Tell the world, I'm coming home.

Best. News. Ever was received by me today. I got my Russian visa. Which means I get to go home and see people I have not seen for 12 years! 12 years! I started crying on the Champs Elysee, because I was so freaking happy.

This week overall has been so amazing!

Let's start with last Sunday (a calendar week starts on Sunday in Europe, I now know some people find this weird).

Last Sunday was Fête de la Musique in France. Which is a huge festival of music, and it happens all over France. It is where artists, famous and amateur, come out and play on stages, small and large. I kind of expected it to be more musical than it was, but we did end up at Republique which where the main stage was set up in Paris. I listened to some amazing new music and had a really great pizza! The fête goes until 3am; however, I am a working woman! And also I live far and my train stops at 12am. Granted I didn't even stay that long because I just wanted to finish watching Game of Thrones season 5 (especially because people were posting left and right what was happening and I didn't want my boyfriend to have the ending spoiled for him; I've already read the books so it wasn't much of a surprise to me).

Oh yeah, and the day before we ate a lot... That was pretty much all we did:

The idea was to go into Paris for Moules Frites... but we got hungry before, and then we had to get our Moules... I mean that's why we were there. 

Then the busiest week started. 

It is the end of the year, meaning all activities are finished and progress must be shown to the parents. 

I have to admit though it was adorable!! I also loved how every time the little ones would come out on stage all they'd want to do was look for their parents and then wave profusely. 

Then came the regular Tuesday (that I will soon write about, it's turns out it's a lot more work than I thought... and I am lazy). 

Then came my goodbye party/ all nighter in Paris (as we suburbianers (?) must do when we go out for a night in Paris). 

We started off meeting everyone, going to the Seine, and drinking a full bottle of vodka and two jugs of orange juice (I say this separately because we didn't bring cups, so it was little bottle, then jug of juice). We then rejoined many other people by the Seine, and continued drinking until we all felt like dancing, so we headed out to Bastille (I don't know why I always end up there!). Because transport is usually difficult for such a large number of people, we all got split up. So while I don't actually remember everything clearly I'll just add the pictures, because a picture is a thousand words (and I have many pictures). 

After the bar closed we headed down to the Bastille Opera to jam, because what else could you do at 5 am?! Also surprisingly you meet some lovely people who could either play guitar or can really sing! Quite a lovely end to the perfect evening (or morning..?) 

This is our album cover for the new CD that we'll have out entitled: "no we won't get a hangover as long as we're jammin".

Irina and I got home at 7:30 am, and guess what we did? That's right, we went to sleep! A bed has never looked so good! The rest of the weekend was a recovery weekend. We mostly hung out, ate food, and played Monopoly... which I won... that's right I will never live this down. Monopoly, the game where you lose all your friends. 

Look at all them dolla' dolla' bills that Caro plans to give to me. 

It's ok if you lose, but I better win. 

I'm kidding... kind of. 

Paris, je t'aime vraiment.

This month has been a huge gumble of things! I have so little time left that I am constantly on the move trying to fit as many things into my schedule as I can, therefore I kept on putting of blogging as I didn't see it as "très important".

Throughout this time I have met some old friends, made tons of new friends, and did things I never thought I would do. I have also spent a lot of time by the pool, because au pairing is hard and sometimes you need a day by the pool (I am sarcastic here, I know it isn't noticeable, but I am).

Gosh I am getting all sad all of a sudden. Just thinking of all the things I have done and still need to do, I can't believe the finish is so close. But I will have some exciting things to post soon (not that so far it wasn't exciting...)!

I really love this experience and the people I've met. To laugh so hard you start crying, to sit so close to the seine you feel like you might fall, so you start looking for the closest shore that you might be able to swim to in case that happens, and of course to go so hard all night to then later fall asleep on the 7 am train trip back home. I love this city, I couldn't have picked a better family, and I couldn't have asked for better friends!

Even when the one true french "recommends" us wine that we then notice is without alcohol... and still tastes just bad rosé

And even with my fear of water, I still went kayaking on the Loing for 16km! All while sitting in a puddle of the river water for perhaps 4 hours that we were there. Notice the sweater? Yeah... it gets cold when you sit in a couple of cm of water for a couple of hours and then get out to have a picnic, only to stay in your soaking clothes. 

Just 2 weeks left. Just wait, exciting posts coming!

 

It just hit me I have 1 month left.

I haven't written anything since last time just because I haven't found anything too exciting to write about.

Unless people want to hear that I am stressed about doing visa's, getting everything done in a short amount of time, and freaking out that I have to leave in a month!

But I will do some arbitrary posts about au pairing. Should be fun.

So a bit ago I was going through this boredom stage, especially when the girls have been on vacation, so I decided to do something different (especially because I haven't posted a video in a while)... I decided to "try acting". But not actually.. this is sort of embarrassing, but I seriously don't care anymore. I put hard work into this! With all the hair flipping that I did to try and get some volume in my limp, straight hair.

Enjoy!

Sam Smith - I'm not the only one