Went to Paris this weekend. Arrived on Friday afternoon and got on the tube to Saint Denis, where our “lovely” hotel was. We surprisingly managed to find it using our `amazing’ map skills ( and asking in a funeral flowers shop) the area the hotel was slightly dodgey, lots of men lurking around etc but we’re ok. The hotel/hostel was called formule 1 and the outside appearance well..it was interesting, you cudnt miss it. Moi, Mary and Grace checked in and went to our room. It was pretty basic, a double bed and single top bunk bed. Me n Grace decided to sleep together..heyhey! because Mary had forgotton to bring her pj’s so had to sleep naked.. heyhey! And it was just a sink and table but was clean…for about 2 minutes, I accidently wash an incense stick down the sink. We had a lovely view from the window, a graveyard…seems to be a theme occurring of death here so I tell the girls we’re all going to die. Good times. We head out pretty soon as Mary’s friend Laura was coming down to Paris and we we’re going to meet her, so we hop on the old tube agen which was actually easy to use even for me. and went to meet them at the louver museum. We saw the mona lisa, she hasn’t aged a bit, and sum other famous sculptures and shite. Then we went for dinner and decided on sushi mmm, as we all can eat that without problems regarding vegetarian non wheat gluten free food. But I have a new found luv of sushi now so twas all good. Grace ordered a dessert called japonais..sumthing, she had no idea wat it was, it turned out to be some green jelly shite and a lychee,mmm eat up grace. We went home as we were all tired and wanted to be ready for the next day. Walking back to the hotel at night was pretty scary..more men lurking around so we power walked to the hotel, which had a security guard and a dog with a gimpy, bandaged leg…sweet dreams girls!
Woke up to an alarm…mary saying its 8:30! Shall we get up?....erm no and I fall back to sleep, thinking I had a dream the next morning about mary saying we shud get up. Got up in the end and the plan was to go shopping and eifle tower and other places. So far I wasn’t feeling this trip, I wasn’t sure why, but I was actually missing rouen. As it turns out the girls felt the same, which made me feel better. Surely spending a weekend in Paris is exciting and full of adventure but I hated feeling like a tourist and being around other tourists, even though I am one myself. So, became confused, tired and grace was feeling ill. Mary was in the same frame of mind. But I enjoyed the eifle tower and walking down it, which I can still feel in my legs. But it wasn’t all bad the sun came out for us after days of rainy rouen. We went shopping in champs d’lyeese’ and I bought a bag, just so I can say say I own sumthing from paris really, we cudnt be assed to do much shopping and decided to go to the cinema, and we went to see 10,000bc for 10 euro’s each Ahh! It was in English….yes! but was pants, I turn to grace after the film and say that was crap then I turn to Mary and she says ‘that was brilliant!’ bless. As we leave the cinema it pisses it down with rain and decide to go back to the hotel, and we get lost in Saint Denis, end up in a mc donalds for dinner- mary orders apple pie, but gets potato wedges ha. I get a salad, yes a mac donalds salad mmmmm! At this point, we all needed to go home, whether it be Rouen, England even the hotel, just home. Anywho we find our way..powerwalk back to the hotel, luckily (ha I say luckily…..) the heavy rain washes away most of the dodgey French men, but doesn’t stop them slowing in their cars to say stuff out there window. Im glad I don’t understand wat they say. We get in, mary brings a round of hot chocolate from the vending machine and we just chill. I dye grace’s hair purple while mary reads us a story..ahh. I enjoy this time more than the actual trip. We sleep and wake the next day excited to go home. We take one last detour to go to the café in which the film amelie was based and have a drink, then scoot off home to rouen yay!
Woo saint patricks day today! We decide on going to the irish bar of course.. O’ kallagans its called, and then to boite a beire as there was a party of some sort there. But I get a message from grace saying she’s heading straight to boite a bierre but I decide to stay in the irish bar wit mary and Hannah. The atmosphere was great, not an authentic Irishman in sight but lots of nice French men lol Mary and Hannah made a friend called charles before I turned up, he was very friendly, good to talk too but he overstayed his welcome a bit too much, so we decide to make an excuse and leave for another pub. Most of which were closed or empty so we turn around and head for the irish bar agen, Hannah parts and goes home on the way so just me n mary. We decide to try and hide from charles if he’s there. As soon as we walk through the doors we are approached by 3 guys and a girl…yes we’re English…again. I know where this is going to go but we all chat, have a beer and generally enjoy the company this time. They were all roughly the same age as us and interested in music and stuff. They invite us round for drinks at there apartment as the pub closes and we feel up for it, so tag along, and just generally chat shite, drink and then we leave as it was way past our bedtime. I stay at mary’s as my house is too far to walk to at 3 in the morning.
Today is the day of our English lesson wit Patricia and the second years. I get up early and hobble home from mary’s to get changed and stuff, only to remember we were supposed to write questions for the second years in French and English, and also bring food of sum sort so I panic, run to the supermarket and buy jaffa cakes, purely because there English and I thought we were all bringing English food. I get there late but it turns out no one really gives a toss about the questions and they all forgot about bringing in the food apart from us girls, mary brings sum left over cereal bars to share...bless. Patricia breaks the news that we have to give a presentation of our artwork in French, Christ. I go home after a chocolat at the café and learn to play jack Johnson on the guitar and learn some French. Ah I get a text from one of the guys I met yesterday saying, hello how are you?, it was so hard to this morning? I hope he meant `it was so hard to get up this morning?!’ meh!, i then get down to some serious blog writing as I feel I have neglected it looking at mary and grace’s blogs. Not that many people read mine anyway.
Today I stay in my pj’s, eat rice and oranges because I have discovered I have no money left, so cant buy food! But make the most of not being able to go out and learn French for my presentation, read texts for my essay and think about what im going to do, clean the fish and frog tank because Im beginning to not be able to see them swim around anymore. I eat more rice and oh I discovered a while ago that the flat has an ant problem (as well as the radiator falling off the wall sometime ago) so I sit and have a think about what to do, im hoping orida doesn’t read this…meh. Oh I discover I have some lettuce left over so I have more variation on my diet of rice and oranges ok im rambling. But, just as I loose the will to live grace rings saying in French I’d won a ticket to see ‘paris’ at the cinema tonight, and that they’d all be happy to pay for me, cool. Usually I will absolutely refuse to take any form of money from people because I just hate doing it really, but in this case I mite of gone insane from staying in the smallish flat all day so took up there offer.and blimmin glad I did as the film was great, thanks girls, and I know it sounds geeky but I don’t care, the film related a lot to what our essays are going to be about for critical studies, so all in all got lots of research and work done.
Today again I wake up late, potter around and grace calls inviting us to hers for dinner. Don’t think I’ve mentioned it yet but Grace is a pretty darn good cook, she has mastered the non wheat veggie meals and I enjoy them very much, so looked forward to that treat! Then mary rings and says we may be going out for a drink afterwards so get dressed up, yea so id just brusheth the hair, that’ll do. Sounded like a recipe for a good night though. Grace Cooks up a feast, a veggie sushi (avocado, rice wrapped in seaweed), I love you grace! And for dessert, Hannah brings crepes and ice cream yum yum yum!. We eat, play guitar as per usual thinking we desperately need to learn some new tunes and then head down to my favourite pub, the irish bar. We all sat round the table with our drinks and I get the feeling we’re all waiting for something to happen. And..it does, I clock a guy looking over at grace a few times so I let her no, then we tactfully plan to tell grace wen he next looks and then grace gives him the ‘eye’. It works (never fails) and he strolls over and it takes him a good 5 minutes to realise we’re English. Mainly because me mary and Hannah kept stum while grace spoke perfect fluent French! So he invites us to his table of friends and introduces us to the 3 guys and girl, cant remember names but the one who came over was called Quinton or ‘mika’ we call him, due to a his slight resemblance. So we all practice our French, they practice there English (im getting all too familiar with this) and we decide to heads back to theirs for…you guessed it, more drinks and socialising. They were an especially funny lot, and we all got on well, we all swapped numbers sed our goodbye’s as it got to 4:30..tired and we head back in the hail and rain and I stay at mary’s…my second home here!
Today has been the most laziest of days so far, it’s a Sunday, everythings closed and cold and rainy and snowy and dull. So I take full advantage of Orida’s gas bill and wak up the heating, induldge in some pasta and then rice for dinner(I ran outta oranges ) I write my presentation out in French for Tuesday which im sooo pleased about, I cudnt have done that a month ago. I finished the book mary lent me about conjoined twins and find I have nothing more to do. I think I have the most easiest laid back life ever and know that one day it wont be like this!
Mary rings and says ‘oh my god do you know what day it is?’
‘Sunday?’
‘Its easter Sunday!!’
oh my golly gosh I had no idea it was easter, this has got to be my first chocolate free easter,wow,ive accomplished something today then. Maybe if I try really hard I can pretend this plain boiled rice is in fact a mound of white chocolate..mmm..no liz.
The reason for my missing this day is that in france nothing is forced onto you, not mother’s day (which I also forgot…sorry mum!), not even valentines day and this time not easter. Ive only glimpsed a few chocolate eggs in the shops but nothing in your face as back home would. I think this is one of the many qualities I like about france.
Ok, today I wake up at 6.00, I think its because I didn’t do any walking or anything yesterday so I didn’t need much sleep.But I was supposed to be meeting mary and grace at 9.00 to get to the internet café anyway. Which we shudve known is closed, its frigging easter Monday. So we go to Flunch instead, now I don’t think ive mentioned flunch yet either because of me neglecting my blog writing but, us girls are a fan of this ‘restuarant’ called flunch, its like a fast food restaurant but is abit like a buffet aswell, so you grab a plate and put whatever food you want on it and pay at the counter, its fairly cheap, and healthy. Anyway, it has wifi so the girls can bring their laptops. I have a slice of peacan pie which was amazing might I add and borrow grace’s laptop to quickly check me emails.

Went to a pub called boite a biere today, suggested by cecile, was quite nice place as it reminded me a lot of the s.u bar or playhouse. It was quite small but had 5 floors which was cool. We sat down in a corner and got our drinks, only to realise we were sitting right next to the men’s toilets which happened to have saloon swinging doors so you can see their heads and feet when peeing, you cud literally look out and have a chat to your mates, so we tried our best to keep our heads forward!
While us girls were chatting agen a couple of French men overheard our English and was joined by cedrich and sum other dude. Cedrich had lived in Ireland for a while so knew a lot of English and so he taught us sum essential French such as ‘shut your mouth’ and other..interesting words, use your imagination! Then as they went to take a leak we were joined by two other guys, Pierre and christophe, both of which agen wanted to try out their ‘anglais’, That night we all went to a club down the road which needed a special knock to get in I do believe. Something ive learnt about the French men, they can get abit offended if you turn down their drinks offers, even if you actually just don’t want to drink anymore, but anywho we got pretty trashed due to the income of free drinks! I think we had become quite a main attraction that night, I don’t think the land of Rouen has many foreigners, especially from England.
This week I was introduced to my new flat by the girl im exchanging with, orida. Flat was abit of a mess and smelt funny, oh and she has 2 fish and a frog…anyone who knows me, knows im not a frog person to put it lightly. So im responsible for looking after them even tho I have no idea wat to do with em, as orida cudnt speak any English and just pointed to pot of fish food and sed blah blah blah….. yea thanks.im thinking of calling the frog orida..or Kermit. So yes im moving outta mary’s and I will miss our random conversations and shadow puppets!
Today we went to the irish pub with one of the guys we met the other night, christophe, the original plan was that we all go to the cinema but none cud make it but chris had made the effort which was cool. We just sat and drank, mary left early, mary the fatigue, but me n grace stayed and chris mentioned a place we could go to where you can see the whole of Rouen, on top a this hill/mountain thing, so we randomly set of to that. He drove us to the top of the hill and to a looking spot and me n grace were stunned! We could see the whole of rouen at night, tried to take photo’s but me camera’s naff and it were to dark. We didn’t stay long as it seemed to be the hanging out spot for the French chavs..yes they have them too! Oh and also we got onto the converstaion of ice-skating and decided we shud do it the next day..why not eh!
Went ice skating today, twas exciting stuff. I didn’t fall over but was shitting myself pretty much the whole time coz I know wen u fall it bloody hurts! As grace later found out. It was just me grace mary and christophe agen but it was nice of chris to show us wat there is to do in Rouen, tis like our own tour guide… incase your thinking it no he isn’t dodgey, he’s safe as ‘ouses! After that we just went home, chris asked if we wanted to go to his for dinner one day, thought it would be nice to taste sum authentic French cooking, although mary and grace are veggies and grace cant eat wheat etc so just vegetables on the menu then, chris has got his work cut out for him!
Monday 25th
Started le college today, we were all abit nervous because we didn’t know what the hell we were doing, who to see, where to go and stuff so just strolled in, found the reception and sed to the lady ‘ello, we’re the Erasmus girls!’ yea. She spoke to us in French to mine and mary’s horror, but she had a british accent..it turned out she moved here from England 11 years ago. She was really nice, we had tea and a chat about the college, apparently a teacher called patricia was supposed to be in meet us that day, but wasn’t in on a Monday, though was supposed to make an exception! I dont blame her really. Anywho Christine the receptionist showed us all around the college, which is just as nice on the inside as the outside, creaky wooden floorboards, paint splatters, wooden beams, big staircases..the whole shebang! It felt good to be in that arty environment agen, we we’re all eager to settle in and paint.
That evening we went to christophe’s for dinner, his flat was very very small, like a child’s shoebox, but we all squeezed in. Here we met christophe’s friend…christophe, easy to remember. Grace seemed to enjoy this new christophe a lot, if u know what I mean.Anywho christophe 1, or stripey chris we now call him(due to his stripey jumpers he favoured) cooked vegetables and chicken for the non veggies and it was nice. Nothing us limeys cudnt handle. That night we ended up in boite a biere agen and meet some of there other friends…not just guys this time either.

friday 15th

today we all decided to go for a wonder around etc, me n mary knocked for grace and was approched by a lad called 'pap', i thought he sed 'puff' and thought he was trying to palm off drugs as he spoke to me in french!haha but me n mary then explained we were english and knew no french but he carried on talking, somthing about me and a fiesta, which i later found out was a party, i dunno but yea mary got his number, i think he was just being frendly and all. that day we went for a walk, trying to find the train station and went into a pharmarcie coz i had a hurty tooth, needed sum mouthwash and crap, and decided that night we shud actually go out. We all decided to give pap a text, invite him out for a drink, maybe bring a frend and he was up for that. we decided to go to the local bar 'emporiun gallorium'..ha, erm and met pap and his frend eddy. i ordered my first round of drinks without problem and was quite chuffed with meself! we all managed to maintain a half decent conversation with pap and his mate, except mary, think she had one too many ha sorry mary i no.. u were 'tired' or fatigue which became a regular joke of the night. Any who i learnt one thing, its easier to speak french after a few drinks. We moved on to a club called D7, which was 10 euros to get in each but pap knew the boss and bouncer etc so got in for free! yea it wasnt very good inside, dated music, hardly any people but apparently there all in paris on a friday. after a bit of a 'boogie' with pap n co, yea pap was an interestng character, but was being sleaze of the year so we decided to call it a night. doont think we.l meet with him again but at least we can say were making frends n being social!

rouen

• 11th, day 1. arrived in rouen after long journey going from car to plane to taxi train...though grace, mary n moi kept our spirits high playing the giutar and telling crap jokes! We were greeted at the train station by ceciles boyfriend and friend who were holding up a sign saying 'erasmus', that'll be us then! neither could speak much english, little did they no grace cud understand quite abit of french so was able to reveal not very nice things they were saying in our presense but oh well. We got our first glance at how beautiful the city was, we were all pretty stunned and excited. Mary's new gaff matches your expectations of a french, art students flat..brightly coloured throws, weird sculptures and artwork everywhere; things not working properly but, reminded me of my place in norwich. After trying to settle in abit and nose-ing at cecile's things, we thought the best thing to do was to get sum tea! so, ventured off into the city centre and found a supermarket to get sum milk etc. At this point mary and myself were tired, smelly and longing for a cuppa but quite nervous as everything was surreal, but we just about managed to buy the things we needed..except tomatos, which had to be weighed by ourselves, which we didnt do, so held up the queue trying to figure out what to do, in the end we ditched the tomatos and ran away feeling quite embaressed! after that fiasco, we met with grace who introduced us to kevin, half french, half irish lad, and had a good night playing cards, drinking wine and having a sing a long with me guitar. then collapsed into bed, preparing for tommorows adventure!

12th day 2.

today was the day we got everything sorted out like a new french mobile, taking photo's, being a tourist, grace has been excellent at speaking the language so have relied on her to get us thru, probly a bit too much tho! we strolled around the cathedral abit and took sum photos, grace n mary climbing on the cathedral.... which attracted a nice mob of police! yep we shat ourselves, as about 6 police came strolling towards us, but we walked away calmly, think we got away with it tho! for dinner i cooked up some lentil and veggie curry, and grace made sum cheesy chickpeas, twas very yummy indeed. oh and some wine of course to follow, we re probly going to make a habit of that actually, never mind!

13th day3

Early start, got up at 9.00, this is early.. for me. met with grace and went to find an internet cafè or sumthing to see if anyone misses us yet, then onto find the art college, which took a while as we walked in the wrong direction for sum time, map reading isnt our strong point i guess. We found it in the end and again, was stunned, it was like going back to the tudor times, very very old buildings but well kept! i felt sorry for the girls who are exchanging with us, there swapping there college for a crapper version,haha. After leaving the college grounds 2 policemen swooped in behind us to where we had just been, twas funny after yesterdays incident but then again, a mob of policemen came strolling towards us, wasnt laughing anymore!