talking more rubbish, disguised (poorly) as navel-gazing. You've been warned.

Hello internet, long time no words. It's getting hard to do this introspective stuff now that more people are reading. People I know in the flesh. It was easier when I could just talk about what city I was in this week, and it was easier when this was largely anonymous, but I think the navel-gazing is one of the more useful things I get out of dribbling along here, otherwise all these thoughts are just transient and there's nothing to make me remember them, let alone to hold me to them. I hope you'll bear with me...but if not, you can sneak out now and I'll never know.

Someone asked me about my New Year's resolutions, and whether I was going to rank myself on last year's, like I did the year before. Well, I only had one resolution last year, and I'd say I did about 95% on that one, so that's not bad, hey? You don't get to know what it was though, sorry.

I only made the one resolution last year, because I knew I was going to do a bunch of stuff I wanted to, without having to make a list, or even plan it much beyond 'get on a plane, and see what happens...'. I did achieve a lot in 2008, though I would not say it was a good year. In fact, let us be clear: 2008 was mostly pretty dreadful, but that's not to say I'd trade it in. I'm just trying very hard to remember that it was unfun and to take what lessons come from that, rather than getting sucked in by the revisionist synthetic happiness that my brain's now manufacturing. You know, it's hard to tell people 'oh yeah...Paris sucked'. Because more often than not you get the look that says 'Really? That doesn't sound right. Are you sure you weren't just doing it wrong?'. And then I feel like apologising for being a failed bohemian. Well, whatever, sometimes it's as hard to go against the grain as with it, and I'm fighting to hold onto what was real about 2008. 'Fighting to hold onto what was real...?'. My God. Did I just write that? I can be so pretentious sometimes. Anyway. What is my point? Hmmm. Despite 2008 being largely a sinkhole of blergh, I did achieve a lot and without resolutions. I moved overseas, lived in a city where I knew no-one, learnt another language to a practical standard, saw a fair bit of the world, worked out what I want to do with my life. So I guess I would count 2008 as an 87% successful year, even though I would probably give it a 20% on the happiness-o-meter. But that's ok. It's not all beer and skittles.

And now, despite being unemployed, single, poor and generally not having most of the tangible things I'd like, well, I'm a lot happier than I have been for years. I'm not putting the big stuff in my resolutions, because it'll either happen or it won't, and I doubt a January list is going to help it along. Beginning again is refreshing, but also a bit terrifying. It's nice to have a clean start, but there's not a lot to hide behind, so every knock-back is a bit of a blow to the old self-worth. I've got a couple of things in the pipelines, which is exciting, but generally I'm peeing my pants because if they don't work out it's not far back to square one. Lord I hope they work out. I hate square one. But it's only just February, and hopefully by 2010 I've got the big things sorted out - a job, a career, a home - and I'm still happy like I am now. I'm working on it but I don't think I can plan it. So I'll get back to you on all that next year.


And in the meantime, to keep me honest, here's (most of) my 2009 resolution list of the littler things:

1. Play music - find an orchestra, join a band...whatever. Don't let it slide more.
2. Watch 1 French film per week
3. Improve my skills in a visual art (perhaps take a drawing class?)
4. Become a morning person (get out of bed)
5. Get back to running - 5k before my birthday
6. Write one short story per month
7. Be more pro-active about being social
8. Learn to drive a manual car (REALLY this year)
9. More books/less screens
10. Continue to take photos as if i were not in my hometown
11. Continue to cultivate an independent sense of style (even though it's harder here)
12. Become a mostly-vegetarian
13. Strike 'should' from my vocabulary
14. Begin learning another language (Japanese?)
15. Limit my usage of the word 'awesome' to only those situations which truly warrant it.

Yeah, it's kind of a long list, and that random commenter from a few years ago would probably tell me I should cull it to something more manageable. But I'll be happy with a P1, and being at square one for now at least has the advantage that it will be easier to compare a few steps forward come 2010.

enjoying being a tourist more than a local.

What do I have to say about Paris that hasn't been said before? Well, probably nothing that hasn't been said before by at least one other person, somewhere, somehow, but maybe I have something to say that at least hasn't been said by me.

I wasn't really looking forward to coming back to Paris given my negative experience living there, but I was happy to come back because I knew it was somewhere mum really wanted to see. What I certainly wasn't expecting was to actually find myself on arrival with a feeling of returning home. I actually felt like I was showing Mum around my hometown, which I suppose I was in a way, since it was the first place I was really forced to strike out on my own, and although I certainly don't know the place as well as i know, say, the Australian national anthem (ahem...), I got a real kick out of being able to navigate the metro effortlessly, being able to walk around at least certain areas without reference to a map, being able to point out monuments and places with certainty, and knowing where they lie in relation to the whole.

I also remembered how I used to eat there in courses - salad for dinner, and then 7 tiny desserts: cheese, yoghurt, fruit, mousse, chocolate. It sounds nuts, but it actually ends up being quite light and balanced as it's like an inverse pyramid.

It was also really gratifying to be in a country where I could communicate with everyone, and have a sense of achievement about it. I am really enthused now to go home and continue improving my French, as well as maybe to pick up another language or two, whereas when I left 'for good' I just felt burnt out and frustrated. This time I got a real sense of exactly how quickly my brain is taking in new information in that language now - would anyone like to know the word for 'waterproofing spray'? Anyone? I not only learnt it but also retained it.

I always said that Paris is a better place to visit than to live. I think I proved this true by having a much better time as a tourist than I ever did as a local. And in fact, the only horrible moments we experienced this time around were navigating 'living' issues rather than 'visiting' issues (hello, landlords!). And this time around I got to see almost all of the things I regret missing out on the first time - although of course in a city as big as Paris there's always more to see and do.

I left this time feeling that I'd actually benefitted from my time there, and although I don't feel the need to go again, if I do it'll be like visiting an old (if somewhat cantankerous) friend.

coping better now she has internet again.

Right. So I've been internetless for the past couple of weeks, and before that I was very lazy about actually writing something about my sporadic 3 weeks in London/Oxford/Stratford/Paris. So in an attempt to catch myself up I'm listing everything that I can remember that I've done, and I'll actually write about it all hopefully at some point when I have time.

London:

When at Gus':

• Portobello Road Markets
• Walked through Hyde Park from Oxford St
• Italian dinner with Gus
  

At Nhan's:

• Chachamoon cheapo Asian dinner with Nhan & Sim, bar afterwards
• Visit to Shoreditch for painting, magic sparkly cupcake
  
• Day at Grenwich: through tunnel under the Thames, cool coffee shop/record shop, danced on the Meridian, John Harrison's Clock (tiny compared to earlier attempts - like a big fob watch), laksa in chinatown
• Crazy broth making with Nhan
• Walk with Emma through oxford circus, leicester square, the river, westminter abbey, coffee
• Coffee with Sarah, visit to Harrods, laduree macarons and Maison du chocolat freebies, wandered kensington, asian dinner
• Noel Coward show with jonny and emma ('brief encounter')
• Indian dinner with Gus
• Primark experience with Nhan
• More broth with Nhan (sour cabbage soup), ice/coffee
• Big day: Camden markets (gumboots), burrough markets (wild boar sausage sandwich, fancy coffee, lovely gelati [bergamot and something pink]), columbia road again, spittlefields markets (closed), bricklane for overpriced indian meal and desserts, Sim's house for sex & the city dvd with Jac.
• Colunbia rd again - finally bought print. Peche mignon again (yum), notting hill with school friends - gail's for coffee and flocked wallpaper. Lamb shish kebab and delicious grilled haloumi for dinner, gok wam on telly
• Walked from notting hill to nelson's column for dinner with emily from primary school - wahaca mehican, and south african cider
• Merry Wives of Windsor, queeen's walk, big ben.

To Edinburgh (previously covered).

Back to London:

• Catch up with school friends - more yummy mexican.
• Tate Modern
• Brunch with alice - fancy yummy
• Catch up Sarah again

With mum

• Peche mignon for lunch
• Big walk: london bridge tube, burrough markets (closed), globe tickets, tate modern 5th floor iew, blackfriars bridge, st brides fleet st (publishing exhibition basement and roman walls), the strand (crazy monument with dragon, royal courts of justice, fancy bank), st pauls

To Oxford:

• wandered around the high st
• museum of natural history
  
• lunch with J&E at the vault, & coffee at the place
  
• history of science museum (eintein's blackboard)
  
• magdalen college
• exeter colege
• beer at the tarp
• dinner at the eagle and child

Daytrip to Stratford-upon-Avon:

• coffee with sarah
• holy trinity church (shakespeae'res burial)
• river walk
• lunch @ courtyard
• shakespeare's birthplace house
• more fancy cheese from the nice place
  
• high street
• new coat
• drink at the dirty duck (actors' photos)

Back to Oxford:

• Blackwells bookshop
• Bodleian tour
• Lunch J&E in covered markets (salad)
• Coffee
• Blenheim Palace (marlboroughs, spencer-churchills), fancy gardens

Back to London:

• Tower of London (crown jewels, murdered princes)
• Westminster Abbey service (Victoria piece)
• South bank, dinner wagammama
• Portobello Rd markets (shut), new shoes, notting hill
• Globe - Merry wives again - got to stand in the middle
• Nhan - chachamoon cheapo asian
• Carnaby st, liberty shop, apple shop, dad's shoes
  
• Kew Gardens
• Buckinham palace tour, banquet setting, royal icecream
  
• walk to big ben, downing st, nelson's column, whitehall, oxford st, new suitcase

To Paris:

• Big walk around Marais, Notre Dame, the islands
• Met Sasha: hotel de ville, pain au chocolat et banane, walk around islands (little pointy garden), falafel lunch, walk to les halles, st eustache, rue montorgeuil, past the louvre, up champs elysees, laduree macarons, past arc de triomph, through my old neighbourhood, strawberries, noisette, tube home. Picnic dinner with french 5 part dessert: 2 cheeses, bonne maman yoghurt, chestnut mousse, chocolate, nuts.
• corned beef sandwiches from the place opposite L'as du falafel, bought magic shoes, did this massive walk from Sacre Coeur down to the Mosque for mint tea, via Montmartre, a lovely lolly shop, cute arcades (one just for old stamps and postcards), the Palais Royale gardens, the Louvre courtyard, the pont des ARts, the Institute Francaise, teh 6th, a 2nd century amphitheatre (with men playing boules).
  
• Champs Elysees, dealt with bank (hurrah!), my old neighbourhood, went to resto on near Courcelles (good potato gratin), sat down for Marriage Freres cup of tea. I had white tea with agrumes in a pretty glass teapot and an extra pot for hot water. Went home early as I was coming down with a cold.
• Louvre, then the Bon Marche, Mamie Gateau for cake and Cuisine de Bar for lunch. Still sick.
  
• Went to Versailles - a billion tourists. Opulent inside, nicer gardesn. Quick trip to Musee d'Orsay.
  
• Orangerie, Amorino gelati, Berthillon sorbet (2x), antique musical instruments shop (rue du pont louis-phillipe), Sainte-Chapelle, more falafel, Notre Dame treasury, picnic in Champs de Mars (proper champagne) and blue Eiffel tower.
  

Caught up. Sorry it's a bit pants. Something with actual content coming soon. I hope.

writing a very very big post. Hold your horses, here we go!

This week (in an impossible attempt to see the rest of Paris before I left), I:

• Made lentils du puy
• Visited Shakespeare & Co bookshop (with a piano!)
• Saw dancing rollerbladers outside Notre Dame
• More bertillon icecream (twice!)
• Walked past l'Hotel de Sens
• L'As du Falafel
• Climbed the Arc de Triomph
  
• Sales at the Printempts (2 new pairs of shoes)
• Vespers at Notre Dame
• Found the park at the point of the isle
• Visited the Pompidou (like the one with the graffiti music, and the wrapped up grand piano - modern artists don't lack a sense of humour i find...)
• Bought some pirate pants
• Packed and posted 30kg home
• Peach chocolate from l'Etoile d'Or
• Pere Lachaise (how the mighty fall...)
• Pompidou again
• Posh dinner with Jillian (beans, tuna, pannacotta)
• Musee d'Orsay
• Louvre

So. I'm leaving Paris, first thing Monday morning. All my stuff is packed and off I go.

Why I am leaving Paris.
As it turns out Paris is a much better city to visit than to live in. It is dirty, and crowded, and smelly, and the people are rude, and it's actually kind of depressing. As my friend Andrew said, Paris is a great place to live if you are super rich and/or are bonking someone who is super rich. If that isnt you, then it's not so fabulous. I am looking forward to coming back as a visitor, and knowing my way around the citiy, but I am also looking forward to leaving as a resident.

I didn't like my job very much. The actual company was okay I think (in a relative sense, anyway), and my students were all nice. In the first place, I don't think I'm cut out for teaching. I found it really stressful, and mostly pretty unsatisfying; however, it might have improved with time, I don't know, and I'm sure if that was the only problem I could've stuck it out for 6 months, no problem. However; it pays peanuts. It pays about the same amount of peanuts everywhere I'm told, but Paris is stupidly more expensive than everywhere else, compounding the problem. I found I was spending significantly more than I was earning, even when trying to be frugal, which was not a sustainable situtation. To make it work in the long term (in my opinion), you would need to be: in a relationship and living with someone earning a normal wage OR willing to live on the barest of essentials (see this article for someone else who agrees with me) - ie. horrible apartment and living on rice & pasta. In addition the conditions were pretty horrible - I spent as many hours as I was paid for acutally 'working' on preparation and in the metro. The nasty urine smelling metro. I felt very much like I was being taken advantage of. No thankyou. So, I quit.

The second problem was, my lovely housemate turned out to be collectively crazy as coconuts. Yes, there were two of them. The woman I moved in with had her (male) cousin sharing her bedroom and neglected to mention it when I moved in. Which I kind of could deal with (none of my beeswax after all), but the telling me off like a child when I so much as left a light on for 15 seconds when going from one room to the next and back again, made me feel horribly uncomfortable - I spent my time walking on eggshells in case I got in trouble. Which is not a good way to live. And THEN (here's the coconut bit - and don't freak out becuase it's ok, I've left and I'm safe): the guy sat me down and gently suggested I come up with a 'plan b' living arrangement, because apparently the girl cousin has some rage issues resulting from an inability to deal with her murdered catholic priest father and her Sicilian cocaine dealer boyfriend. BONJOUR! So there's enough holes in that story to build a KI shower out of, but either way I was either living with a crazy lying guy, or just a plain crazy girl. So I decided it was time to move on.

What I am doing next
I am going travelling around for a couple of months and then I'm coming home. First off, I'm visiting a friend in Germany, and then I will go backpacking for a couple of weeks. I am kind of terrified about that, to be honest - shared dormitories, not knowing anyone, your way around, the language...all kind of scares the bejesus out of me. I think it is going to be quite a stressful experience - floating wherever the wind takes me is really not my style. On the other hand, I can go and see whatever I want, and by the end of it all I think I should be able to honestly say that I can face anything. I have vague ideas of where I'd like to go: maybe Hannover, Prague, Venice...but who knows. We will have to wait and see. I'm spending all of August in the UK visiting various friends in various places. I think I will have a good amount of time to see a few very different places and it will be nice to have locals to show me around. Then, unless my plans change (again), it's home again, home again, clippety clop.

But what about Geneva?
Well, I've sort of gone off that idea. For a number of reasons. The first and strongest reason is that I'm not sure I can handle the idea of studying for another two years with no goal at the end. Part of me likes study for study's sake, but most of me is ready to get my teeth into something 'real'. I'm sick of putting off my life to fritter away at uni just because I don't have any better ideas. I think I'd like to go back to uni at some point, but when I have a clearer idea of what I want to achieve from it. I also now do have some clearer ideas of what I'd like to do career-wise, and I'm excited to get started on it. That is the main reason. In addition though, this has been a really hard 6 months for me, and the idea of tying myself into another 2 years of being so far away from my family is not an attractive one right now. Not to mention the fact that my French is not up to scratch - English teaching is really not the way to go about learning to speak French. I could get up to the necessary standard in time, but it would require (really) intensive classes for the rest of my time here (and in fact, I probably needed to start a month or two ago), meaning I would spend all my time and money on lessons, and by the time I arrived in Geneva I would be skint and brain-fried. I think I would rather spend my hard-earned pennies on seeing a bit more of the world.

What I have learnt from all this (warning: serious navel gazing ahead).
Most obviously, I have learnt to speak French. Okay, I'm nowhere near fluent, but I can have a conversation with someone, most of the time understand what's going on around me, and if I don't I can ask for an explanation and understand that. I'm not at a level where I can appreciate the nuance of French vs. English, and enjoy it as a beautiful language in its own right (most of the time I just find it illogical and stupid at this point), but it is really satisfying being able to understand and be understood in a foreign language. I'm actually suddenly nervous about going to other countries where I won't have that luxury anymore. Learning another language was on the life list, and sure, I'll keep having lessons when I get home, but I think I'm far enough along the way that I can definitely tick it off the life list.

I have learnt some stuff about what I want to do for a career. I don't want to go into it yet, because it's still not super clear in my own head, but suffice to say I'm a lot closer now than I ever was. I think I've been waiting for the 'right' answer to come along, and I think now maybe there isn't a 'right' choice, just making the best decision you can, giving it a shot and going from there. So that's what I'm going to do next...

I have learnt that I am not a big city girl. I thought I was - I thought I would like all the hustle and bustle and the million things to do and the cities that never sleep and all that. And there are some things I like - for example, it's great to be able to catch public transport and walk home in the middle of the night without feeling like I'm in danger, because there's always so many people around. And of course, being able to go to the Louvre, the Pompidou etc etc whenever you want is a real luxury. And you'd never run out of things to try/see/do here. But by the same token, you could never really say you 'know' Paris - it's too big and it's changing constantly. I miss feeling comfortable in my space, I miss feeling a part of it, and above all, I miss the space. I really didn't think space was that important to me, but (like so many other things) it turns out that I never missed it becuase I never lacked it. I feel cooped up here, and I'm sure it's just in my mind, but I feel like this city is closing in on me for miles around. I yearn for some wide open spaces, some plants, some life. And the associated feeling of having time and space and freedom to think and move. I think for me, the ideal situation would be living in a small-medium sized town city - one where you could more or less walk where you need to go, but one not so far away from a big metropolis, so when I feel bored I could go and find some inspiration. But here I don't feel inspired - I feel overwhelmed.

Speaking of things I never missed because I never lacked it, I miss my family and friends. Here I am lonely almost all of the time, and even when I am with people, they are not people who know the real me, who have known me forever. I wanted to leave because I felt tied down by that - unable to grow much because the idea of 'Emily' was too fixed in too many people's minds for me to be able to work out what Emily was really like. And it has been a good experience finding out what things have changed about me when they were no longer tied down. But it turns out, I'm (mostly) exactly who I, and everyone else thought I was (what a surprise!), and while it's good to be able to blur the boundaries a bit, it's also good to be able to have one foot firmly in the ground (not to mention, mix metaphors willy nilly). Most of my closest friends are not at home these days, so it seemed like I wouldn't be missing much to travel. But it's sure as hell not better here where there is no one! I have learnt to stand on my own two feet, but I have never felt so lost in my life, and I am ready to find my way home. Maybe it will be for good, or maybe it will just be for a little while and then on to something new again, but either way at least I will know what I have now.

They say that people who moan about Adelaide are the people that have never been and the people that have never left. I think I have proved that true for myself, and about a lot of other things as well. I have a much clearer idea of what's important to me now, which will hopefully make it easier to find that and hold onto it.

I am ready to come home.

promising to post again soon, with less whinging. Interesting times are afoot.

This week I:

• Took French classes at the Sorbonne (written and phoenetic)
• Did some career testing (I'm an INFP if anyone cares)
• Went on the Bateau Mouche
• Caught up with Rosie
• Understood what was going on when a Frenchman tried to pick Rosie up ('I don't like the football, but I do like the women!'...ok, it works better in French)
  
• Had some good Lebanese food
• Tried Pastis
• Discovered the charmingly (original) 70s bar next door
• Went to a Melies film screening
• Caught up with Jim
• Went to an afternoon tea in the suburbs
• Made friends with Shawn the American
• Sat on a hill and knitted
• Watched The Castle
• Had chestnut mousse
• Made friends with Cass
• Had a cup of tea at the Laduree
  
• Bought some makeup at Sephora
  
• Bought an Architecture in Helsinki cd at FNAC
• Tried the new Hermes perfume (ooh! grapefruity!) and one called 'First' which I liked better but comes in an ugly bottle.
• Walked in a garden on an old train line
• Went to the Paris hammam
• Bought a new handbag
  
• Finished my classes
• Gave notice
• Started planning
  

lamenting France's colonial past.

For over four months now I have been drinking the nasty, black & bitter muck that the French call coffee. Well, actually they call it cafe. With an up accent on the e. I drink it, but only because it's the cheapest thing you can buy here, and even though I rail against paying the same price for an awful espresso as I would for a good latte at home, it's still better than spending twice as much for a (perfectly decent) lipton teabag, or even more for chocolate powder mixed with long life milk.

(As an aside, I seriously do. not. get. what is is with the French and the long life milk. They take so much pride in their cheese, yet they drink the most awful boxed milk. My housemates think I'm totally 'bizarre' for forking out for actual fresh milk. [And for freezing bread, but that's another story] AND YET any cafe will still charge you an extra 20c for a smaller dash of said milk in your expresso than the coin you're paying with. Seriously. It smells and tastes like baby spew.)

Apparently the former French colonies grow coffee beans, but of the cheap and nasty variety, and having maintained economic links, that's what the French import. (Having maintained trade links however, has not dragged France into the 21st century socially. Today brought yet another example of the rascism here: my French teacher was encouraging class members to sit next to someone of a different mother tongue to them. She scolded the two Asian girls in the class for sitting next to each other, and upon being told that one was Taiwanese and one was Korean she asked why they didn't want to 'mix with the Europeans' [she presumably meant 'Europeans' like me, and the 60% American class]. And this from a highly educated professional who spends all day every day working with international students. Mon dieu!)

But I digress. So the coffee here is bad, bad, bad. I was never a big coffee drinker at home, but like so many other things, I didn't realise I valued it until it wasn't there anymore. (Sometimes it feels like this whole trip is just an exercise in appreciating Australia more!)

So today I went on a pilgrimage to The Best Coffee in Paris.

I took the scenic route to get there - through the annual St Germain brocant, where I saw single pages of medieval manuscripts selling for thousands of euros, a tiny stall with tens of tiny bottles hanging from the ceiling, each with a single pink flower, and a set of antique marionettes. I walked past a number of lovely shoe shops, down a little street filled with tiny Parisien brasseries with dark wooden beams, offering 3 course meals for 15 euros, and along a road with numerous creperies, to finally arrive at yet another god-awful coffee.

Seriously, if this is what Paris has to offer, I'm really hanging out for England. And when you say that about food/drink, you've really got to worry! (Ok, I don't really think that French food is all that it's cracked up to be, nor that English food is as bad as it's reputation, but it is true that one of my French teachers laughed her head off when I told her that Jamie Oliver, an Englishman, was the most famous chef in the world). I would've been better off at the Starbucks up the street.

On the upside when I ordered my coffee, the baristas complimented me on my (H&M, H&M, always H&M) dress and powers of accessorising. Real French people complimented me WHILE I was wearing red and green. Not grey. Major achievement making the whole journey worthwhile.

taking a new approach.

I've decided that this weekly cramming all my comings and goings together in one one big prosaic post thang isn't working. So from now on I'm going to do dot points for that stuff, unless I have something more meaningful so say than "I did this, I went there...", and try and write single theme stories about what it's like to live here.

In that vein, this week I:

• worked a LOT
• went to the Musee du Quai Branly
• enrolled in the Sorbonne Summer course
• had a very nice Panna Cotta
• went to an actual mothers' meeting (quite fun actually)
  
• discovered dried strawberries and cumquats (yum!).

And: the bread. The French are renowned for their bread, right? Well...I find it thus far a rather uninspiring thing. In fact I would go as far as to say that the bread in America was better. Vastly better in fact, although I wouldn't be game to say that aloud here. Perhaps my perspective's just off, but I like bread with lots of...well...bread. The French on the other hand seem to prefer a lot of crust. They are horrified that I freeze bread (just for toast mind you, and don't get me started on their universal preference for long-life milk) but if someone can show me a loaf of bread that's actually got a big enough circumference to make a reasonable sandwich out of, I'd be very grateful. And don't tell me to go and slice a baguette lengthways - it's not the same thing. Maybe it's just not an important criteria here because they all get lunch vouchers and have a 3 course meal on the company every day. Yes, some good sandwiched sized bread please, and if you can manage that, then find me something brown and with big fat grains. My kingdom for a big floppy slice of Tiptop multigrain - I'm dying of bland skinny shite white butterless baguettes. They're called French sticks for a reason - that's what they taste like.

HOWEVER. I figured out what brioche is today (or at least 'brioched bread'...I'm assuming it's the same thing?). It's NORMAL shaped bread, but it tastes like a croissant. Ask me what I'm having for breakfast tomorrow.

procrastinamatating.

This week in the adventures of the overstressed and underslept:

• Went to the embassy to check in - got told to use the internet.
• Bought some wool at the Bon Marche. My credit card flinched. No more treats for a while.
  
• Went to the Australian shop (it was open, but there was no beer. Renamed it the un-Australian shop).
  
• Went to the Australian picnic - met some cool people, but was a bit overwhelmed by the huge crowd.
• Went for a run, and utilised the wifi in the park (not simultaneously).
• Went to the Musee d'Orsay - saw the Degas bassoon painting (it's smaller than my print).

• 

This is all not very interesting, so (to continue the theme): here is my new favourite dinner. It looks like the world's most depressing, boring meal...and ok it is a bit depressing that I'm sharing this and not getting excited about some grand weekend-sucking cooking scheme like I used to, but look, it's actually really delicious, it has all of the food groups (except chocolate), it's reasonably cheap, and it fulfills my (other) current cooking goal, viz: it's fast to prepare (10 mins), so I'm out of the 2m sq kitchen (and out of the way of my housemates) as quickly as possible. Thus:

Ingredients:

• 1 carrot
• 1/2 small head of brocolli
• handful of pasta (I use brown, because that's how I roll kidlets, but in this case I actually think a more strongly flavoured pasta is a good idea anyway)
• 1 egg
• 1 tomato
• cheese (I am using emmental, because that's the cheap supermarket cheese here, but cheap cheddar would also do the trick. This is not the place for your fancy pants fromagerie cheese).
• 1/2 lemon (you can use balsamic vinegar instead)
  
• good olive oil
• salt & pepper

Method:
Boil the kettle. While that's happening, start chopping up your carrot into thin rounds, and your broccoli into little florettes. When the water has boiled, put it in a saucepan and begin cooking your pasta. Put a saucepan with holes (what are those called?), or in my case a metal sieve on top, and steam your veggies at the same time. Meanwhile, fry an egg and roughly slice your tomato into the pan as well. Take the veggies off the steamer when they are fluorescent and only just cooked. Undercook the egg a little so the yolk is still runny. When the pasta is cooked, drain it, and mix everything together (breaking up the egg to help make a bit of a sauce) with a dash of olive oil, a good squeeze of lemon juice, salt and copious amounts of freshly ground pepper, and some grated cheese.

You can add other random things that you have if you like - maybe some avocado, or perhaps some nuts.

Eat. Yum. Finished? Good.

Now is the time for your fancy pants fromagerie cheese: dessert. Of course, you could instead have some lovely fresh fruit from the street market nearby, or some chocolate. Or if you're like me, you can have difficulty deciding and have all three. Vive la France.

a little concerned she might be about to lose a toenail.

Picking up where I left off - I did manage to open a bank account after all of that, AND I did it in French. Yay me!

I spent the weekend with Ellie and her sister Margot. We went for a big walk from the Bastille, past the Hotel de Ville, via Notre Dame, up the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomph. We also climbed (so to speak...in a lift) the Eiffel Tower (pretty cool, but a lot of waiting around for a foggy cold day) and went up to Montmartre and Sacre Coeur. It was nice to hang out with someone from home, and see a few of the tourist sites that I hadn't yet made it to.


Yesterday I used this time to go out to the Vallee, which is like the Paris equivalent of Harbour Town. It cost about 6 coffees to get out there on the train but I went becuase they have a Camper outlet shop. It turned out to be quite the letdown, but it was still nice to wander around and look at pretty things that are still way out of my price ranger (discount Chanel is still many many espressos). On the way back I went to H&M again. I am getting so predictable.

In the evening I had a spontaneous picnic with my Adelaide friend Phil, and then we went to an organ concert in a beautiful old church (maybe even a little cathedral). I don't know the name of the piece, but it was a work by Messiaen written specifically for that particular instrument. It was pretty incredible, and the acoustics were amazing.

Today I went for a run, had lunch with a friend of a friend (protein, yum), and then went to check out the Bon Marche, which was a bit of a letdown. I thought it was like a massive posh supermarket (interesting) but it turns out it's just a massive post department store (not so interesting - seen it before - can't afford it). But they do have a nice wool section - not that I could find what I was looking for becuase it turns out that conversations about pattern substitution are beyond my capability at the moment. I also stubbed my little toe worse than I have ever before in my life and my whole toe has gone black.

I think that is all for this week so far.

Oh no it's not. I discovered that there is a Marriage Freres near me which is a super famous fancy pants French tea house. Right after I had decided that I would try to rein in the spending. That was a resultion which thus lasted for not a very long time. I bought the minimum quantity of a fragranced green tea ('Provence') that the nice man recommended and I haven't even tried it yet (becuase I need to buy a teapot or a teaball...probably the latter - as much as I miss my teapot they're not the most practical of travelling items) and it's making my bedroom smell delicious. Next time I'm feeling like a treat, I think I will buy one of their little tea spoons - they're so cute.

My most happiest thing (can't put it better I'm afraid) this week was that I went to a local brocante (street antique market) and bought some old woden movable type 'E's. Becuase they are French lots of them have accents, and they're all different fonts and I love love love them. I'm thinking I'd like to collect more, but it's such a nice compact, elegant little bunch at the moment that I'm hesitant to tinker with it.

exhausted.

I realise I haven't written about life in general for a little while now. I probably shouldn't be writing about it now, becuase i'm awfully tired, and i really should go to sleep, but Elli is coming this weekend, so hopefully we will have an excellent fun filled weekend, and then there will be lots to write about on monday, and i will have forgotten all about this week. So i'd better do it now.

Last weekend was a long long weekend. The French do this thing where they randomly put public holidays on Tuesdays and Thursdays and then they 'make the bridge': ie. they take the day in between off too, giving themselves a massive weekend. I unfortunately still had to work.

Actually, i pretty effectively wasted the weekend. But i made it to H&M and bought 3 new tops, and i went to the 'big' park for a run. The 'big' park is 'big' by parisien standards, but it takes about 5 minutes to run around the perimeter, and there were so many people there it felt like merging into traffic. Still they have wifi which is cool. And bathers-clad old peope trying to get a tan. Which is not.

I went to the Galleries Lafayette and the Printemps by accident (i was looking for magic shoes - found them but not in the colour that i wanted). Those are crazy places. Talk about mindless consumerism. Giant posh department stores, with the chanel section next to hello kitty. bizarre. i had a coffee in one of them because the guy looked like he knew what he was doing and it smelled so good. Unfortunately, liek the rest of french coffee, it was not.

I bought my 2nd piece of french cheese to sample - a proper camembert from normandy. Its really good - much stinkier than we're used to, but not nasty. Kind of like that dusty taste red wine gets (tannins?) with a bit of parmy tossed in.

I also bought some more flowers, and made friends with the flower seller. He was one of those flirty market salesman type people who'll charm the socks of anyone to get them to buy their stuff and come back. Well, i'm in need of friends and french conversation, so it worked on me. I'm quite happy to choose him as my local florist if i get french practice thrown in for free.

The teaching is going...ok. I think i could be quite good at it, and i really like a lot of my students, but the transport and all the preparation required is really stressing me out. As is having to find my way around paris on deadlines.

my french classes are going well. It's made me feel a lot better about being here - like i'm actually achieving something rather than just treading water. It's also made me realise though tht 4 hours a week is nowhere near enough. I made a friend in my class - an American and on tuesday we went for a walk in the Marais and had a lovely 3 course dinner (when in Paris...). It really was excellently good...

I made a couple of pilgrimigaes out to yarn shops. they were quite disappoitning - small and cute but with ridiculously lame ranges. I guess french women don't bake and don't knit.Why would you bother when you can buy amazing pastries and clothes i guess.

On the way home from one of my classes i found an amazing park. with a big becuatiful building and avenues of trees and crazy maroon irises. i didn't know they cam ein htat colour.

Today i tried ot go back to H&M to buy a dress that i saw that i liked, but there are 3 shops in spitting distance of each other, and i popped out the wrong metro and went to the wrong two, and then proceded to walk in the opposite direction by accident for a km or two. But which point i couldn't be bothered anymore. I think the lesson to be learnt is to buy stuff from h&m and return it, rather than to sleep on it, becase they're huge and busy and you might not find them again. Maybe i should stop shopping at h&m because i'm sure there are more interesting unique shops around. But the close are cheap and cool.

Tomorrwo i have to open a bank account. To do this i had to make an appointment two weeks ago. So it'd better work or i'll be very cross.

Also, for any knitters out there, i'm on ravelry now.

Sorry this is a terrible post. I am terribly tired.

focussing on the little things.

Does anyone else remember that scene in Reality Bites where Ethan Hawke is talking about how when the big things aren't working out as planned, you take pleasure in the details, like a quarter-pounder with cheese?
Well, I'm not such a fan of the burgers, and you can look down your nose at me all you like for frequenting such a soulless, awful excuse for a restaurant (and you'd be right), but I went today and got a McFlurry with sprinkles of Daim. Yeah those are good.

experiencing a migraine, and still procrastinating.

Things from recently:

I accidentally left my footer in an email to work, meaning that there's every chance that they will find this blog. Duh. Hi work people! Don't worry, there's nothing incriminating here, no reasons to dooce me...it's just a story about a life about nothing...

Today I went for a run in the local park. It's a big park by Parisien standards. But it turns out that big by Parisien standards is not big by Australian standards. At all. And because there are not so many 'big' parks in Paris, going there for a run felt like merging onto a freeway.

There is a shop at the end of my street that sells nothing but chandeliers. That should tell you everything you need to know about my neighbourhood.

There is apparently a shop here that sells Coopers.

Update: after a massive trek, the shop that sells Coopers is 'exceptionally closed'. Except that 'exceptional' seems to = 'frequent' here. It's rather annoying.

in a hurry to sleep.

Like a yoyo it is - I'm feeling a bit better today.

I had two great classes today - great because I really liked both of my students, and I really feel like I can help them, and that it will make a big difference in their lives if I do a good job. I think it is going to require a LOT of preparation, but it's nice to be doing something meaningful. My favourite student so far has a good level of English but he's so incredibly unconfident (is that even a word? I can't tell anymore...) that he can barely get the words out. He's a lovely man and I just wanted to give him a big hug and tell him it will be ok, that he's really good, that he just needs to have some faith in himself. He's such an interesting person that I really enjoyed talking to him, and I left the lesson feeling great, because in my hurculean effort to radiate calm and confidence for him, I ended up feeling supremely zen myself. Not a bad fringe benefit really.

The bad news is I've managed to lose my debit card. Sheet sheet sheet sheet double sheet.

But it's ok because la-la-la I'm no thinking about it because this weekend I'm going to Madrid.

Yes, Madrid in Spain. Yet another WHOLE NOTHER COUNTRY. I hope they stamp my passport this time.

Lost

Here you go Elsie: I lied, and here I am writing again already. I hope it gets you through the last couple of days at work.

I've been trying to keep this blog pretty neutral, since I know now a lot of people are reading it. I try to stick to the facts and not let stuff get too emotional. But obviously moving half way across the world is not all beer and skittles, and I would like to look back on all this writing writing writing and have it actually remind me of what I felt like, and not just what I saw.

So, with that in mind.

Jeez, this is hard work. I'm up and down like a yoyo which I suppose is normal, but sometimes it feels like the yoyo always ends up at the bottom, just like a real one. And just like a real yoyo I have no direction other than just bouncing around which is ultimately tiring and unfulfilling and frustrating.

I had my first day of teaching today and it was hard. SO hard. I had basically just planned to chat with them to get an idea of their level. Ok, I had some activities planned, but it was hard to work out what to actually teach them without knowing what they'd already done, and I'm not confident enough to teach them anything without preparing, so my plan (endorsed by the tiny bit of training I got) was to do lots of controlled discussion with my students to get to know them, their level, their needs.

But it turns out 2 hours is a LONG time to talk.

It's a long time for someone whose English is not great, because they won't elaborate much on their sentences so you have to ask a LOT of questions, and there really is a limit to what you can ask someone. It's a long time for someone whose English IS great, because they'll tell you everything they can and then what else can you ask.

My first student was really cool, and kind of made me think I might like to work in advertising. I think I'm going to get along with her really well, and I think I can help her, because her English is great, but her confidence is not.

My second class all seemed really diligent, and I think I can teach them stuff, because they're still at a basic enough level that I can really structure the classes and teach them grammar and so on. Once I learn it myself, obviously...

My third class all had really great English - not perfect, but too good to actually be teaching them rules and grammar, because they know it all, they just don't use it consistently. I got them to explain the French political system to me, and they found it easy. Right. But they apparently don't need their English much - I asked them how often they use it and they said hardly ever. So what am I supposed to do with them? I can't teach them how to speak English because they already can, I can't structure the classes around the report that they have to write for next week, because they don't have one, I can't just chat to them for 2 hours because they'll see through that and get bored with wasting their time.

And the awkward silences. OH the awkward silences. When they happen YOU have to patch them up, and I don't like awkward silences. That's normally the point at which I go and get a drink.

And two hours is really a long time. I can see how 1 hour would be too short, but WOW 2 hours is a long time. I felt like I was flailing and clutching at straws for a lot of it.

And after 3 lots of 2 hours today my brain is fried. I came home and spoke French to my housemates; bad, tired French, but I was so sick of hearing chunky butchered English and beginning to feel like it was me that was getting it all wrong, that it was actually the better option.

So I'm tired and flat. And I feel like I've been tired and flat for 5 months now, which isn't entirely true - although it is true I've been having frequent tired and flat periods for 5 months now, so maybe part of it is just that I'm tired of being tired and flat, over and over again with no sign of consistent reprieve. When I feel like this, I don't feel grateful to be in this beautiful city, I just feel like I want to leave and go anywhere but here. And even that annoys me because it's really such a waste and I know in my head that another life I would've given my right arm for these opportunities that I'm too preoccupied with blah to enjoy.

I thought coming here that living in Paris would be different than visiting as a tourist, and I think that's true, but now I wonder if the tourists actually get the better deal. They only see the shiny, nice, clean bits, and they don't have to deal with the grey grimy reality of a lot of Paris, and they don't have to deal with trying to get on with having a 'normal' life within a reality where you can't communicate with anyone properly, don't have friends, a direction, a life...

Still, I'm not quite climbing on the plane yet. I know that new jobs are hard wherever you are, and whatever you're doing, so even though it doesn't feel like it, I'm trying to tell myself that it'll be ok, I'll figure it out, I'll be good at it, that less capable people than me have done this and lived to tell the tale, that it's temporary, that the worst case scenario is not that bad. I'm starting French classes again next week, and maybe I will make some friends and not feel so isolated here. I'm going to Spain for the long weekend and getting some time away from the intensity of my (ab)normal life here.

No-one said it would be easy. And everyone was right.

learning English grammar.

Well, it's been a jam packed couple of days.

On Wednesday night, Nhan and I did indeed go to the Louvre, and my new youth card got us both in for free. Nice. That place is absolutely HUGE, which is obvious from the outside, but it really doesn't hit home until you get inside. There's a Virgin megastore in there. Really. We had about 5 things we particularly wanted to see and it took us about 2 hours. Luckily I can go back. As many times as I want. The decoration of the building itself is beautiful - many rooms have lavishly gilded and painted ceilings and wrought iron doors and gates. We saw the Mona Lisa which was amazing - it really does have an awesome presence in the room, but unfortunately you can't get within about 5 metres of it and there's glass over the canvas so for all that you can see, it could be a poster. We also saw the section which is still furnished as it would've been, which was incredibly incredibly beautiful. It's huge and the furniture is so rich and ornate. The funny thing was that the bedroom (one of the Louis' I think) had a huge four poster bed which looked completely out of proportion because of its short length.

On the way into the Louvre we had crepes (or more specifically, a gauffret [like a waffle] with stupid amounts of cream in Nhan's case) and dinner (and Nhan had a pink beer) and a man tried to pick Nhan up in typical French style by telling her she was 'charming' and 'magnificent'. Very funny.

Thursday was spent getting Nhan on the train, which I did not do well at, because she missed it and had to catch the next one. It turns out you have to know which platform the Eurostar leaves from, and waiting for the number to come up on the departure boards is a bad idea. Oh the French. Also, Nhan bought a sandwich and a drink for a set price, but the horrible lady behind the counter charged her the price for the two added together (more) because she asked for them separately and didn't ask for the deal. OH the French. I think that inspired my to get moving on learning more French because I just didn't have the vocab to tell her what a cow she was being. While we were having lunch waiting for the train, I tried Fosters for the first time, and realised why no one drinks it at home.

On Friday morning I went to the Foreigners' office to show them my visa saying I can work with a letter promising me a job to get a letter saying I can work so I can get a contract to actually work. Oh the French. I was expecting it to be a total nightmare, but with typical French efficiency they had two people working to serve a line of about 50 people, but one of them was dealing with European citiziens and students, and one was dealing with everybody else. Of whom there were two. So that worked out quite well. Since I had time up my sleeve, I went hunting for a chocolate shop I'd heard was great, which unfortunately turned out to be closed, but it was ok because I came across the Moulin Rouge on the way. I went and bought a dress (for the girls: navy blue, short sleeves, bubble skirt with pockets) a train ticket, did more English training, wrangled the photocopier, and finally made it back to the chocolate shop - 'L'Etoile d'Or' in Montmartre. It was an expensive visit, but I'm glad I made the effort to get there, because it really is lovely - move over chocolate world. I bought some gifts, as well as some bergamot flavoured lollies (like a cross between earl grey and barley sugar) a few Bernachon truffles (which I stupidly missed in Lyon - one of the few places in the world to make chocolate starting with the actual cocoa beans) which I'm savouring day by day. The lady who owns it is a real character with pigtails and a kilt and was happy to chat to (or chat at, since my French is still not that great) at me for ages. She made me eat a Peach truffle in the shop to see if I would like it since it's her favourite, and she tied all of the bags with a little ribbon, even the ones that I'd told her were just for me.

In the evening I made Anzac biscuits, which was the only thing I could think of to do for the day. I was a bit scared that French flour wouldn't work, so I bought the strongest I could find, and I think it was overkill because they came out very crunchy. Strangely enough the hardest ingredient to find was rolled oats - I went to 4 supermarkets and begged at a bakery before I finally found some! I'm not totally sure that the bicarb soda I bought was actually bicarb either, because it had more than one ingredient... but the biscuits were close enough for jazz anyway, and the flavour was right.

On Saturday I jumped on a bus first thing (I was aiming for the metro, but it went past with my destination on the front, so I ran after it) and then caught a train out to Epernay to meet Jonny and a few of his Aussie friends who came over to France in a camper van for Anzac day. We hung out at their campsite for a little while which was on a river and very beautiful, and then headed into town for lunch, which was bakery pizzas and meringue eaten in a park. It was a beautiful day, and I even got a little burnt, which I stupidly thought couldn't happen in France. Still, I'm not as cross at myself as I should be, because it reminds me of home. Epernay is the most important town in the Champagne region, so we spent the afternoon doing wine tasting. First we went to the house of Mercier and did a tour which was very gimicky - a glass lift 30m down into the caves past still lives of the history of the winery, and then a laser-guided train tour through the underground tunnels where they keep the wine. At the end we tried a glass of their champagne, which no one was very impressed with. After that, we found a wine bar with a 5 champagne tasting menu which was really nice, and it was really interesting to compare 5 very different wines. My favourite was a smoky Brut Grand Cru (Pinot Noir & Chardonnay) from Soutiran in Ambonnay. It was so much more interesting a flavour than any champagne I've ever tried, and i'd definitely recommend it, but I suspect it might be hard to find in Australia, and expensive, because it wasn't even particulary cheap in Champagne, and everything here is at least half the price of at home. Still, having now tried the good stuff properly, I think I've come to the conclusion that champagne/sparkling is just not my beverage of choice. We had dinner after that, and I headed off to the train, grabbing a 'smurf' icecream for the road. I braved the Gare de l'Est on my own at night (I've heard it's dodgy, but it seemed ok to me) and made it home safe and sound to find that my housemates had decided to do my washing for me in my absence...lucky my (still) leaky jeans weren't in my washing basket or I'd now have an almost entirely blue wardrobe by now. Hmmm.

Today I'm hitting the grammar books. Can't you tell?

running mad.

This week has been slightly mad. I've settled into my new place, Nhan has been visiting and I've been training for my new job as an English teacher.

Nhan arrived on Saturday afternoon, and I met her at the station. We also met one of her rellies who took us back to his place for congee. I've never had congee before! It was quite nice and comforting. By the end of the day we didn't have much time left, so we went to the 6th for a hot lemon drink at Mamie Gateaux since Nhan wasn't feeling well, and some bargain basement French pseudoephadrine.

Sunday was my birthday and I decided to go hunting for some icecream to start the day right. I got lost though, of course, and ended up doing a giant loop of my neighbourhood before finally finding my destination about 2 hours later. I had gelati at Pozetto (fiordilatte and hazlenut) which was good, but nothing I hadn't had before and a capuccino which was heavenly because it actually tasted good. Coffee here is generally bad and expensive. Since I still had a little time up my sleeve, I kept going and visited the Montmartre cemetary. I didn't see much of it but the tombs were beautiful and ornate - even the new ones, so I shall have to go back sometime, and it's defintely inspired me to go and see Pere Lachaise.

I met Nhan at the Arc de Triomph an I opened my presents there on a bench! How surreal! I took Nhan back to my place to show her around and then we headed for the second icecream of the day, coming across Notre Dame on the way. We got to the Ile and lined up at Berthillon for icecream. When we finally got to the front of the queue, I had salted caramel and mandarin, and Nhan had strawberry and vanilla. And wow. No really, WOW.
wow.
wow.
WOW.
Y'all know that I do like my icecream, and this was significantly better than any other icecream I've ever had in my life. It all tasted so...real. Line or no line, I will be going back there again soon, for sure. Repeatedly

We had dinner at Chez Omar, which was fine but nothing special (meat and chips, nasty yellow 'rose', and a surly waiter) and then finished the evening off with a trip to the Eiffel Tower. I hadn't been there yet, and I still haven't climbed it, but it was certainly very beautiful all lit up at night, and it even glittered for me.

Woot. I met Nhan for a late lunch and we went and bought a picnic from Monoprix and ate it at my place. Nhan surprised me with a lovely little raspberry tart with a candle for me to blow out (and a funny story about attempting to buy one candle and matched with little French). We did a little window shopping and then went to see the building where Napoleon is buried (Hotel des Infermieres?...too tired to look it up). Very fancy indeed. We went then to have a beer and pretend to be intellectuals at Les Deux Magots, but like REAL intellectuals decided it was too expensive and went and chilled out in the Jardin Luxembourg instead.

Today Nhan and I met early to have a croissant breakfast, but in true French style our chosen boulangerie was closed. We found another though, and Nhan had a most delicious almond croissant that I would definitely recommend. I headed off for more teacher training and we met up again in the afternoon to sample the fancy Pierre Herme macarons. They're definitely artier, more interesting and more beautiful than the Laduree ones (I loved the Jasmin one which was powdered with silver dust and was delicious) but I think in the end I like the latter better as they're just a little simpler and perhaps more elegant. We ate them on the street before heading to Chinatown for pho (and more pantry staples for me).

Well, this has been a more succinct post than normal, but I am tired and must sleep. I think tomorrow we're going to the Louvre.

shopping.

This morning I went for a rather abortive tour of the neighbourhood with one of my flatmates but it was still interesting. I knew I was living in a rather posh area of Paris, but I hadn't noticed that that also means a very white neighbourhood. Hmm. Unrelatedly, I'm finding actually that France is a very rascist country (to make a gross generalisation) and that the whole 'liberte egalite fraternite' thing, while it might be accurate as far as the law is concerned, is a complete load of codswallop as far as society in general is concerned. And just because I'm white, people seem to feel totally comfortable sharing their views with me. And then I find myself in this position where I don't want to be rude to a total stranger and I want to make allowances for cultural diferences, but every molecule in my body wants to scream 'WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT??? WHAT CENTURY ARE YOU LIVING IN???'.

Anyway.

This arvo I went and got my yearly pass for the Louvre. 3rd time lucky! It was actually quite easy after all that, and the lady actually told me to smile for the camera so i'm not looking completely mental like in the Pompidou one. Seriously, that guy was having a bad day, and I was his amusement.

Since it all worked out so well, I decided to go and do a little more pantry-staples shopping. I went to the English shop and bought Worcestershire sauce, more vegemite (in a jar!), Coleman's mustard and some salad cream. Exo! Then, because I had still more time after that and it was a direct metro, I decided to go to Chinatown to find a mortar and pestle. Which I eventually did after a long walk through the area (ironically enough, centred on the Place d'Italie). Clever old me didn't think about the fact that schlepping a mortar and pestle home on the metro would be quite enough of a pain, so I bought a heap of Asian pantry things too - coconut milk (which is stupidly expensive in the normal supermarkets here), oyster sauce, sesame oil, edamame and TWO kinds of soy sauce. And some other stuff which I'm sure I've forgotten. I found worcestershire sauce there too at about half the price of the British shop. Oh well. I didn't get any spices, but at least now with my big mortar and pestle I could do something with it if I did find them. The lady couldn't find me the right sized pestle, so I have an extra big one which is very cool - more weight to crush things with but not a stupidly big mortar since I'm just little old me with a little shelf in a tiny Paris apartment. (I hope I'm using them around the right way). And for the first time in France, the lady in the Chinese hypermarket actually checked my signature against that on my card. Most of the time they just seem bemused to make me sign it at all, and once or twice I've had to tell them that it's necessary. Roll on French bank account. And a card with a 'flea'.

It's looking like I'm going to be able to have a lovely window box with herbs and maybe flowers too. I can't wait. Another thing I can't wait for is Nhan arriving for a visit tomorrow. Woooh!

The only other news (news? newsworthy? i think not...) is that I have a splinter on the sole of my heel that I can't get out and due to it's location it's just getting worse and worse with all the walking. Does anyone have any advice?

arrived.

So finally the big news. I've found an apartment! I didn't want to say anything until I moved in, in case I jinxed it, but here I am! I managed to find it in less than 24 hours, which is apparently a minor miracle in Paris. I've got a big room with a double bed, and windows with shutters and view out onto the street. I'm living about 5 minutes from the Arc de Triomph in very calm and posh neighbourhood, and there's a little outdoor fruit & veg (and bread and cheese since it's France) in a nearby street. I'm super happy because I have all the things I was talking myself into being ok with living without - an oven, a bath, a freezer, a washing maching and even a kettle!

Yesterday was spent ferrying stuff from the old place to the new one - fortunately there was a direct metro line, but it was still a major pain lugging suitcases up and down metro stairs and in crammed carriages.

Today I went shopping and tried to stock my cupboard. It's a bit of an odd thing to do - starting from scratch. I suppose I will build up staples as I go along, but what are the real basic things you need to start with? I ended up with tinned tomatoes, lentils, baked beans (from the English section of the supermarket), pasta, couscous, bread, yoghurt, sugar, salt, butter, oil, vinegar, tea, tomatoes, a cucumber and a few fresh fruits. Have a missed anything essential?

I went to the street market, of course, even though I was told not to because it's more expensive than in the supermarket. I just can't bring myself to do it though, to buy from huge companies when the street stalls have such beautful produce and you can actually see the person who's getting your money. And what's the point of being in France and having markets like that at my disposal if I'm not going to use them! Today I bought these teeny weeny strawberries that were so sweet they tasted like strawberry flavoured lollies - I've never had anything like them.

Tomorrow I am going to find an English shop, because I realised there were a couple of things that I am going to NEED sooner or later: Worcestershire sauce being the first. I think I will have to try and find an Asian grocer soon too, because the Asian sections in the supermarkets here are depressingly lame, and a tin of coconut milk costs more than a coffee. Also I'm going to need a mortar and pestle and I imagine it will be the best place to find one.

Have I mentioned the milk? The French drink long-life milk and I just DO NOT get it. Considering how seriously they take their cheese. I am considered very weird for buying expensive milk that will go off.

The only other thing I did today was to go around to the art galleries and buy abonnements. If you're under 26 you can buy a yearly pass to each of the Louvre, the Pompidou and the Musee d'Orsay for about 10 coffees each. That represents a bargain to me, but I have to get in fast this week and buy them before my birthday. It was a surprisingly big hassle (actually, I shouldn't be surprised at how much of a headache anything is in France by now) and I didn't even get the one for the Louvre becuase of an 'exceptional closure'. I do not think it means what they think it means, becuase they seem to happen ALL THE TIME in this country. But anyway, it meant a lot of walking which was not such a bad thing, and I'll just have to go back tomorrow.

The other news is that I have a job as an English teacher! (Which means next week I'm going to have to learn English grammar...). It'll be teaching business people individually or in small classes, but I'm afraid I don't know much more than that because it doesn't start for another week. In the meantime I have to take the letter promising me a job to somewhere to stamp my visa before I can sign a contract and after that I have to register for social security etc. Welcome to France!

still tired.

Daylight savings 'on' in France and daylight savings 'off' in Australia has really made communication harder, so I've been up past midnight a lot lately, which coupled with the scariness of everything and all the everything happening so fast here and all the blah means I'm completely exhausted.

I had a job inteview at 9:30 this morning and it was a no go I think. The lady basically told me that since I don't have a tefel (or however you spell that) qualification, they'd hire me becuase they're desperate but I'd basically get the hours that they can't give to anyone else. Yeah, that sounds like a real winner.

I had lunch at L'As du Felafel which is supposed to do the best felafel yiros in Paris. It was quite theatrical becuase I knew the place when I got there becuase it was the one with a line halfway up the street. And it's obviously always that busy becuase those guys were making yiros' FAST. The felafel itself was very fresh which made it good, and they used coleslawey stuff which was an improvement on iceburg lettuce, but I was a bit disappointed to be honest. I think France really needs to get with the program and discover GARLIC.

The felafel place was in a neighbourhood called the Marais, which is traditionally the Jewish area, and is now also the gay area. It also seems to me like it might be quite trendy (it is close to the centre) and there were lots of pretty shops. It also felt a little more village like than big huge city. I think I will have to spend a bit more time exploring becuase I really didn't have time.

I met a friend of a friend for coffee which was really nice and she took me to a little place called Mamie Gateaux in the 6th (which is also where the St Germain area is) and I had a honey and lemon drink and a lovely slice of cake, which tasted a bit like a baked lemon cheesecake studded with apricots. We went for a wander around afterwards, near the Odeon theatre (which we didn't actually find...The Marriage of Figaro premiered there!) and I think that is going to be another area to explore a little more. It was also nice to meet someone new and have a bit of a chat with someone. I am a bit lonely here...

After that I explored a little more myself, bought a flocked notebook and I don't know whether I'm more excited that it's just beautiful or that it's LINED. Have I mentioned that all French notebooks are graph paper? It's so, SO annoying.

The last item of the day was to try to by the yearly Louvre pass that mum found out you can get for 7 coffees IF you're under 26. (They actually exist for most of the big galleries/museums here so I'll be doing a lot of museum information desk visits before Sunday). Unfortunately, the Louvre is closed on Tuesdays, and I had another experience of a French person who SHOULD know what he's talking about (ie. the information guy) giving me COMPLETELY wrong directions. So, I didn't end up getting it. Tomorrow it will have to be.

General observations on Paris are limited so far, becuase I've been preoccupied with job/apartment hunting and also tired as anything. However, Parisian women do not dress as well as I was expecting. In fact I'd go so far as to say that the women of Bordeaux are way out in front. The average level is still better than Australia, but I think if you walked around in Melbourne for a day you'd see more beautifully dressed women than I have here so far. And even the ones that are dressed well, are dressed boringly. Very conservative, plain, and elegant, but black black black black grey black black black good haircut black black black. It's really a bit disappointing, although at least I won't have to try so hard to keep up.

On the upside, Parisians don't seem to be as rude as I was expecting. I don't feel like I'm getting treated poorly when it's obvious that I'm not French, and everybody that I've asked for directions has been extremely helpful. That being said, I've seen a lot of incredibly rude Americans (while I was talking to him, one woman marched up to the Louvre guy who was giving me directions and interrupted [in English] with 'we need the Metro'). So maybe the Parisian reputation for rudeness is actually based on their reactions to impolite tourists, not just tourists in general.

I am very over the metro already. There actually are accordian buskers on them (and they're usually quite good) which is definitely awesome, and yes yes it's very comprehensive and easy. However, I just cannot handle the smell. Ok, I know I said I was going to stop talking about dog poo, and God knows I'd like to, but the good news is there's a lot less of it in Paris than there was in Bordeaux. The bad news is that the French laissez-faire attitude to their own bodily functions seems to express itself most obviously in the Paris Metro. I may well be an uptight Anglo, but that, my possums, is indubitably, extraordinarily ick.

confused.

I feel like I should write something but I don't know what to write. For once. Ha. I'm sure I'll still manage to write a ton of nothing. My thoughts are fluttering around in my head and I can't seem to grab them by the toe, one by one in any semblance of order. Maybe I'll go chronologically. Because I'm nothing if not original.

Saturday was awful - as previously established.

Yesterday was excellent, but I'm still saving up the good news, just in case.





















I spent the afternoon wandering the sights - the Arc de Triomph, the Champs-Elysees, the Tuilleries, the (outside of the) Louvre. I found a huge English bookstore (with Australian cookbooks!) and just generally wandered a long way. I'm sure I didn't go very far, and I must have been circles even though I thought I was aiming in a straight line. The roads in Paris are bigger than I imagined and more of them are still cobbled than I expected. There is really a lot of gilding going on here too.


I had some macarons from the Laduree. What a treat. This is apparently the original place where someone had the inspiration to sandwich the two biscuits together with icing. I didn't think they could really be that much better than the Baillardran ones, but WOW was I wrong. I had a caramel one and an orange blossom one and they were both incredible. The biscuit part was so light that the filling dominated, and the filling in each case was soft and rich plentiful and incredible and very sweet. I think there's something to be said for the crunchier contrast of the Baillardran ones, and they are subtler, but these were just ... wow. The caramel one tasted better than caramel itself. That's impressive. The shop itself was also beautiful - the ceiling and walls were painted with cherubs, lots of blue sky, lots of gilding. I think there's a little cafe part too, but the line was enormous.

In the evening, I went and saw Penelope with Phil. It's a sweet, uncomplicated movie, and I really enjoyed it. And now I want stripey tops, secretary shoes, a long long long scarf. And curly hair. Maybe I should get a perm? But I think I might compromise by sewing a lot of buttons on to my black jacket. Which would also give me an excuse to find the Paris version of La Droguerie.

Phil and I hung out a little afterwards, and it was great to pick his brains about Paris. It was also a real relief to just have a normal chat to someone. I haven't done that for a while...

I slept with one eye open again (or rather didn't sleep with one shut), and the bed butted up against the door. I am sure I am being ridiculously paranoid (what a surprise) and there is nothing wrong but I do not feel comfortable here and I will be glad to leave.

Today I had 3 interviews for teaching jobs, and all were very different from each other. I haven't come to any conclusions yet, but I don't really know that I care. I've still got at least another 3 interviews to go to, so I'm probably better off not getting carried away thinking about it, but in any case, I'm functioning on a total of about 9 hours sleep for the past 3 days, so all my mental capacity is being utilised just putting one foot in front of the other, and one word after the other.

Still, it's looking like in a week or so I should have some semblance of a normal life. That will be nice. I should start looking for French lessons and friends soon. And maybe an orchestra.

Also, it's been hailing here.