Sick with a full house

My last couple days in France were a complete bust..

The weekend I spent in Paris (obviously), but then starting Sunday night I wasn't feeling very good, and so commenced by 2 days of fever and a week of sickness. Which means I spent Monday-Wednesday in bed-rest as I literally could not move anywhere with the high fever and headaches I was experiencing. I was kind of dreading my 8-hour flight on Thursday afternoon back into Canada, as I really did not know how I'd survive. Luckily my fever went away, but everything else was full-blown sickness action. 

I survived. But the plane ride was not fun. I couldn't sleep at all because it just was not the time for sleep, and planes are pretty uncomfortable when you're in economy class (I hear first class is different, but unfortunately I don't shit money). 

So I've already spent 4 days at home. I must say it is so lovely to be surrounded by your own family. No need to worry about much, and I am always surrounded by animals! My parents now have 4 dogs... when will they stop?? I thought 5 cats was bad enough. Perhaps that's their maximum, always stop at 5. Wait no, we have 9 horses.. Oh god, I would not survive with 9 dogs, 9 cats on the otherhand... think of all the purring!! It would be cat heaven for me. Anyways, needless to say, I was very excited to see my puppies! 

But that's all I've really done at home. Home life is kind of boring. There's no Paris, or Eiffel Tower, or car at my dispense. We did get to go to a Christmas orchestra recital today, which was pretty fun. But in a couple of days time I'll be busy with Toronto stuff. 

Also my parents and I happened to get into a conversation I really did not want to have. I had to break them the bad news that's been haunting me, but they were actually very supportive! Like very supportive! I did not feel like such a failure after having talked with them. I am so glad they brought it up, especially after I was so scared in mentioning anything and have been completely avoiding "future" talks. 

Anyways my internet is acting up so I hope this post actually posts. I hate it when I write a full post, press the publish button, and have everything disappear and never publish... It's kind of heart-breaking when I've written such a heartfelt piece and everything disappears into cyber space and I've got to try and remember what I wrote to rewrite everything. 

I'm tired. I've been waking up at 4am for the days I've been here. Damn jetlag! 

One week to go... and the heat is finally back!

Until I am home!! How exciting. 

I am extremely grateful for my time here in France. I have a wonderful host family, I have great people to spend the time with, and I can eat all the cheese I want (cheap wine is also a plus, but I don't want to look like an alcoholic)!!! 

This week has been an up and down week. Our water tank thing broke so we had no heat for 4 days and no hot water for 3. Turns out the cold makes me kind of cranky. It's really not fun. I'm already what you call a cold-blooded human (and please don't pull the "but you're Russian" crap... Something happened and all the "cold-immunity" genes just cancelled out in me OK! I am cold all the time. The only time I am not cold is when it is MORE than 25 degrees... yes sometimes when it is 20 degrees I wear a light sweater... deal with it). 

Then on my day off I figured I'd go to Paris (as I want to get as much Paris in this week as I can), only to return home after 30 minutes of being there, because no one was available to let the plumber in. 

So I've had to be at the house for pretty much the entire week because first it was the roof guy on Monday, then it was the plumber from Tuesday-Thursday, which kind of suck for my last full week in France, but you've gotta do what you've gotta do. And really I'd rather spend 4 days at the house, then another 4 days with no heat just because I'm too selfish to stay home to open the door for the plumber. Also the family is just so nice, that I wouldn't want to do that to them either. 

I've got 2 full days of work left! I babysit tomrrow and I've got the kiddos on Monday, and Tuesday morning! How crazy is this?? The time went by so quickly. But I bet my time back home will go by even faster, and before I know it I'll be back writing about kids, france, and cheese. 

"Oh baby it's cold inside"

What a great day to have the heating in the house break. I am literally sitting beside the space-heater my host parents gave me to put into my room. At least I have the warmest and most comfiest bed in the world, but it does make getting up for work and school quite hard.

Anyways this weekend I went out into Paris with some friends. Our genius plan was to take the last train in (at 11:30ish pm) and then take the first train back home (6:12am). Which means we spent more than 5 hours at the club. Thank goodness they served food till 3:30am! I got to my friends house at 7:30am, at which point we just crashed and slept in until 1:30pm. I don't know how often I could do these nightly excursions into Paris, but it was fun. I overdid it on the snapchats... 

Oh and this happened today: 

And then there's igloo in the background, enjoying the "powder". 

Leo (the little one) told me: It's like Canada

A good day to visit the Catacombs

Yes, while it is Christmas, and all of Paris is decked out in decorations; some friends and I thought it would be a good idea to visit the catacombs. And it was a good day. Usually the lines to the catacombs are about 1 hour long, however because we are smart (and have the day off) we went on a weekday, therefore, no line at all. The catacombs are a place you must see in Paris because it is interesting, however, unlike the Louvre, it’s a “get in, get out, don’t really want to come back and visit again” type of place. We walked through a cave tunnel for a good 20-30 minutes, then all of a sudden you hit “The land of the dead” or something like that – I don’t recall exactly what it was called… but I am on the right track. And then you walk through tunnels of bones for about 15 minutes. I did take pictures of the stone tunnels, but did feel a little uncomfortable taking pictures with human remains. Although my friends and I seemed to be the only ones with this thought, as we happened to pass a couple several times where they were literally posing with the remains… awkward. I feel there is a time and a place for “selfies” and “posing with the background several times”, and human remains are just not part of that situation.

We then ended up going to my favourite arrondissement (the 7^th, the place with the Invalides), where we enjoyed a wonderful lunch for only 10 euros! For being the richest arrondissement, it sure has really good and cheap food. We also happened to come upon a really nice café for some coffee. The place is called Kozy (and hell yes it was cozy), and there happened to be many English speaking students.

After that we headed back to my friends place where we enjoyed a lovely dinner of crepes, wine, cheese, and a lot of other food, before I headed back to the house. These two days I’ve had the girls almost the entire day on my own (today, this also includes lunch). Now I am usually quite alright looking after the girls for so long, but after receiving some shitty news, let’s just say I am really not in the mood to be talked back to, screamed at, and given attitude. The only thing I want to do is crawl into my bed, and dwell in my own pity of how crummy I feel. Instead I’ve got to master up the courage to be super au pair. I really can’t wait for the weekend.

Spending obscene amounts of money on dessert, and slumber parties.

This week I met up with a friend to visit Musée D’Orangerie. It is a museum of art (it seems many of them are in France). We saw some creepy art, some fabulous art, lots of naked people with deformities (specifically in the boobage), and some artisits that must have been on crack when painting. We also got in trouble by the art police for being too close to a painting. Oh and you’re not allowed pictures. I did enjoy it, even though I am not an art enthusiast. The museum is small enough to go through it in about an hour, and it isn’t too overwhelming on the art (as the Louvre is).

After exploring the museum we went to the Champs Elysée Christmas market to indulge on some grands donairs. While these donairs were tasty, I must say nothing can beat the Mr. Donair in Kingston, nothing.  

We then headed of to Angelina’s. It’s like the “Laduree” of hot chocolate. It’s a beautiful little café/ dessert place that is a must-visit in Paris (but a one time visit unless you have a big sweet tooth and/or are really rich). My friend and I ended up spending 16 euros EACH on our dessert and hot chocolate (white hot chocolate in my case). This is what we paid for:

It was heavinly I must admit, but it was incredibly sweet. Being more of a savory person, I could not finish my dessert and had to take 90% of it home.

Being two girls, in Paris, in a touristy café we, of course, took pictures. But we were nothing compared to the Asian guys next to us who kept on moving around in their table and posing with items on their table for their selfies and photos. So once their mirror selfies commenced, I thought it would be a good idea to bomb them.. to which they enjoyed it, and then we all started taking selfies in the mirror. Turns out these 3 guys were from Singapore, and were visiting Paris for 2 days. Yes… these people are some wealthy they can just buy a plain ticket to visit this romantic city for 2 days… and then go home… because why the hell not.

The weekend to come, my fam jam was away on vacation, and while my Italy trip for this weekend completely fell through, it was still very exciting (and relaxing). The weekend started off with late night drinking, pizza, chocolate cake, and movies at a friends place. The next day the same, just food was different, and it was at my place. So pretty much this weekend was all slumber parties and girl time. Can’t complain.

We did go out to explore a little nearby village called Morêt, We then had hot chocolate (being a non-chocolate adorer, I seem to have a lot of hot chocolate these days… Christmas must be close). Speaking of Christmas, I am home in 2.5 weeks!!! Yay! I am so excited! I really cannot wait!

Welcome to the House of Wax – not the Paris Hilton scary one

This weekend was quite exciting!

On the Friday, a friend and I went rock climbing. This was my second time rock climbing (as last week my host mom and I went on the wrong night, but the French people were so nice that they still let us climb the wall for free) so I felt comfortable downing 3 glasses of wine at an aperitif my host mom and I went to. I wasn’t driving – which was what the party guests told me, so hence why it was ok for me to drink that much. The wine really worked in my favour! I wasn’t afraid of the heights whatsoever! I just felt awesome – like Spiderman!

                                    “Spiderman, Spiderman

He can do what no one can

Oh yeah, here comes the spiderman”  - My version of the spiderman song, and yes I am too lazy to look for the actual lyrics of the song.

And the people there were so wonderful – French people are very nice, contrary to popular stereotypes; as long as you are outside of Paris.

The next day was quite exciting as we went to see the Hunger Games movie! I’ve been receiving loads of snapchats and updated statuses on facebook about people going to see it, and so I of course have as well. Let’s just say I can’t get “Are you coming to the tree” out of my head – aka IT WAS AWESOME!

We also did some shopping – aka lots of money spent (no, not on me) – but at least I have a Christmas gift for everyone back home (except for the cheese and wine – that’ll have to be last minute purchases).

The next day my friend and I hit up the christmas market at Champs-Elysee where I bought more Christmas gifts....

....and then I dragged my friend out to a meet-up that was happening in Paris. We met some really nice people, it was really nice to change up the scenery of people. After our little aperitif (I’ve been to several of these now; verdict: French people love wine; “Quelle surprise!”) we headed to Musée Grévin, which is the Parisian wax museum. While it did not have the largest amounts of celebrities as I am sure the American wax museums have, it was still fascinating. In one day I met my favourite artist of all time Stromae, I became a child of Bragenlina, I tried to blend in with the “crowd”, I refamiliarized myself with Einstein’s theory of relativity, after which we took a selfie to celebrate our wisdom, and then I met Putin. 

And now thanks to Lina I have 100+ awesome songs to download, which I wasn’t able to do today as our internet in the house wasn’t working…. that’s what you get when you live in the middle of no where; I know this feeling too well as it’s the same problem back home. At least I am almost done the Game of Throne books, cannot wait for the new season to start up again as I’ll finally won’t be in the dark about who dies and who lives – I am still recovering from the “crushed head fiasco”.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Last week I went to a chocolate festival thingy at Vaux le Vicomte - a beautiful castle in Melun.

Now while I do not like chocolate (pause for shocked silence/ comments of "you're not a real woman" and "how can this be") I still really enjoyed my time. I did try the white chocolate, and some of the milk chocolate. I also bought some chocolate for peeps back home... I hope it's good.

Clowning around in Germany.

Welcome to Germany, where 50% of the population speaks Russian. It was so wonderful, while I could not communicate with people in their foreign language I could still communicate with them in something other than English. 

Getting to Germany was a breeze. Although my ears have never hurt so much during landing.

My first impression of Germany: “wow this country is so clean!”. Seriously it was spotless! Although they could make their transport a little cheaper… seriously 30 euros for a train ticket for a whole day! Compare that to France prices, which are 9 euros for the whole day (maximum 16 euros if you are over 25) – this is all within a region; I don’t even want to know how expensive it would be to travel in Germany into different regions.

My first trip was to Düsseldorf. That was where I landed so my friend – whom I met while au paring in France – thought it was a good idea to stay there and explore. The city was very nice. We went on a spinny wheel thing (not sure how to call it, but it’s a mini version of the London Eye) so we could see the city from a view.

The day after was Halloween! Yes a got to spend this wonderful day in Germany. Although first my friend and I explored Paderborn – a small student village “ish”. We did visit a beautiful church. 

Getting ready for Halloween was nice and easy considering I had packed all I was going to wear – the beauty of travelling all your outfits are ready for you. Guess what I went as.

We went out to a German student house party, which was awesome. Confetti was everywhere – thanks to me, but no one has to know that.

Party was amazing, people I met where even better! I had a lot of fun, I don’t believe I’ve yet had this much fun going out in Europe. I can’t wait to come back to Germany!

The next day, after sleeping in for quite some time, my friend and I headed of to Köln (pronounced Cologne in English), which is one of my favourite cities so far! It even has a bridge with locks, similar to the one in Paris. Cologne is a beautiful city, I wish I could go back.

All in all, my time in Germany was fantastic, I really enjoyed the new places and the lovely people I’ve met.

Also a new post on chocolate will come soon.. maybe tomorrow. The more things that have happened to me that I haven’t posted yet the lazier I am to write about them.