In the Land of France...

So, I am no longer in France. I am now sitting in a cafe in Clapham, London down the street from Hugh's residence. It was quite a journey with it's ups and downs but on the whole, my first ever France experience was great. I am dissapointed to report however, that as children, we were misslead, and I would like to correct something, and that is this: Ladies and gentleman, women in France in fact DO wear pants and all though I haven t had a chance to double check, I'm almost positive that the men wear underwear. Although, there are holes in the walls in a number of buildings, I highly doubt that there are children on the other side peering through as there is nothing for them to see. This land of naked rompers that we were brought up to believe was France, does not exsist so if you were planning on traveling to this side of the globe to see this spectical, I warn you now, unpack your bags and head to wreck beach because I haven't seen a pantless feme yet.

So, I've been having a nice time catching up with Hugh-the-love-rat-Grant. He has left me on my own today though, to find my own way around and hopefully, not get lost. I'm fairly confident in myself though have I not decided what I am going to so this arvo...guess I should get around to that see as it is now 1:30pm. We were blessed with a phone call from our dear friend Ginger in Oz yesterday. Lovely to hear her voice. She was exstatic to hear a Canadian accent again. Dito!!
I'm not yet used to hearing people speaking English or driving on the wrong side of the road (Hugh assures me that it's the rest of the world that has it wrong...). I keep on finding myself saying (in my head...) "oh, those people must be from England..." and then I look Left instead of right and nearly get my socks knocked off. I can't even count the number of times, I've stepped off the curb to cross the road, and walked right into Hugh's arm, placed out in front of me to stop me from walking into the on coming traffic. What a life saver.
I have to get used to looking right, then left instead of the other way around.
I've got my typing back though...THANK GOD FOR ENGLISH KEY BOARDS!! And, I hopefully will have access to computers more regularily to update.
But, until then,
Ciao for now.

When in Paris, do as the Parisians...

I am now sitting at Ensam, the engineering school at which L.O.D. lives, smiling, exhausted and three kilos heavier. A lot has happened since my last entry. I have been to Paris, refound my best friend, and found out that L.O.D. and I will continue to break each others hearts until we are no longer single. I will try and catch you all up in a short time as it is now 1am and for the past five mornings, I have been forced to awaken at 8am, a ritual which I am not accustomed to.
We arrived back in Lille about three hours ago after five days in Paris. It was awesome. Our first day there, we idled into the train station at 10am, dropped our belongings off at L.O.D.s aunt's house, where we were to be staying for the next three nights and headed off on a walking tour of downtown paris. (self guided). We walked downt he Seine, over to the Louvre, down the Champs Elysee and to the Arc De Triumphe (I m ignorant and tired and I don t know how to spell anything so forgive me if I m wrong). We then went on a boat tour of Paris on the Seine, at night. Learned about important land marks and stared at the hot tour guide. After that night, we knew that we were going to have a blast for the remaining four days. The next day, we went to Versailles, an action my highschool history teacher would be proud of, and spent the morning and early afternoon touring the castle, then having a picnic on the grass next to the pond. Tres romantique. We then went to Le Musee D'orsay, but unfortunately, we were supposed to meet up with L.O.D.s cousin for dinner, and we had to squash our visit into an hour. But, it was long enough for me to fall in love with "Luxe, Calme; et Volupte" by Henri Matisse, and want to slip it into my bag, but I discovered that that was impossible due to the size, and I sadly parted. Almost in tears. the next day we went to The Louvre. Now this, I must advise you all, is something that you must do if ever in Paris. We spent four hours there, and it was no where near enough time. Well...let me rephrase that:I would like to go back to Paris for a week with nothing else planned but the Louvre. With four hours there a day, then you might be able to see it all. It was amasing. I saw the Mona Lisa, all though I guess it was a little bit of a let down, it was still exciting enough to be able to see it and to say that I have seen it. Although, I couldn t get close enough to see any real detail or anything due to the crowds. It was still exciting. After the Louvre, we went to Montmarte. Another thing that you must do if you go to Paris. It is home to the famed Moulin Rouge (which, unfortunately, due to lack of funds on L.O.D.s part, we did not get to go see a show at, but I did get some pictures, and a look inside), La Sacre Ceour, and Amelie Pouline. We went and drank coffee at Le cafe de deux moulins (the two windmills) where Amelie worked, and took a stroll up to the Sacre Ceour and took the path that she lead her lover on. It was superbe. We took a walk up behind the church at into the res area. If I ever lived in Paris, this is where I would live. It was absolutely gorgeous, with the merchant square busting with artists begging to draw your portraite, and then insulting you when you tell them you can t afford it, and the musicians everywhere. on street corners and in restaurants. Every kind of musician you can imagine. Today, we went back there for one last visit, and there was a woman whistling. That s all. Just whistling. Then yesterday, we went to La Musee de Rodin the famous French artist. The museum was busting with sculptures by Auguste Rodin and Camille Claudelle. Some of them were amazing, some of them not so amazing. I found myself wondering about what it takes for sombody to become famous. Their sculptures were not all that impressive...I m not saying that I could do it by any means, but I ve seen other stuff that is much more impressive, by people who are not and never will be (as) famous. Then we went to Le Pere Lachaise, the most famous and largest graveyard in Paris (resting place of the one and only Jim Morrison). We sat down on a bench and pulled out our bread and cheese and had a picnic right smack dab in the middle of the graveyard. We received some odd stares. "I wonder if this is disrespectful??" Elodie said. It was funny. Then we went and met up with a friend from Lille, BLF who took us around and showed us all the historic monument etc in Paris. He was a very good tour guide. He then left us around eight pm and we walked down the Seine and watched the sunset from a teeter totter on the side of the river. That night we stayed in a little hotel outside of Paris. It was really cute. Kind of rustic. Only 27 Euros.

Sunday was a little more lax, we went back to Montmartre and walked around again because we loved it so much. We met up with L.O.D s cousin again, and then went to the Luxembourge gardens and read in the sun for about an hour or so before meeting up L.O.D. s parents who then drove us back to Lille.

It has been a lot of fun so far. It s weird that I only have ten days left. I may decide to extend my ticket depending on how much it costs and if there is reason to. I would like to be able to stay longer but everyone that I have managed to become friends with seem to be leaving soon for the summer. I will deffinately come back though to see everyone because I will only be across the channel and so it will be easy for me to come back for a weekend when I want to. Cheap too because Ryan Air has very inexpensive flights.

On Thursday we are leaving Lille again bright and early for the Loire valley for three days and then to Brittany for five days or so to lounge on the beach and hopefully delve into some good reads. I have actually managed to get some reading done. Almost done my third book. Then I will be back in Lille on the 24th just for one night for a party at the residence, and then unless I decide to extend my stay, I will catch the train back to Brittany, where I will be flying out to London on the 25th. Whew!!! I m pretty stoked though. Everything is going by in a whirr...but Im not too sad because I know it isnt over yet!!!

Sore bum

I have just returned from a 60km bile ride. That's right kids.
We are in Amboise in the Loire Valley where there is a castle on every corner. We spent the day biking through small French villages, and down roads lined by wheat feilds on both sides. The landscape almost as flat and monotonous as the Canadian prairies, but beautiful just the same.
I, having never biked any sort of distance before other than to the corner store, am now feeling as though I could conquere the world, and a little aore in the hind quarters.
I'm sitting in a cafe that took us ages to find, typing on an English keyboard for the first time in three weeks...something that I have forgotten how to do. sadly. At one point, I really was quite good. Really. But see as I suck now, you're just going to have to trust me on this one.
We left Lille yesterday morning bright and fucking early and trained it from here to there and back again until we finally reached Amboise. we journeyed tot he Da Vinci museum which is set up in the house in which he spent his last three years and then died in. I wasn't very impressed to tell you the truth. The house was cool (with four foot doors, no joke), but it was just as though they had thrown some old looking furniture in the rooms and said, "this was his bedroom, but this bed is from the nineteenth century...but he really died in that corner over there. Yeah, the roped off one..." The garden, however, was spectacular. IBM had made models of some of Da Vinci's inventions which they had in small scale form in the house and then they built them to size in the garden where you could dick around with them all you like. Did you know that he invented the armoured car? If you did then you're one step ahead of me.
We stayed at a hostel last night and though we went to bed at 9pm, I didn't get to sleep until 2am. Appearantly it was "Lets go on a feild trip to the Amboise youth hostel"-day. The place was swarming with little shits and I swear they never went to bed. They were up running around, slamming doors, yelling, screaming etc etc. Anything you can think of, and they were doing it. it turned out that there were a roomfull of them right above us and they appearantly decided that they were going to spend the evening out on their balconey throwing water down on passers by. At one point, I stuck my head out the window and glanced upwards giving one little boy a dirty look. He stopped what he was doing for a second, looked at me and said, rather cheerfully I thought due to the circumstances (he had a nineteen year old girl staring up at him, in her pjs, (obviously just been woken up by the rackett), with a look on her face that said "You know what you little fucker, don't mess with me. I'm older, stronger, and if I really wanted to, I could climb the stairs to your room and pummle you off that balcony, so watch out!!" and when I was 12, if I had been in that situation, I would have been scared shitless. I would have run to my mommy...or whatever I was calling her those days), "Bonjour!!" and smiled, and then kept up with his mischeif. I didnt do what my look had threatened, but there were periods today when I thought I would fall over from fatigue, and I just about punched myself in the face for not doing so.