average sandwich there. I then searched high and low for a patisserie but couldn't find anything. The dream was shattered. So upsetting for a near-food addict such as myself. To make matters worse, every encounter with French people confirmed my spoken French is just mindbogglingly awful, and I had to resort to English with every single one. I then decided to wash my face with my new duty-free cleanser to make myself feel better, but quickly realised I had no towel, and a very wet and soapy face.YA was starting to go downhill, and fast.
So far the best thing to come out of today was that I visited a lovely woman (again, the language barrier was excruciating- how I got a 2:1 this year is a farse, a mystery, an ongoing saga) who is letting me rent a tiny flat for 2 weeks, starting next week. I was not prepared for how difficult and demoralising looking for a flat or a homeshare in Paris is, and I'm essentially a nomad until I can find something concrete. I sincerely hope I learn from my mistake and search for Italian accommodation a lot sooner than the week before I leave.. I will tell you, it is pretty petrifying turning up in a foreign country with nowhere to live.
Til then I'm staying with Gracie, so excited to see her place and have a night in with a takeaway. It'll be good to see a friendly face as well, as so far French people have been so irritating. As I type, a man is talking on the phone at a volume about 10 times louder than needed, in a tiny corridor, just outside a library where people are working. Whataknob. (Also I don't know how I ended up here in this strange university place... I'm so excited I've been darting around everywhere and now I'm a bit lost..).
Anyway, that passed a lot of time. Keep your eyes PEELED for another RIVETING entry filled with further REALLY EXCITING ANECDOTES!!!
K x
Everything to do with the move over here has been last minute (I got my job 3 weeks ago!) and incredibly stressful. I very rarely cry, and yet last night a lingering glance at the dog's happy face as he received a tummy tickle reduced me to a sobbing wreck as I struggled to think of a life without Insurance forms and Roger's urgent emails. I ask myself, is it worth it?
10 hours in (the day started at 5am because for reasons I cannot fathom a 7am flight was a really good idea), my time in Paris has been pretty uneventful, but I'm going to write about it anyway as I have a lot of time to kill.
First was the hellish wake up call and subsequent half-conscious, 'pissed-off-at-everyone' airport boredom. A ball of fake fur drifting amongst a sea of suited-up business people, I got pointed at by a little girl who proclaimed me a "bear woman" very loudly. My coat's usual reception is something more along the lines of "you look like a tramp, please stop dressing like that Katherine," so I welcomed "bear woman" as quite the compliment. So far, the YA was going well.
I've never been to Paris before. I haven't seen enough of it to fall in love with it yet, but I'm sure I will soon enough. At the moment I just feel generally weird towards the place. I'm really disappointed with the food though. I spent far too much time in Gare du Nord (where I'm storing my luggage until later) and I had a very average sandwich there. I then searched high and low for a patisserie but couldn't find anything. The dream was shattered. So upsetting for a near-food addict such as myself. To make matters worse, every encounter with French people confirmed my spoken French is just mindbogglingly awful, and I had to resort to English with every single one. I then decided to wash my face with my new duty-free cleanser to make myself feel better, but quickly realised I had no towel, and a very wet and soapy face.YA was starting to go downhill, and fast.
So far the best thing to come out of today was that I visited a lovely woman (again, the language barrier was excruciating- how I got a 2:1 this year is a farse, a mystery, an ongoing saga) who is letting me rent a tiny flat for 2 weeks, starting next week. I was not prepared for how difficult and demoralising looking for a flat or a homeshare in Paris is, and I'm essentially a nomad until I can find something concrete. I sincerely hope I learn from my mistake and search for Italian accommodation a lot sooner than the week before I leave.. I will tell you, it is pretty petrifying turning up in a foreign country with nowhere to live.
Til then I'm staying with Gracie, so excited to see her place and have a night in with a takeaway. It'll be good to see a friendly face as well, as so far French people have been so irritating. As I type, a man is talking on the phone at a volume about 10 times louder than needed, in a tiny corridor, just outside a library where people are working. Whataknob. (Also I don't know how I ended up here in this strange university place... I'm so excited I've been darting around everywhere and now I'm a bit lost..).
Anyway, that passed a lot of time. Keep your eyes PEELED for another RIVETING entry filled with further REALLY EXCITING ANECDOTES!!!
K x
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