The-morning-after-the-night-before. Well, the afternoon after. . .

Last night was awesome! I’m so glad Holly convinced me to go to that Erasmus do because I had a really good time and saw loads of people there that I recognised and met loads more new people! I’ll start from the beginning (As Maria said “A very good place to start” :op): Holly and I dolled ourselves up to go to this thing and headed for the Bastille via the trusty metro, as we had made plans to meet some of Holly’s mates there before making an appearance at our final destination. When we arrived I was introduced to: Bernie (Bernadette), a sweet little character from Singapore with absolutely fantastic English; Anna-Marie, a quiet girl from Finland who will be in my “Histoire de la langue” classes from now on; and Daniela, a Swedish girl who I got on brilliantly with :o) With these first few introductions out of the way we went for a quick drink/bite to eat in Mackie D’s before we found the bar we were aiming for: SanzSans.

When we arrived the party was already in full swing, but we were to see it MUCH busier! :op Straight away I recognised a girl from one of my classes at the Sorbonne, Marie, and upon greeting her, she informed me that she was working for Parismus that night and hoped we had a lovely evening :o) We headed for a table in the corner of the bar (the only one free) as a group and all of us sat down to people watch for as bit. Gradually throughout the evening, one or two of us got up to visit the bar and acquire drinks for the others and we began to introduce ourselves to others in the room, friends and strangers alike! The Parismus company had a game organised for us all to play; we all wrote our names down on a sticky label and popped them in a little tin, then later on in the evening we were all asked to pick a name from the box, find that person and introduce ourselves to them! A fantastic idea I think, especially as, although I didn’t have time to put my name in the box, I managed to find my label person! :o)

Recall me describing a house party that Holly, Mel and I went to at my friend Steph’s place? Well, I saw Steph again last night, very drunk and very happy :oD Hehehehe! I also bumped into quite a few people from various Sorbonne classes, including Siri, who came to sit with us when I found her. After about an hour’s deliberation and discussion, Bernie and I realised we’d been in the same French language classes without noticing each other! She had sat at the very front for every lesson and I had been at the very back. One contributing factor to this revelation was a guy called James, who I instantly recognised from my class, when Bernie called him over to be introduced to me! It was very confusing, but James and I chatted for a bit before he went off to mingle again. He is actually English as well, so it was nice to see that Holly and I aren’t the only ones here from good old Angleterre!

Although it was lovely to be in this pleasant, reverie-like atmosphere, I was soon jolted out of the delusion that my international world was perfect; on my way out of the bar with Holly and Kristin (a good mutual friend from Germany) we stopped to talk to some people who had also just left the bar, but we were quickly accosted by a strange French bloke who introduced himself to me, asked me how I was, and invited himself back to my flat for “ a good fun time” all in the same breath. Silly man. Why do blokes think lines like that work on us girls? I informed him in no uncertain terms that I was NOT a prostitute, and that he would not “get any” from me! One thing’s for sure, I won’t be wearing that outfit again in a hurry!

Anyway, on another note, earlier today I went into Uni to meet Siri for lunch, and then I actually managed to find my classroom for the class I missed last week. It was really interesting! We were taught about ancient runes, Anglo Saxon England and we’ve started learning how to translate Old English texts. :o) I think this will be a great subject! We only have to write one essay for it too! We should expect to have that set about 2 weeks before we finish the term. But then again, it shouldn’t be all work and no play. . . ;op

Here are some pics of Siri and me in a park down the road from the Sorbonne, which is where we had lunch today. We found some rather odd-looking children’s toys there; see if you guys can work out which animals they are meant to be:

We think this one was some kind of dinosaur. . .

. . . with a weird meerkat-ish, fox-like, kangaroo kind of thing in the background. . .

. . . this one, I reckon, was a cat (although from one angle it looks like a warthog!)

I think it’s quite ridiculous to have weird non-animals in a children’s play park; if you were all parents, would you want your kids playing on toys which look like mutant hybrid creatures?! I think not!

Anyways, I’d better go now, got to read the Tempest in preparation for tomorrow’s morning lecture.

Til next time! xxxx

Not much to report. . . .

Well I’m enjoying my weekend off this week, as, come next week, I shall have to start doing some serious work! I have my first French oral presentation to do (with Siri) on Wednesday this week on the subject of “London” by William Blake. We have no idea how to do this so on Thursday, Siri and I arranged to meet up and discuss how we might present the poem.

We are the first in our class to do a presentation so we have decided that there are two ways of looking at this:

Either,

a.) We are screwed. (We have no idea what we are doing, what is expected of us, or how we should be approaching this presentation!)

OR

b.) We are expected to set the standard for the rest of the class and everyone else’s will be based on ours. (Does that mean we have an obligation to make sure it is really good so that following presentations are reasonably interesting to watch?)

Whatever the case may be, we are lucky that Siri has done similar presentations in her own classes in Germany, so we have at least got some ideas for how to start. We met up on my day off this week, on Thursday, to discuss how we were going to start the project but we ended up writing the whole thing then and there! :o) At least it’s out of the way now, anyways, for now. Siri had heard of some computer rooms in the Sorbonne building which are available to students for working on in their free time, so we headed first for one of these workrooms. When we found one, there was no-one in the room, but all the computers were on, screensavers frequenting every screen and the door was unlocked and wide open. We went in, found a computer and started to work on the presentation; people came in every now and then to ask us if it was OK for them to work there too, but of course we had no idea if we were meant to be there or not so Siri had to explain this to anyone who asked.

Eventually a teacher came in and spoke in fairly rapid French to Siri (she was the only one not looking blank when he addressed us) to which she responded in kind. He seemed angry, so, whilst they shared words, I saved our work and began closing down the computer. She told me, when we had made a hasty retreat from the room, that he had been telling us off for using the university’s equipment “unguarded”, as though we were going to walk out of the room with a heifer-sized pc on our backs! Silly man. The computers are there for OUR use, and we have had proof of that since the incident, so I don’t know what his problem was. Anyway, we toddled off feeling thoroughly chastised, and then spent several hours sat in the MacDonald’s just down the road from the Sorbonne. There, we could use their public wireless internet connection to research the poem and get some interesting facts about William Blake. A very useful way to spend my day off and then after we’d finished the presentation, we chatted and went for a walk. I now have until Wednesday afternoon to polish up our work and to make copies of our presentation summary to give to the class as handouts. It could be said that I feel very proud of our work :o) I’m not normally this organised, as most of you know!

Anyway, yesterday was nearly as traumatic (though in a passive sense) as I was forced to listen to an extremely boring lecture on the subject of American literature. We are studying The 42^nd Parallel by John Dos Passos and my teacher really doesn’t make it easy to like the book . . .

She attempts to sound clever by saying really abstract phrases which seem to make very little sense to me; and I’m the best “blagger” in Norfolk! My essays never lack length, merely the required content (and often sense!) :op I can honestly say that not one of my essays for Uni last year, was under the word limit (or even ON it for that matter!); every single one surpassed the limit, even the essay I wrote through the night and finished at 7am!

Here is an example of her silly turns of phrase:
“Subversion is an active process; fiction, merely a product.”

“Dos Passos uses nature as an agent of subversion to undermine and subvert fictional conventions within the novel.”

“The characters are agents or victims of their own times.”

Oh and by the way, these are stated completely out of context, so we have absolutely no idea what she’s going on about because suddenly her discussion topic will just switch from one thing to another!

Well, no matter now, don’t need to think about the silly book or the silly teacher until next week; now is the weekend :o) Time for “chill-laxing”! Tomorrow I’m supposed to be going to an Erasmus “Soirée” run by a company called Parismus. They focus on bringing the Erasmus students together in a “family” kind of way whilst we’re all here in Paris. I don’t know if I really want to go at the moment. Am feeling a bit like becoming a recluse this weekend.

Oh well, shall let you know :o) Laters! Xxxx

Still settling in. . .

Sorry, sorry, sorry! This week has been pretty stressful so far and that's my excuse for not writing at all these past few days!

I began the week in a bad mood because on Monday I should have been in a class called "Histoire de la langue". However, due to the Sorbonne's silly planning and organisation, I couldn't find the room for my seminar! Either, they changed the room without broadcasting the news, or I wrote down the wrong room number for that particular class when choosing my modules. I searched for half an hour for the wrong room before considering double-checking the boards, and by that time it was too late for my 1 hour long class. Oh well, will try again next week!

Anyway, so far I'm really enjoying most of my lectures! :o) The course modules that I have chosen for this term are perfect for me, and it's not an obligation for me because I love learning about all the topics we are covering this term! That is one of the reasons I was so annoyed about missing the History class on Monday; I was expecting that to be really interesting! :o) I think my favourite class at the moment is the Tuesday morning "Civilisation de la Renaissance". It is practically non-stop story-telling for the entire lesson, which makes the bombardment of information easier to absorb. The lecturer clearly loves his subject and with him being a Shakespeare scholar, I feel a certain affiliation with the man. Unfortunately he seems keen to drop me in at the deep end with my French language lessons; at every available opportunity he bursts into a stream of very fast French which he expects me to decipher and respond to! Well, hopefully he'll forget about it in a few days or so.

Yesterday afternoon made my brain ache in the same way; my teacher is proud of the fact that she can translate her lessons from English into French and vice versa, so suddenly, mid-sentence she will switch languages and it confuses ALL of us, even the bi-linguists! This is especially tough on me when I have my very English days; sometimes I'm sure the French words jump right out of my head! It HAS made me realise, though, that it is necessary to maintain regular bilingual conversations in order to remember all you know of a language! I hope I'm able to keep up my French like this when I come back to England. If not, I might have to move out here! :op Something productive did come out of the afternoon's lesson though. . . I now have a presentation organised for the 20th November on the topic of "How women are represented in Chaucer" and more specifically for my specialisation, "How Chaucer's representation of women in The Wife of Bath's Tale (Canterbury Tales) differs from the typical descriptions of female characters in Old and Middle English texts". May sound boring to you lot, but that is an absolute DREAM of a topic for me! I'm doing a joint presentation with my friend Diana, so we'll be sharing the work-load a bit :o) I'm quite looking forward to tackling the subject, actually!

Today I had my first class for my Masters module, Shakespeare! Just before the seminar started, I started talking to a girl outside the room called Noémie who was also in the class. It was refreshing to have an entirely French conversation for half an hour, and then I was pleasantly surprised to see that the lecturer for the Masters class is none other than the Renaissance professor! It made the lesson extremely easy to bear, especially as it is (understandably) much more difficult to follow than my other classes. I am in a class with people who are at least 2 or 3 years older than me! Throughout the whole class, the tutor made constant references to different Shakespearean plays, many of which I have not yet read or studied. I felt pretty dumb during that class and I have vowed to read some more this weekend to try and catch up with the others, who all seem to know what they are talking about! That's one thing I've noticed about the Sorbonne; the students are much more hard-working, and committed to learning here! I don't know whether it is due to the Sorbonne being such a fantastic institution, or whether it is a French thing, but it is incredibly awing to see how devoted they are to their studies :o)

This afternoon brought took an irritating few hours of my life; they are gone and never coming back :o(
The English literature class was taken by the same very annoying lecturer from last week, who, as Siri pointed out, looks like the old tortoise from the Never-Ending-Story film, "Morla"! He has a faux English accent which only appears in some words, but most of the time you can tell that he is very French. He seems to have singled out Holly and myself because we are English and he has deigned to remember our names, but not many others, which is slightly embarassing! Last lesson, there were less than 10 students in the class (probably because not many knew that the lessons had already started), but this week the classroom was absolutely choc-a-block! For the second week running, Holly and I found ourselves separated by people, so Siri and I passed her notes along the table. Yet again he seemed to be stumped by the uncommon English words in our answers to his silly long-winded questions (which I think is ridiculous, what with him being a qualified English tutor and all!) so he glided over our comments and made silly remarks such as "Blake is not a cloud." I mean, come on mate! He is giving us waaaaaaaay too much material with which to mock him! Siri and I chose our presentation topic for this module too; we are going to discuss Blake's poem "London" and we have agreed to meet tomorrow to talk about it and start planning our speaking parts! Grrrrrr somebody took "The Tyger" :o( That's my favourite poem!! Smelly person.

I can't believe that we only have a week before we have to do our first oral presentation! It's going to be very scary because I have absolutely no idea what he is expecting from us or how he wants us to analyse the poem! Hopefully Siri will have some idea, so I'll post again soon letting you know what she suggests.

Anyways, I'm off to bed now. I may have a day off of lectures tomorrow, but I still have to get up at a reasonable time to meet Siri and start work on the presentation.

Night all! xxxx

P.S. I shall leave you with this lovely image:

Holly and I seem to have a bit of a thing about collecting random objects, and also, it seems, we have a slight addiction to Diet Coke. . .

La semestre a commencée!

Well, again, it's been a week since I last posted an entry but I'm going to warn you now, that I may not have time to post as often as I did at the beginning. It looks like I will have a LOT of work on my hands and a stupid amount of reading to do which means less time online.

Anyways, here's a brief overview. I'm afriad there aren't many pictures because I haven't had much chance to take any :o(

Monday - Holly and I went in very early (8am) in case any of our modules started that day. Luckily none of ours started that early so we had plenty of time to sort it out; in fact, my first class didn't start until the following day so I was pretty pleased with that :o)

I'm going to be taking the following classes:

• L3AN6212 - Découverte de l’Angleterre médiévale - This is a 2nd yr class


• L5ANH301 - Histoire de la langue - This is a 3rd yr class


• L5ANL303 - Littérature - This is a 3rd yr class


• L5AN6311 - Civilisation de la Renaissance - This is a 3rd yr class


• L5AN6318 - Littérature américaine - This is a 3rd yr class


• M1AN403S - Shakespeare et son temps - This is a Masters/Postgraduate class

Am really looking forward to getting to grips with them all! Shall I remind everyone that I'm in my SECOND year! :op Not being big-headed at all. . . hehehe!

We DID discover the Shakespeare company bookshop on the edge of the river though! It is an English bookshop on the ground floor but when you go upstairs, there is a sleeping area for penniless writers to use when they can't afford to rent a room, and, thousands of old books that you can sit and read til your heart's content! It was utter heaven to us!

This is the "Wall of Love". It is a mirror where past visitors to the bookshop have left little messages thanking the owners for welcoming them with open arms. Holly and I plan to leave our own little message here just before we leave Paris :o)

As you can see, Holly dove straight into the books. . . :op

We stayed to read for a little while in the shop. This was on the upper floor.

We also found a book written by one of our lecturers at Brunel! :o)

Back to the studies, the Renaissance class was my first, on Tuesday:
The class was fantastic; to begin with, I was the only student in the class, so the professor just started describing the course to me, but gradually people started to arrive until there were 4 of us pupils (most people though that this week was purely admin-related and that the classes don't start til next week. More fool them :op). After one girl, Vanessa, mentioned that the Sorbonne is like a maze to try and find all your classrooms in, the professor took the word "Maze" and used it to give us a history of how the idea of a labyrinth came into British theatre through greek mythology (which I adore!!) and then found its way into Shakespearean plays! It was so interesting, and I wrote pages and PAGES of notes on the topic! It was the perfect first class for me, and I can't wait until next Tuesday!

After this class, I didn't have any schedules classes until the next day so I decided to explore the other Sorbonne building which is on the other side of Paris, at Clignancourt. This turned out to be a long-but-well-worth-the-trouble plan as I got lost trying to find the building. However, when I had worked out where I needed to be, I climbed several staircases and found myself in the English department where I signed up to take the Medieval England course. As luck would have it, the class was due to start in an hours time from when I arrived, so I went in search of something to drink in the cafeteria before settling myself to wait outside the room. That is where I met Gwenn :o) She introduced herself and explained that she was also taking the same class as me, and after we had chatted for a while it was time to go in.

I spent the first 20 minutes of the class feeling utterly bewildered; the professor was speaking entirely in French and the only reason that I did not speak up sooner about the fact that I was finding it difficult to understand, was that I knew she had not yet begun teaching. She gave us some printed information (in English, luckily) on how to do research, on the topics we would cover, in French libraries and then started talking about presentations we would have to do in class. At the first available opportunity I explained to her that I was English and would find a lesson taught in French very difficult to cope with, but she told me not to worry because the classes would be taught in English. Panic over, when the lesson ended, Gwenn and I got the metro home together because as luck would have it, she only lives 2 minutes away from us! Literally across the road!!! It's amazing!

Wednesday afternoon was the Literature class: Holly and I are both in this class, and we both managed to find the room by ourselves even though the building is like a rabbit warren! There are so many staircases that you have to think really carefully about which one you need to climb to get to certain rooms, especially as they aren't always connected by adjoining floors, so when you go wrong, you have to go all the way down again!
Anyway, in the class we have a mad teacher who phrases things weirdly, makes things more complicated than they really need to be! We also met a German exchange student, Siri, who is also on the Erasmus exchange, and, luckily for us, she speaks excellent English :o) Siri and I spent the lesson laughing at the professor as he asked everyone absurd questions. He asked me to explain something in a line of William Blake poetry and when I answered with words like "sibilance", "assonance", "lyrical" and "trochaic meter", he was stumped. He just kind of looked at me as though I was speaking another language and then he moved on as if nothing had happened! :op Looking forward to more lessons like that? Hmmmm. . . I'm not so sure!

Thursday was a totally wasted day in terms of lessons: I was supposed to have my Masters lesson on Poetry and the Poetic style in the afternoon, but as there was the option of a tutorial around noon, I decided to go to that and speak to a professor about the course. When I got there, I got chatting (in French) to a really kind Parisian girl who was also doing the course but she explained to me that it would be taught in French and that I would probably find it extremely difficult. Worried by this, I went into the room and spoke, in English, with a very pleasant male professor who agreed that with only an adequate level of French, that I would find the course impossible to comprehend. Disheartened by this, I asked him if he knew of any other courses I could do (I have a quota to fill in order to complete my term here and I have a certain number of classes to take if I want to qualify).
He was extremely helpful and gave me lots and lots of advice for other Masters classes. It would seem he is keen to get me on a Masters class rather than a 3rd year class like my other modules. Bless him :o) I did see him later on in the corridor and he stopped to check up on me and see how I was getting on with things. Awww!

Anyways, my American Literature class has been changed to Fridays now, so I went to that yesterday and it was good :o) I have a lot of reading to do for it, but it would appear that most people are having problems getting hold of the texts very quickly.

I hereby URGE universities everywhere (especially the Sorbonne and Brunel): PLEASE release your suggested reading lists BEFORE the start of term! You really cannot expect us to have the texts, let alone have READ them if you only give us 1 week's notice!

Anyways, rant over, I believe I have brought you up to date :o) I feel proud of myself, and, to celebrate I am going to make myself Boeuf Bourguignon for dinner :op

Will write again soooooon! Don't forget to comment :o) xxxx

P.S. here's a funky video of some street entertainers (only the best for you darlings!)

Can I use hospitalisation as an excuse?

OK, ok, I know I have not posted an entry for nearly a week now, but my excuse is that I have been stupidly ill :o( So here is a very LONG explanation!

Last week, when Ellie was still staying with me, my cold spread to my lungs and turned into "suspected pneumonia" and an asthmatic's worst nightmare. One evening, I felt like my body was trying to cough up my internal organs; I could barely breathe and I had a hacking cough which left me feeling light-headed and woozy.

Ellie and I went for a walk to the late opening pharmacy to buy some cough medecine, but all we could find was some herbal syrup made with belladonna and arnica. We got this home and I practically drank the stuff but it didn't do any good, except make me quite hyper! Not the best idea when you are already struggling for breath, but as I understand it, fairly amusing for onlookers :op

After realising that there was no way I would get any sleep that night with such difficulty breathing, with the help of some worried parents on the other end of a microphone, we found a hospital near the Notre Dame and Ellie offered to take me there. I hate hospitals and doctors so I was pretty worried, but by the time we had reached the place, I was so drowsy from lack of oxygen that I felt extemely drunk and was almost falling asleep on my feet. Still, we got in to the building and I managed to give the woman at the reception desk my passport and she gestured for us to wait in the seating area. I poked Ellie and told her not to sit down because every bench in the waiting room had a dopey homeless/drunk/ill person collapsed on it!

Eventually we were called into a small room where my blood pressure was taken and I had to do the asthma "blow test". This involves you puffing into a little cardboard tubey thing and it measures how strong your breath is. Mine should be about 450-475 when I'm healthy, but it was just under 200 when they tested me. The nurse took me into the main hospital building and told me that Ellie would have to wait outside til I was settled. Of course, being afraid of this kind of thing, I was terrified by the thought that I'd have to go through it all alone!

After waiting (next to a guarding policeman!) outside a ward-room, I was led into a small room filled with all kinds of equipment and with 3 beds in it, 2 of which were occupied by very still patients. . .

I was shaking as they asked me to sit on the bed and take off my clothes. Luckily, they just meant take off my hoody, but I think if they had meant more than that I'd have run back to the apartment! They gave me a gown to wear and asked me to lie back. Then a series of tests and needles were inflicted on me causing me to sit there with frightened tears streaming down my face. Fun night out.

First they took some blood from an artery on my right wrist; later on they took more blood from the vein in the crook of my right arm:

They inserted an IV drip into my left forearm which got taped in place with some weird clingfilmy stuff and they told me the drip was feeding me anti-inflammatory drugs to calm down my lungs.

They put some little liqui-tabs of chemicals into a little nebuliser-steamer and attached a mask connected to that, to me:

All in all, I felt like a pincushion and was feeling very sorry for myself despite the male nurse being very kind to me and trying to make me laugh. I kept pestering them throughout these tests if they would let my friend come in yet, and finally after they had finished prodding me with sharp things, they let Ellie come and sit beside me.

And after 3 hours, they finally allowed us to go home (this time we caught a taxi!) but I was obviously still not feeling great.

I spent the next couple of days lying in bed with Ellie waiting on me; she was an absolute angel, feeding me and keeping me hydrated whilst I should have been showing her the sights of Paris. However, THAT is why I have not posted for a while; because I could not even sit at the computer very long before I needed to go and lie down again :o( Pathetic.

On the last full day of Ellie's visit, I forced myself to get out of bed and I took her to the Picasso museum which is only a short walk away from our place. It was quite interesting in there: although I can't say Picasso is my favourtie artist, it was intriguing to see how some of his most famous works had progressed through numerous sketches and rough copies!

Speaking of artists, when I took Ellie to CDG airport to wave her off, we noticed that someone had, very artistically, decorated the ladies' loos. . .

Twas a sad day on Friday though as I had to say goodbye to my best friend, again, as she disappeared back to England without me :o( We took a few last pictures before I plonked Ellie on a plane and I toddled off back to my apartment, alone.

I shall miss my nutter :o(

This coming week should bring some news about my course as last week was the last of the French refresher lessons. Can't wait to get my modules sorted! Will let you know how it goes soon. xxxx

Been there, Done that, Didn't have time to buy the T-shirt . . . :o(

Well, last night was fun :o) First we went for a meal at a French café near the Sorbonne; we had a really yummy meal, followed by chocolate brownie and ice cream :o)

Hehe, I put eyeshadow on Ellie's nose. Don't ask! These strange things always happen when we get together :op
Then, we wandered around Paris looking at all the monuments in their night time glory: Arc de Triomphe, Eiffel Tower, La Defense, Pompidou Centre.

I hope to take Ellie to all the arty places in Paris this week: Les Galeries Lafayette, the Picasso museum etc. . .

I felt awful getting up this morning to go to my French class; I've STILL got that blasted cold, grrrr. Well, I shall have no time for it this week, so it had better realise that and disappear quickly! I have too many plans :o) and I will not let it ruin them!
We plan to do some wandering and just exploring today so I will have to leave it here for now.
xxxx

YAY!!! ELLIE!!!!!!!!

Yippeeeeeeeeeeee!!

The Smellie Ellie is in Paris! :op
It took an incredibly large amount of stress to get her here but she IS finally in Paris with me :o)
She was left stranded at the airport when she landed here today because:

1.) I had forgotten to replenish the money in my purse, so I couldn't afford a metro ticket. As I was planning on walking a little of the way to save what little money I have at the moment ( my cash hasn't come through from the English to the French account yet), I didn't realise that I had less than 2 Euros on my person until I was too far from the apartment to go back for the money. Stupid. 2 Euros wouldn't even buy me a drink and by the time I reached Gare du Nord (not even halfway to the airport because I needed to take a long distance train) I had walked 4 miles by wandering around Paris trying to find my way closer to the airport!

2.) I couldn't remember my PIN for my English bank card. I called my Dad, who, luckily, was at home. Unfortunately, all he could find was the password for something else, so that was a dead loss.

3.) Every two minutes or so, my mobly was uttering a persistent beeping sound to remind me that the battery power was running low. . . a great comfort when you are stranded 4 miles from home and even further from the destination, knowing that you will need a way of contacting the one you are going to meet!

4.) When I got to Gare du Nord, I realised that I wasn't going to make it close enough to reach Ellie in time, so I called her and tried to suggest that she gets the metro to the station, where I would meet her. However, just as I was about to tell her which train she should get, a strange French woman started telling me that my credit was running low and that I should top it up to allow me to continue with my call. By telling me this, she wasted the remaining few pennies of my credit and I was left with no possible way to contact poor Ellie in the airport!

5.) Frustrated with my mobile and desperate to get hold of Ellie, I darted into the nearest payphone, hoping that I would have enough money to at least make contact with her. As you can guess, that was also a no-go; the payphone would only take phonecards, not cash. Without one of these, and with no money to purchase one, I thought all was lost and I am ashamed to say that I was on the verge of asking a stranger if they had a euro or two that I might have. . . The thought had more than crossed my mind over the past half an hour (I had been running around like a headless chicken for nearly 2 hours by this point). As I was, about to have a temper tantrum right there in the middle of the street, it dawned on me that the station was bound to have a phone in the ticket booth, so perhaps I could borrow it if I asked really nicely. . . .

6.) Woohooo! After entering the station at Gare du Nord, I noticed a Police Office near the entrance. I hurried over to it and tried to explain the important elements of my pathetic story to the officers there. They gave me their telephone, but it was no use. It could only call local numbers, and Ellie had an English mobile number! After several attempts, I was gutted to admit defeat and I thanked them and started to walk away.

7.) I decided to check my purse one last time, just to make sure that I hadn't missed a crafty 10 Euro note hidden in a pocket somewhere. As I opened my purse, I spotted the post-it note inside with Holly's mobile number written on it. Her FRENCH mobile number! I rushed back to the station and showed them the number. They helped me to make contact with Holly, who in turn rang Ellie for me and relayed the message that she should get a taxi to Gare du Nord where I would be waiting patiently for her.

In the end, she managed to get the message and whilst she got a taxi (36 euros!!) to Gare du Nord, I waited outside the station and had to put up with strange men chatting me up in French. . . .


Why me? :os

Anyways, after ALL that! YAY, she's here now, and she brought money!! Wooooooo! I'm finally rich again! I brought her back to the apartment and we are about to go out and explore Paris a bit together. I hope the rest of this week won't be this stressful!


Will update you soon! xxxx

I am ashamed. . . .

Sorry for the lack of recent updates, my dearies; Holly's mum has been spoiling me rotten: feeding me and doing all the grocery shopping, so, I have been lulled into a state of laziness unmatched so far!

Ms Canning arrived on Friday and we spent the weekend doing some exploring around the city with her, involving one rather traumatic meal in a Greek restaurant! Throughout the meal I was getting eyes from the waitor there, and as he handed us the bill, he asked me out. Although he was sweet and kinda cute, I really wasn't interested in going out with him. Still, I didn't like to say "no" to him straight off so I left the option open for me to go back to the restaurant, one day in the future, if I felt like it. He kept asking me to go for a drink with him and told him that I might "possibly" be back. I haven't been back yet, and don't think I will. The language barrier was a bit too vast (he spoke French but I don't think it was his native language and he didn't seem to catch some of the simpler French sentences that I spoke to him) - it would have been too awkward. Plus, I feel weird about being hit on when I'm not out on the pull. I just wanted a simple lunch with Holly and her ma; I didn't WANT to be picked up right then.

Having said that, I wouldn't have objected if sexy banker-man had asked me out whilst he offered me documents and forms to sign and date. . . . hmmm. . . . ah well, I can dream :o)

Here's a random little fact for you, kids:
Do you remember the "Where's Wally?" series of books? For those of you with memories like sieves, it involves a very busy cartoon scene in which you had to spot the little nerdy-lookin' guy in a stripey vest, bobble hat and glasses! Here he is:

Anyways, point I'm trying to get to is that here in France, "Wally" does not exist! They search for CHARLIE!!!

Hehehe, not all that interesting but I thought I'd tell you nevertheless.

I'm still ill :o( but plus side to this story is that Ellie will soon be here :o) She's arriving tomorrow, almost the same time that Holly's mum is leaving us. Can't wait!!

Right, am now off to Bedforshire 'cos I feel ROUGH. Have a lot of travelling to do tomorrow so it's gonna be tough considering I feel like crap. But I shall try to get better before Ellie arrives :o)

Bye all!

xxxxxx

T. F. I. F, if you know what I mean!

Thank [goodness] it's Friday today! I've been absolutely knackering myself this week with all the walking and getting up early; It'll be good to sleep in tomorrow. That's what weekends are for, isn't it? :op

Last night, Holly and I went to a party at the house of one of my German friends, Steph. Steph is in my French class and she'd invited us to go to a bash at her place for Erasmus students. It was cool: we dolled up and caught the metro with a few bottles of booze tucked under our arms, ready for a night of revelry:

When we got there (which was a bloomin' chore in itself!), we were the only English people; everyone else was German! We had some really interesting chats with the other girls about the differences between Germany and England. It brought back memories of Mr Kreft's lessons (Ruth will know what I'm talking about!) and it brought forth the few German sentences that I could remember from the dusty recesses of my mind! Basically we had an awesome time, and when we came home, I was so tired that I couldn't be bothered to edit my last bloggage entry, therefore, it has been pasted on the top of this one! :op My blog = my rules.

Anyways, Friday! The first truly chilly day here! I swear, everyday so far has been like summer still but today I felt the "Brrrr" factor! There was a national call for Polo-necked jumpers, and I am proud to say that I was there to answer it! :o)

Speaking of answering calls, my PC Microphone broke the other day and had been giving out mild electric shocks to my bottom lip whenever I tried to speak into it; I think it's time for a new one! A mic is a must-have for me because I make most of my phone calls on Skype these days; it's soooooooo much cheaper (being free and all. . . ) and it's just as clear as if you were speaking on the phone! Great, now I sound like an advert: but seriously, if you want to speak to me in person, call me on Skype :o)

Anyway, to get to the point, I needed a new mic and, having found no computer shops nearby that HADN'T been closed since June 06 (Pfft stupid PC City. . . ), I walked into the nearest electrical shop that I could find after my French class.

The following transaction duly impressed me because: I managed to get across to the salesman what I needed, I understood his suggestions for various different types of mic, I reasonably conveyed my preferences for the mic, and the sale went extemely smoothly! I've probably been diddled out of more Euros than it would have cost me if I'd bought it from PC World (in France) but then again, I needed a new one desperately and now I have one. Problem solved :o)

After this fantastic purchase, I was in high spirits crossing the bridge towards the Notre Dame. . . that is until this came into view. . .

No, it is not THE King Tut, but a silly man dressed in a sheet. If you know me well, you'll know how severely people in costumes like this freak me out (like mannequins) and this one decided to be extra evil and he reached out to me as I passed him. I'm not kidding when I say that, if his hand had made contact with my arm, or if I hadn't noticed him when crossing the bridge, my foot would have quickly found it's way to a soft, squishy, painful area on his person with considerable force. Don't MESS with me when I'm nervous!

Mel left very early this morning; Hope you got home OK mate, and hope you had a good journey!

Holly's mum arrived this evening and she's a real sweetie! She's promised to cook us a curry tomorrow night too! :o) God bless Mummys. (The mothering kind, not the kind pictured above!)

Well, that's enough for today, kids; I'm gonna go get some sleep. xxxx

Mel's last day. . .

Today was the last full day that Holly's mate, Mel, will spend here so, when my French class ended this morning, I met up with Mel and took her to lunch then to the "jardin du Luxembourg". We had a lil wander around and admired the sculptures in the gardens:
(P.S. Wouldn't like to meet the Spider that spun THAT web! ^^ *shudders*)

There were MANY sculptures!

A passing old man told us that these are supposed to be tears, then explained in rather broken english that 'posing for pictures with them makes them happy'. . . I don't know what he was talking about, but I thought, hey! I like Posing! :o)
There are some truly beautiful gardens here that visitors to Paris should definitely see!

Some parts were quite exotic, as you can see! :op Whilst others looked classically elegant:

Unfortunately, I don't. . . . hehe!

After we left the gardens, we treated ourselves to a Crepey-treat each, mmmmm. . .

By way of my latest 'rude photo', I thought that this tree had a rather interesting growth attatched to it. . . but the more I look at the picture, the less I can see what I originally thought it was! The closer I scrutinise it, the less funny it looks, so if you glance at it and don't laugh straight away, you probably won't see what I saw on there!

I seem to have a bit of an addiction to the hats shops near our apartment at the moment! I have to walk past this shop every morning on the way to my French class and it is torture, not being able to go in and buy anything! I have imagined an outfit to go with every hat in this window, so I think the only genuine deterrent for shopping cravings is my lack of funds. And a very good deterrent it is too! I'm on my last 8 Euros until Ellie arrives on Sunday; she's bringing gifts of gold (a.k.a chequebook), frankincense (a.k.a make up supplies from Boots) and "myrrh" money! I'm a riot! I make myself laugh at the smallest and most insignificant jokes. . .

Anyways, I shall leave you with this interesting fact: Did you know, that in France, there is no such thing as being Green (e.g. recycling, not littering etc. . ) Here, it is called being YELLOW! It's because there are different colour wheelie bins for different materials, and the plastic/paper recycle-y one has a yellow lid. . .

You learn something new everyday! :o) Ta ta for now! xxxx

Cocktails at Arts et Metiers!

Today was a bit of a slow, tiring day. Still not feeling totally better, but thought a good walk would do me good, so have not used the Metro at all!

On the way to my class this morning there was a lot of commotion in the roads: I saw three separate processions of police officers, two of these were car/van/motorbike speeding chases (although I couldn't see what they were after). The 3rd procession, was of a distinctly different nature:

It was quite amazing to see! There must have been loads of horses!

On the way home, I walked all over the place exploring the area around the Sorbonne and found a different bridge to take on the way back home, which involved a lovely long walk along the river.

This evening, Holly and I took Mel to a café to introduce her to the Parisian way of life in a pleasantly caffeine/alcohol related way :o) We treated ourselves to scrummy puddings and drinks before heading home again.

Mel was impressed with the chunk of Starfruit attached to her cocktail glass :op

Holly was impressed with. . . erm. . . I dunno! (Pssst, I don't know her really! Hehehehe!) xxxx

Nearly Smellie Ellie Time!

Grrr, dunno when I'm going to shift this cold! It's starting to have a detrimental effect on my sleep and on my walk to Uni. Last night, I would swear that I slept for a maximum of 3 hours; my fitful coughing kept me up most of the night and I was so hot and uncomfortable that I was tossing and turning all through the night! Also, I'm going to have to start leaving a bit earlier for the French classes because I got extremely out of breath this morning walking to Uni. This is the journey I make every weekday until 28th September:

This is the view from the bridge I have to cross twice a day:

And this is the other side of it:

This is the city hall. I also have to walk past this twice a day: Sorry, just thought you might like to see some more pics :o) To make up for the posting drought during my cold-inflicted days. I think some of the buildings here are absolutely beautiful, especially as the sunlight hits the tops:

Unfortunately, these gorgeous views are slightly spoiled by the odd patch of freshly sprayed human urine on the pavement, or the dingy shuttered windows of shops that have gone out of business!
On a vastly more pleasant note, Holly's friend, Mel, is here to stay with us until this Friday, then Holly's Mum is coming, and then it's . . . Peanut Butter ELLIE time!!! :oD

Smellie Ellie, I can't WAIT for you to come to Paris!!! I have so much to show you here and am missing you loads already, after only 2 weeks!

I'm so excited, that I did a Lady Hulk impression on my tights today :op I don't think it helped that they were incredibly cheap and, therefore, extremely thin. . .

. . . but I can't blame the cheapness of the tights for the new designs: that was me.

Anyways, that's enough for tonight! I have some sleep to catch up on. xxxx

Oranges ARE Lemons.

Sorry about lack of posting.

I've been unable to shift this nasty cold so far. Have been doing all the right things! Been popping paracetamol like it's going out of fashion, drinking loads (although primarily Diet Coke because I hate water), and the other day I bought a whole load of oranges to inject some serious Vitamin C into my system, but. . .well. . . They're sour. I need to wait for them to ripen, methinks, before I try ingesting the masquerading lemons again! Perhaps by that time, my cold will have disappeared. C'est la vie.

I've been getting some writing under my belt today. I've started a notebook (with a pig on :op) just for scrawling rough notes and stories and ideas in. It's VERY raw and VERY rough, but I'm enjoying just letting my pen do the walking so to speak! Complete load of nonsense, but I already feel like I've taken a load off my mind. Tis quite relaxing :o)

Anyways, I'm going to go watch Bridget Jones with Holly now and make my bed. I did laundry today :o) Be proud all!

Tootles! xxxx

Updating. . .

Sorry there has been no bloggage from me yesterday or the day before, I've been absolutely knackered every time I come home from my French classes and couldn't be bothered to post entries. So here are the updates:

Tuesday. . .

I left on time that morning in order to get to my class, intending to leave it at 11am to go to a "rendez-vous" with the Sorbonne License administration department. This is basically the enrolment department for Undergraduates. However, I was very clever and I got so engrossed in my French class that I completely forgot that I should have left at 11am! By the way, my classes take place just round the corner from the Pantheon!

I walked out of my lesson at the normal finishing time and met Holly on the way home as she was heading to her own class. She had had her own problems with the registration and hadn't been able to do it either. So I wandered around the Sorbonne buildings for nearly an hour trying to work out where I should have gone. I struggled with trying to convey to Non-English speaking officials around the place that I didn't know what I was doing or where. Nobody could help me! I ended up leaving the place in a right huff because I couldn't understand anyone's instructions and nobody could help me until 2 hours later because all offices had closed for lunch!

I went back and bought my diary though, from the little stationary shop. The day wasn't entirely wasted :o)
The rest of the day was a bit boring so not worth mentionning.

Wednesday. . .

We both got up extra early so we could try and enrol together before my class but I took so long to get ready that we only just got there in time for me to be a few minutes early for my class. I actually DID remember to leave at 11am today (Because I am planning on doing a mixture of modules from different teaching levels, I was told to get both a License appointment and a Masters one.) Well, I'd missed the License one yesterday, so I went to my Masters appointment.

This is the SHORT story: I queued for 20 minutes outside a room on the off chance alone that I was in the right place. I told the man at the door what I was there for and he showed me into the room. He gestured for me to head for a young man at a desk, so I did and I sat down and gave him my incomplete dossier. Now, for the record, from the moment I stepped through that door until I saw Holly later on, I spoke French ONLY (not a word of English passed my lips from 11am until 4:30pm!)

Anyways, I spent about 40 minutes trying to explain to this guy and the woman next to him that I had been given permission to do 1 Masters module with a few License modules, despite only being in my 2nd year of University studies in England. They disputed it back and forth for a LONG time before the woman called someone else, who eventually confirmed what I had said to them in the first place! After all this fuss, the young man trying to deal with my enrolment told me to go somewhere in the building; when I looked at him non-plussed he led me to the right room and told me who else to speak to. After that it took me a mere 15 minutes more before I found myself completely enrolled as a Sorbonne Masters student, card and all!

Having finally managed to do what I thought was going to be an impossible task, I treated myself to lunch at the same open air café opposite the Sorbonne that Holly and I had eaten in beforehand. I actually sat and ate lunch, by myself and it was AMAZING! Here, sitting anywhere by yourself isn't considered loner activity, it's artistic and classy and everyone does it! I hate doing anything by myself, as most of you know, which is why I am extremely proud of myself for conquering this! I had half of a huge pizza (brought the rest home to have for dinner) and then I relaxed for a while with a cup of hot chocolate, watching the world go by. . .

By that evening, I had developed a very sore throat, but unfortunately it didn't stop me from staying up late to chat to people on msn!

Today, I am strongly wishing I'd gone to bed earlier! I woke up with the feeling that I had swallowed a bag of razors and I found it very difficult to get out of bed. I now have a horrendous cold. I feel like poo. I look like poo. And worst of all, I can't sleep it off :o( I tried to have a rest this afternoon because I was feeling run down and exhausted, but I couldn't do more than doze. My sore throat is impelling me to cough every 3/4 seconds and after doing that all day, you can imagine what the cough now sounds like! So, I think I should probably get to bed soon; will try to get some decent kip!

Thank God tomorrow is Friday! xxxx

P.S. did I mention that yesterday the police did a raid of some kind at a little shop down our road? ;o) Dunno what it was all about, probably not anything serious, but it's fun to imagine!

Hellooooooo Officer! ;op

J'ai besoin des Lessons Francais. . .

This morning Holly and I left the flat at 9am (which was really hard despite relatively early turn in yesterday night) and power-walked to the Sorbonne to check what our French language test results were. It seems that our test papers served only to separate us into groups of different standards of French; Holly was in one group and I am in another, mine starting at 10am and hers at 12. It was a good idea to have arrived early as my first class started approx. 6 minutes after I discovered which group I was in and which room I had to go to. Luckily somebody pointed out that the room was in the same building that the test had been in, so I found it fairly easily.

The class was good; our teacher is lovely :o) She speaks with very clear, very comprehensible French and I felt like I was back at school for the majority of the lesson! We covered what I would consider to be very, very basic French so I felt quite confident when leaving the class. Holly was in the same room almost straight after me so I gave her a quick lowdown on what she'd be doing and what the tutor was like before she scurried into her class. I headed out of the building and began what was to be a VERY long walk back to the flat.

I bypassed a large stationary stall outside a shop (was hoping to buy an academic planner there but found that I had left my purse at home; of course, sod's law meant that I didn't discover this until the diary had been scanned in at the checkout, but the girl was very kind when I told her how stupid I was. . . ), after which I walked a 30 minute walk in just over an hour to get home. It didn't take long for me to assess how little we had in the way of food and drink in the flat so after about an hour's chilling in front of the PC, I trekked up the road for about 10 minutes to the nearest supermarket, "Ed". I came home absolutely laden like a pack mule and filled the fridge and freezer before settling down to watch "Sex and the City".

Holly came home shortly after that with some shopping of her own which she managed to squeeze in with mine; we seem to be fairly well stocked for now :o) After a few hours of just relaxing an enjoying life we decided to sit down and tackle the "Dossier d'inscription" which is essentially a frustratingly complicated registration package of forms, in French, which we have to have done by tomorrow. We gave up. It is IMPOSSIBLE!! Evil thing. I think we'll just ask for help when we get there. Tell them we're hopeless cases and they are retards for expecting us to know all this stuff anyways! Pah.

By the way, we have VERY dedicated Dustbin-men:

They arrived at 9pm! They come every other day, I think, to collect various recycling bins or refuse, depending on the day. It's very eco-friendly :o) I'm impressed. But they are noisy! They came at 10:30pm the other day!

I'm going to get some sleep now; we have our French language refresher lessons from 10-12 (or 12-2pm for Holly) every Monday-Friday for the next 3 weeks!

Write again soon! xxxx

Ouch! Don't bite!

It's an itchy day today. I am absolutely RIDDLED with Mozzy bites! I don't know how they've gotten to me, as I've been mostly covered up, but the French Mosquitoes must just have a taste for Amy-blood now because they keep nibbling me! Argh!

Anyways, yesterday was another slobby day; we didn't stir from the apartment all afternoon (yesterday didn't have a morning) but at about 7pm we decided that we would doll ourselves up and go out to dinner! So we did doll up, and we walked to an Indian restaurant between the Pompidou centre and the river. Well, I walked, Holly hobbled :oD She had a pair of very high stiletto heels on and she couldn't walk in them without difficulty! It was very funny to watch as she squealed whenever we came to cobbled pavements! :op Sorry Holly!


Was a YUMMY dinner :o) (The stupid face was not intended by the way. . . .) And we got some weird, minty sugar-coated seasonings in a pot with our receipt. . . I was brave enough to try them to see what they were but can't see a lot of point in them.


After dinner, we walked to the riverside intending to sit in a little café again and take in the view, but everywhere was closing. By this time, it was around 11:30pm, so not really a surprise there. We took some arty photos by the bridge and then ambled slowly back towards the flat. We did find an open café in the heart of what we now know to be the centre of the Gay/Lesbian district.



Oh yeah, and we kissed a giant penis. Hehe. A group of guys was wandering along the road in the opposite direction to us and one of them, we noticed, was wearing a huge pink squishy costume. It was hard to discern what he was dressed as, to begin with. He stopped to chat to us and we told him we weren't French so he started speaking to us in English. We were told a nice little story about his recent engagement and how tonight was a sort of tradition; as he explained in broken English, "I am supposed to dress like, a. . . erm. . . a. . ."

"A knob?" I suggested helpfully. He broke into a huge grin and started to laugh with his friends, nodding in agreement. He asked us if we would kiss his "head" for good luck in his marriage, and we thought it was quite funny too. So we did :o)

An interesting evening anyway. Tis a pity that we were too shellshocked to think of taking a picture with the costumed man, as that would have made a very cool addition to my previous Paris photos (marvel at my alliteration!).

Thanks to all who have been reading this blog for persevering with me this week. It has been quite a discovery so far and I hope to find even more exciting news to tell you in the next few months!

xxxx

PUPPIES!!!!!!!!!

This morning we had to get up fairly early in order to walk to the Sorbonne for the French test. We arrived perfectly on time although we were forced to wait in line for a place in the Auditorium. We were in a separate building and were queuing down a spiral stone staircase towards an enormous lecture hall, bedecked with black leather seats. Talk about grandeur! As we neared the front, we started to get nervous at the sight of every other student wielding their home university student ID cards. Holly did not have her card with her and neither did I as both cards were in the ID packs prepared for the enrolment yesterday. All was fine though because the woman on the door had a list of names to cross off.
We found some places to sit, were handed out our test papers (which thankfully weren't too thick) and when the last person had taken their seat we were told we could begin.

That test was INCREDIBLY difficult! I wouldn't be surprised if I was BEGGED to take a place on the French refresher course now! I was quite ashamed by how hard I was finding it and I feel quite embarassed when I imagine the examiner reading my free written section of the paper. . . .
The question (I think) was: Have you ever been scared? If so, when, of what and how did you react?
My answer: I am scared of spiders. I think they are disgusting; I especially don't like the way they move. Very creepy. Last week I saw one in the bathroom and I immediately screamed to my brother "COME HERE NOW!" He came running in and hit it with a Maths book."

I had been quite pleased with myself writing that all in French, but we also had a multiple choice question which was something along the lines of: Choose the right word for the gap, "ceux" "ce" "ces" or "ce la". . . I was stumped. I am sorry to say, it came down to an "eeny meeny miny mo" decision. I handed in the paper and sped out of the hall at the soonest opportunity; as I said before, it wouldn't be a disappointment at all if I managed to get on the course, and it sounds like I need it now too!

Holly and I grabbed some lunch, had a chat and then walked home. Via the pet shops by the river. . . .

I want one. Seeing those gorgeous little puppies makes me go all gooey inside :o) I'd love to take them home and love them. Maybe sometime in the future I'll have a little puppy of my own. But for now I'll have to make do with admiring them from behind the glass case. . .

Anyways, I'm gonna go watch some comedy sketches with Holly now. xxxx

Starting at the Sorbonne. Or so we thought. . . !

Well, what a stupid day this has been! After waking up extra early to get to the Sorbonne at a reasonable time, we haven't actually done much that was useful!

We took everything we needed, document-wise, and speed walked to the University building. When we arrived, we had a little wander around the building and asked the concierge where we were supposed to go. I was experiencing a mental block on the french words for: "directions" and "registration", so we spoke to him in English. He directed us into the front office, where we managed to explain, in French, what we were there for, thus, receiving a map outlining the directions to the Erasmus registration area, and a reminder that the administration wouldn't begin until 2pm (which we hadn't been told).

By the way, I apologise for this sounding long-winded but I think you should have all the details to realise what a wasted trip this was for us.

Anyways, as we left the building, I thanked the concierge for his help (in French this time) and he looked at me stunned and said "You speak French!" which made me feel guilty for not trying hard enough to make do with the few words I COULD remember. We headed for a café/restaurant opposite the Sorbonne's main doors for some lunch and a drink whilst we waited for 2pm to roll around. Now, I'm not going to outline my lunch every day, but today was something quite unique. I made my mind up to be brave and discover how good the French "Confit du Canard" is. As some of you may know already, this is basically very tender, roast duck. And it was DELICIOUS! The only thing I hadn't counted on was that the duck was served on a bed of crispy potatoes sautéed in garlic. No problem there, one might think.

See how yummy it looked.

Only drawback was, that the meal should have been advertised as "Garlic with a hint of Potato thrown on the side". I was terrified of speaking too much, or too closely, to people after that, in case I repelled them with my garlic-breath! We posed for some pictures by the fountains in front of the Sorbonne front doors:

. . . and then we proceeded to the place indicated on the map to begin our enrolment. Or so we thought.

After knocking clearly, we waited outside the door for nearly half and hour before the man we needed to speak to finally finished his meeting and allowed us to enter his office. We had the entire 20 minute talk with him in French, because, as I understood from his e-mails during the past few months, he has very limited knowledge of the English language. That put a lot of pressure on Holly and myself to try and understand everything he was saying and to respond to his questions. I found that I understaood every word of what he told us, until he asked me a specific question that I could not simply answer with "Oui", or "Non"! Sod's law at work again.

After that, we went looking for the meeting place our coordinator had given us in an e-mail last night. Unable to find a place that was clearly labelled on the wall-mounted floorplans everywhere, we resorted to asking a receptionist, who misunderstood Holly's question and, instead, informed us where we should go to enrol for certain classes! We chose to ignore her misdirections and followed our noses, only to find that the room we were looking for has been exactly above us on the next floor up. The floorplan was wrong, I tell you. WRONG!

Anyway, we met Dr G (our coordinator) and he was extremely unhelpful. He kept telling us worrying things, like "You'll have to ask each individual tutor if they will permit you to join their class. They are under no obligation to take you in." and "You'll need to double check the number of credits each module has, because each module may have different numbers and if they don't add up to 30 at the end of your term, your coordinator at Brunel can ask you to resit all the Brunel modules in September"!! OMG. He also told us that Brunel has not prepared us very well and that we should have a form, which we obviously had never heard of when he mentioned it. AND it seems we shall have to enrol in each class separately, which means a lot of to-ing and fro-ing, which we can't do until after the 21st! This means our enrolment procedure is drawn out to the extreme and nothing will be over and done with for a very long time! I was hoping to have it all out of the way, so I could concentrate on enjoying Paris :o(

However, this guy, not only has the worst news, but he is ever-so-slightly awkward in conversation. He was supposed to be giving us information we couldn't get anywhere else, but every time he finished answering one of our questions (and generally not with an answer but the infuriating comment "you'll have to check back at a later date") he would sit and stare at us both, in . . . . . . . total . . . . . . . silence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . well, we left the room feeling even more confused about everything and slightly annoyed that much of the conversation had been silent awkwardness!

I headed back to the flat after this, bypassing a supermarket to buy vast quantities of chocolate on the way, and I sat in front of the computer and watched Frasier episodes until my eyes were square. Twas consolation enough for the pooey day. Hello Milka :o)

Oh and on the way back to the flat I saw my first French geek shop. Peeked in and it's filled with comics, small ugly models of creatures that only exist in fantasy games and smelly, spotty french teenagers. Hehe.

By the way, tomorrow is the French test. If I fail, I'll be given refresher language classes. If I pass, it means my French is adequate enough to get me by for the coming 3 months so I can't say I'm worried about it. All the same, I really should be getting some sleep now so, will let you know what happens.

Nitey! xxxx

A better day :o)

I am considerably more upbeat writing today's blog, than I was when labouring over yesterday's. I still woke up late, even after vowing to try and get up earlier. Sat at the computer contemplating being more positive with the day today until I decided to go and get the important things sorted.

First stop - Bank account. Holly and I headed back to HSBC to get me one of these sensible French bank accounts, so that I don't have to be charged to get money out of my English ones. We followed somebody else into the building and I decided to be brave. I went straight up to the first desk I came to and said:

"Bonjour, est-ce qu'il y a ici quelqu'un qui peut parler en anglais, s'il vous plait?"

The woman I had spoken to looked bemused, even though I knew my French hadn't been too awful to understand. I'd like to think, instead, that this puzzled look was because my French was so plausible that she wondered why I needed someone who could speak English! Oh well, I'll never really know, will I? So, might as well dream :o)

She called somebody on the phone then led me around the desk towards an office, and guess who we should meet! Yes, it was that GORGEOUS banker we met before! He smiled as we walked towards him and we said our "hello"s as he directed us towards two chairs in his office. You don't need to know the Ins and Outs of how I got my bank account (to be honest, it's just as dull signing the forms as it is hearing about someone signing forms!) However, we made simple conversation with him and found out that he is from Marseille and I tested my spoken French on him. He smiled politely, and responded to whatever it was I said, before giving me lots of forms to sign and date. After that we left and I could barely keep my feet on the ground as we left the building. I am sad to say that I didn't leave in a dignified manner; I was in such an amorous daze that I managed to trip over a 6 foot potted plant as we walked towards the door. What a retard.

Now I'll have to find an excuse to return to HSBC; not only to snare the HOT bloke, but also to prove to him and the rest of the bank staff that I am not always such a clumsy fool! I should have to go back within the next week or so to collect my credit card from the desk, so watch this space!

Feeling thoroughly deranged and humiliated, I dashed back up to the flat to collect a few things and drop off my ID documents, so that Holly and I could go explore. We headed for what Holly described as "a nice little public garden" in the direction of the river Seine, which I suppose was about 5-10 mins walk away from our flat. This turned out to be the Forum des Halles within the grounds of the magnificent St Eustache church, complete with fountain, tiered lawns around a sort of circular courtyard, and huge stone head. . . . hmmm. Anybody who's been to Norwich's Haymarket recently (By Next and opposite Primani); think of those new stone/marble sculptures. This one beats them. There were children climbing all over it too. . . *shudders*

Anyways, Holly and I sat in the "Jardin Des Halles" for a good period of time, watching the wannabe rappers and breakdancers performing (I doubt any of them were older than 15), writing spontaneously in out little studnet notebooks, and watching hundreds of dog owners with their pets meeting and allowing their animals to play together in one, . . . thronging. . . canine jumble. We found it astonishing that apparent strangers were strolling through the park and stopping to chat to each other for company's sake alone! It was quite pleasant to see :o) Makes you realise how unsociable people are in England, where you can't even smile at someone without leaving them with the sneaky suspicion that you have a knife and you're planning to steal their wallet.

Also, We saw a ferret :o) One couple walked right past us with a ferret on a harness lead and sat on a wall nearby, speaking to any passers by about their pet and allowing strangers to stroke it :o) Even the mass of dogs were finding the small creature amusing and kept trying to lure it away from its owners to play.

Actually, people do seem to be slightly obsessed with their pets. When walking to the "Halles", we spotted this fashion shop. . .

FOR DOGS! (What IS the world coming to?!)

Finally, Holly and I decided that we were hungry so we headed for one of Holly's favourite restaurant/fast food places, Flunch. I was instantly attracted to the place due to its very cool name (Don't judge me now, you've seen the supermarket pics ;op). As we descended into the darkness. . . . nah not really, it was OK, but, on the way down into the restaurant, we passed a scary German man who decided to start talking to us. . . and insisted on telling us over and over that he was German for some reason . . . . . I'm not kidding!! We did our best to tell him that we were English (in both French and English) but he eventually tired of us and moved on (for which we were extremely grateful).

Now, Flunch, I am impressed with and disappointed at the same time. Here's why: They offer a vegetable and pasta stand (like the salad cart in Harvester restaurants) from which you may serve yourself with as much or as little as you desire :o). I chose Lasagne and was not disappointed with the huge portion they proffered; however, it tasted as though they had spread cat food in between the layers of pasta :o(. They give you a drink into the bargain and a dessert is only 1Euro 50 extra, so we paid it (to have yummy Chocolate Mousse for pud) :o). The drink I chose was called Oasis and it tasted just like the children's juice drink I used to have when I was little, Um Bongo! Blast from the past, I remember drinking that after my swimming lessons! Anyway, the point I was trying to make was that, in the end, drink and dessert inc. I paid the equivalent to £5.70! If the Lasagne hadn't been intended for feline connoisseurs, it would have been a good quality, good value meal.

Do you remember yesterday's entry boasted the possibility of playing with small aminals? Well, we hiked to the Seine riverbank to see if the pet shops were still open, but, finding them closed for the day, we decided to have a little wander and see what we could discover. We got as far as the famous "Hotel du Louvre" where we stopped at a little café for a few drinks and a chat. I met a friendly Italian woman who complimented the scruffy doodles in my notebook. We also chatted to the main waiter in the café who asked if we would return tomorrow. I said "peut-être" and we departed. We ambled back to the flat via the Louvre and "La Pyramide" (which was beautifully lit in the twilight of the evening). . .

. . . then we crossed the river and went down some dodgy stone steps to walk along the actual riverbank which was quite a pretty walk.

Back across the river (on the right side now), we sauntered past Notre Dame (which isn't far at all from our flat) and headed for home. When we got back, we watched the televised episodes of Casonova (starring the Shexy David Tennant. . . . mmmmm. . . ) and now consider yourself up to date!

We have a busy day tomorrow, hopefully going to do some enrolling at the Sorbonne, so we need to log off and make sure we have all our important documents sorted and ready to take with us. I'm gonna head for bedlies soon anyways coz I'm cheese and crackered! There you go, Ma. Proof of the exercise and fresh air having it's effects on me :o)

Night all! Wish me luck for tomorrow xxxx

P.S. Here's some fun artwork I thought I'd show you, seeing as I have no rude food for you today :op

The feverish onset of homesickness. . . :o(

Today has been a bit of a rough rollercoaster ride, emotionally.

I didn't see this morning, as I was up late last night chatting to Holly; instead, as soon as I woke up, I lay in bed watching French TV until I could be bothered to get up and get dressed. When I could bring myself to make an effort with the day, Holly and I took a little wander up the road to the nearest supermarket, where we spotted the latest "rude food". . .

Mmmmm, Gayelord biscuits. . . . :op

Hehehe, well, after this retail delight, my day brightened considerably!
However, I was slightly confused to discover this shop in Paris (thought I'd found my way up to Russia instead!):

Hehe, you can even see an Amy reflection in the second one :o) Marvel at the CLAW clutching my camera. . .

After the little walk to the shops, I retreated back into the flat in order to write this blog entry and send some important e-mails. Unfortunately, when I was in the middle of sending an e-mail to an admin guy at the Sorbonne, the internet crashed! Holly and I desperately fought to repair the connection but it didn't want to play ball. We decided to turn the pooter off and give it a rest whilst we walked up the road to HSBC to sort out a french account for me. When we got there, we were introduced to an extremely BUFF young bloke with a sexy voice and a scrummy tan! He led Holly and myself into his office, locked the door and proceeded to have his wicked way with us. . .

. . . nah unfortunately not the case, but he WAS HOT, so I certainly wouldn't have said no! No, instead of that sexy little scenario, he told me that I needed certain documents (which I did not, of course, have on my person at the time) in order to open an account there, and that the branch was closing for the day in approximately 30 minutes. Yippee. . . So, we power-walked back to the flat (luckily, it is only round the corner from us) and hoped that the internet had fixed itself so we could print off a document I had received in an e-mail attachment.

It had not. We succumbed to the fact that sod's law was not going to permit me to open a bank account today, so I shall have to wait just that little bit longer before I will be financially secure enough to shop (which my parentals, no doubt, believe is a very good thing!). Grrrrrrrrr.

I decided to call my mother for a chat and a moan, whilst Holly went for a walk along the river. Talking to Mum made me feel extremely homesick, but when I'd hung up, I settled myself on the double sofa for the remainder of the afternoon to watch Amelie and eat Milka chocolate:

Yum.

After a relaxing afternoon, Holly returned and in a last ditch effort, tested the internet again. This time, it worked. Why is it that technology doesn't like me? My computer refuses to work here at the moment, but Holly's has done since she arrived here. I use it for a few days and the internet makes a stand and refuses to work for me for a few hours. Pah.

I'm gonna go to bed soon in protest. Evil technology, have at thee! I'll tackle you with a good night's sleep, so there!

P.S. Going to the Sorbonne tomorrow and possibly to play with some baby aminals!

Wooo! Shall update soon! xxxx

Abandonment issues!

Well, this is the first morning that I've woken up in my room alone so far because the 'fam' left yesterday evening at around 7pm. . . . Holly and I are now totally on our own here, in an apartment of our own, in a foreign country! It's a little scary, but mostly exciting because I've had a few days to settle in with me parentals and they took most of the worry and anxiety away, so now we have exploring to look forward to! Last night, as soon as we'd waved the Ford Galaxy out of sight, Holly suggested that we go for a walk down to the riverbank and get a drink in a traditionally French café.

So we did :o)

. . . and we found ourselves in the same café that my Ma & Pa had taken us to on the very first day there! The waiter recognised us and we told him (In French!) that we were here for 4 months to study at the Sorbonne so wanted to do the touristy thing for a while. He grinned at us and acted suitably impressed to hear we are gonna be students at the Sorbonne, and proceeded to tell us how fantastic the university is. It would appear that the French are extremely proud of their University and ready to tell anybody who will listen.

I think they have good reason to be proud as it is a beautiful building!

(NB. Please ignore French woman on Bicycle who insisted on starring in an otherwise decent photograph!)

We need to go and register as students at this awesome building at some point over the next week, which may involve some drastic photography for Student ID cards. . . . . Uh oh! May be posting a horrid pic of that later on then, so you can all have a good laugh!

Anyways, when we left the apartment last night, we decided to have a lil look at the surrounding area on our way through to the River Seine. Our apartment is bang in the middle of the French equivalent to Chinatown! I'm not kidding! When you leave our building, the first thing you see is a line of Chinese bag shops and jewellers, oh, and a shop with the best name in the world. . .

(NB. Pic taken from our livingroom window)
Just to prove to you how childish we are, (if the previous pic wasn't enough proof already!) on our journey through la ville de Chine (China town) we had to stop to take this photo. . .

How cool are we. Posing with a can of Cock. On a more adult note: Dad, I found you some frozen frogs legs. Not gonna buy them. Call me un-adventurous if you must, but this looked to me like a bag of roadkill.

Sorry it's a bit of a sucky, unclear picture but I was in a hurry. We were getting some funny looks from the Chinese shop assistants. Can you blame them?! We were taking photos of their frozen food section!

Anyways must be off now, gonna cook myself some peas for lunch. C'est la vie etudiante! Such is student life :o)
Will post again soon! xxxx

Finally here!

I can't believe it! I'm finally here! Yesterday was such a long day that I was far too tired to post an entry last night. We set off from home-base in Norwich at 9:30pm Thursday night and arrived at my new apartment at 12:48pm French time (which is essentially 11:48am by English time, as it's an hour ahead here).

The journey seemed to pass really quickly between home and the ferry port at Dover; but then again, I was
dozing on and off all the way! I sleepily listened to my family rummaging around in the car for the passports, first to show the French police and then for the English ones. Next a female customs officer inquired about our reasons for travel and Mum couldn't resist an opportunity to boast "We're here to take my daughter to university in Paris. She's going to the Sorbonne, you know..." Anyway, this woman asked if she could check the boot of the car, but after one glance she backed away hurriedly. I don't blame her; it was absolutely PACKED! Two huge pink flowery suitcases, countless bags of shoes and handbags, along with 1 kilo bags of pasta tactfully wedged in, and the customs lady was smart enough to know when she'd bitten off more than she could chew! Well, it was some hardcore packing in there and she really didn't fancy messing with it!

Once on the ferry, we made our way directly to the duty-free shop. I knew stuff was supposed to be much cheaper when sold in between countries, but this was ridiculous! The perfume that I had asked Lei to get from Boots with her staff discount was nearly five quid cheaper than the discounted price I paid for it! As soon as the engines started rumbling beneath our feet, I nagged the "fam" to join me out on deck and we did the whole tourist she-bang: posing for photos in front of the White cliffs (which were more pinky-orange due to the reflection of the street lamps). It was quite awesome to feel the power of the motors roaring through the floor of the deck and watching the water, frothing and churning in the wake of the ferry.

We reached a point, not too far across the Channel, when Adam spotted the amber glow of Calais and was surprised that he could still see Dover's glare in the opposite direction. It was quite a shock to realise how close we really are to France! We were forced to retreat indoors when it got a bit too nippy up top so we retired to a comfy sofa in the bar/family room. Twas very quiet; I'm sure the boat wasn't even 1/3 full! Mum offered to buy us all hot drinks after standing in the chilly sea-spray on the deck and Adam asked for an Espresso (which he's never tried before). We all watched him eye up the semi-filled teacup with disappointment; you could see he felt cheated with the small quantity of liquid compared to our brimming hot chocolate cups. Hehehe, when he'd taken his first brave mouthful of the oil slick from his cup, Dad grinned at the face my brother pulled and asked him "Is it OK?" Adam replied, with total sincerity: "Well, I've just experienced 4 simultaneous cold shivers, but it's fine." Bless the naivety of him! :op

Anyways, now feel fairly settled into our flat which is gorgeous! I'll be posting some pics as soon as I've worked out how to do that! It has a double bedroom, a pretty little bath/showeroom and a pretty big living room/dining room which has an alcove kitchen in one corner. We have cable TV, t'internet access, a DVD player, a stereo, a microwave, a clothes washer/dryer and most other little commodities that you take for granted at home, but really miss when you don't have them! There are two separate keys AND a security code, which can get quite confusing, but I'm sure I'll get used to it!

Will do some exploring soon, and when I do, I'll be posting lots of loverly piccies so you can all experience the adventures with me!

Will post again soon! xxxx

La première entrée...

Bienvenue! (Welcome!) This is the beginning of a bloggage diary I hope to keep updated over the coming four months during my stay in Gay Paris! I'm just two days away from disappearing out of the country and it's really exciting! Need to get my lease posted off ASAP, because at this rate, i'll be arriving at the apartment before IT gets to our landlord! Have not packed a single thing yet because I only bought some suitcases yesterday; my birthday prezzie from the parentals. Anyways, don't want to pack too soon in case I need anything I've put away!
Well, need to go write a VERY long list of things I still need to do! Not long to go now! Woooo! Watch this space. . . . . :op