Mon Paris

I am so good at driving standard now, I may as well be in one of those "please do not attempt, professional driver" commercials. Hey BMW or Mercedes, if you're looking for a driver, call me up. 

I have finally made it into Paris. It is definitely a very nice, Europian type of city. But I cannot say that I wish I lived there. For me it's like Toronto, I am fine with visiting the big city, but I am glad I do not live there. 

The first day I visited was with my host mom and the youngest girl, Leo. We sat in traffic for a lot of the time, but it was still such a wonderful trip. I am very glad I do not drive in Paris. I am too much of a “Canadian” driver to survive there (i.e I’d let people pass, wait for people to let me in). Also road lines do not exist in Paris, even if they do, no one follows them. And pedestrians everywhere! It’s like “I am human, cars can’t hurt me”… seriously bud??!

Leo and I catching bubbles.

You cannot go to Paris and not take a photo with the Eiffel Tower

The second day I went back to Paris by myself. I survived the train ride and metro. I think of this as a great accomplishment. I attended an au pair picnic where I met lots of Canadians. Clearly my French skills will only improve if I hang out with lots of people from my own country (and their not from Quebec). It was so refreshing to meet people though! And some great people as well. I then went exploring with some of the girls I met.

I do not care how cheesy this is, I am so doing this. 

On another note, I know Paris is expensive and all, but 20 euros for a burger and fries…. That’s just excessive. Looks like when I go to Paris I better bring some food with me, because on my salary, I won’t be eating out very often.

Back to Paris tomorrow!

BFF4F4F4F

Now imagine reading the title with a valley girl accent, and a 12 year olds attitude.

I am hopefully going to meet some other au pairs soon; and I don't have to wait all the way until my french classes start (Sept 16). 

I am going to an au pair picnic tomorrow in Paris (this should be interesting). I have also met a couple of girls that live in a near by city so I'll see how things go there too. 

For now I haven't much to write. Other than everything is going well, I am just exhausted at the end of the days a lot. I also find that I have the hardest time with the dog rather than the kids. The kids at least listen to me. The dog does not. I am not very used to a dog that doesn't listen/ does what he wants no matter what. I am used to well behaved (like really well behaved) dogs at my place that won't run away from you while you are driving out of the front gates, that won't run away from you when you have to lock them up in the house when you do need to drive out of the front gates, that won't run away from you when they have something they shouldn't in their mouth, and finally, one that will not steal food right from the table. Well he is cute, I'll give him that. 

360 blisters and unfortunate selfies

I had the day off today, so I decided to do some exploring in Fontainebleau. It is a larger city close to where I am living. According to many of the locals (and the tourism center place) this is a big place for many English people to hang out due to a bilingual schools thats there (or something like that). I personally didn't hear much English. I heard some Russian though...

The drive up to Fontainebleau was very nice, but then I see that huge 3 lane roundabout and I get butterflies in my stomach... I am a bit nervous. I just hope I don't have to stop in case I stall in panic. However, all went smoothly (I should give myself a bit more credit/faith in driving, turns out I am actually not that bad). Unfortunately I got off at the wrong roundabout exit and ended up in the heart of the city in the manual car. Which again went very smoothly and I finally reached the parking area I wanted to.

A beautiful parking job, if I do say so myself.

My first stop was the castle and the castle gardens.

I asked these two girls to take a picture of me at the top, only to later find out that she took pictures of me going up and down the stairs as well... so now I have 2 pictures at the top.. and like 6 of me running and up down. Maybe she didn't understand my french, or maybe she wanted to capture some candid shots for me.

Crazy face I was referring to in the previous blogpost. For your future reference/ if you want to copy: big smile (preferably that is unnatural and hurts your cheeks), eyebrows lifted or just one eyebrow lifted (be aware if one eyebrow is lifted then it looks like you are judging people), eyes wide, to go with the eyebrows - this should come naturally. 

Are these trout? I am not sure. But they were huge, swimming in the green, murky water in front of the castle. 

Did you know that in France a coffee with milk is not just simply "cafe au lait". Its specifically called "Nosette" (or something like that). But their cups here are so tiny! Where is my Venti White Chocolate Mocha??? I think I am too poor for Europian Starbucks, considering I am poor for Canada Starbucks, but screw it I feel special cause I have a gold member card. 

I visited an English book store, that was over priced, and had a deceiving name. When they say "English" book store, they mean all the books and authors that are British, so I didn't really find anything. 

I took an interestingly sketchy path to cross the road, because there was no roundabout sidewalk for humans. It was either take this path, or risk getting hit by a car. 

I had also stopped by a bakery that everyone kept raving on about on the Fontainebleau touristy websites. It was quite delicious, and lovely. I'll probably go back there again... clearly so I can keep a slim figure. 

I took about 5 hours of exploring (and about 2.5 of those hours wandering around in circles cause I kept getting lost - great sense of direction, I know). My feet were killing me, and turns out they were bleeding and just quite lovely overall (but they looked so cute!). I blame the cobblestones, they hurt my feet so much! Those crooked, convex-ed stones with little holes in between the stones! At the end, with every step I took, I had to try to keep a straight face... don't show the pain Ana. I am pretty sure I looked like a weirdo too, trying to just over some larger cobblestones, and avoiding them all together sometimes (which resulted in walking on the tiny cobblestone-less areas of the sidewalk). 

My name is Anasta, I am the miming bobble head.

Dear readers,

My name from now on is Anasta, as this is what Leo calls me. She will only say the last part of my name if I have [accidentally] ignored her several times.

I have also taken on the custom of smiling and nodding at the many french people I pass on the street when I go for a walk. Some simply say "Bonjour", which [thankfully] I can say back as well. But some decide to strike up a conversation at which point I smile and nod, maybe say a "Oui" (but these could be dangerous, who knows what I could be saying "yes" to).

I have this feeling the french people think I am the slightly unmannered Canadian. But it isn't because I am trying to be rude. It isn't my fault that I don't know the words to "nice to meet you" (perhaps I should ask how to say this and remember it - that's the hard part, the remembering) or many other words for that matter. So instead when people meet me, I just smile even bigger and nod even more vigorously. This probably makes me look like a mental - think of those "crazy face" snapchats you send people, but instead of seeing that image for 5 seconds, imagine a person who doesn't speak your language staring at you with this "crazy face"...
I feel like by the end of this trip I will have mastered the art of miming.

Anyways so the forest is an interesting place.

A took a walk there yesterday, and slightly got lost - knowing my ability to get lost in forests easily for a minimum of 6 hours and fearfully thinking I'll have to live off the land or swim across a lake, I asked the host mom if this was possible here, to my relief she assured me that after a brief walk I will always hit some kind of road. At which point I'll have to "crazy face" it and mime "where is my home" to unsuspecting driving french people.

I did come upon this guys house, who collects buses (and other large looking vehicles).

Tomorrow will be "a lot of driving day". Which is an adventure on its own. Considering the "one lane, but lets fit two cars on it" roads, and the "I must drive on the grass so the opposing driver can actually drive on this road" ways of driving. 

Bienvenue en France: First Impressions

My plane to france was only leaving at 6:40pm (from Toronto) and I was going to get to Paris, France at 8:00am. This is so convenient you might say! Why not just sleep the 7(ish) hours on the plane, spend the day with the family, and go to bed when all the french go to bed! Voila, no jet lag.

IF ONLY IT WAS THAT EASY. 

I had the perfect spot on the plane, a window seat, next to a lovely french couple.... with a devil child sitting in the back. And no I am not being harsh, he was horrible. He didnt sleep the entire plane ride, instead he kept kicking my chair, crying at the top of his lungs, and pooping (to put it lightly); all while the mother wouldn't give a sh*t, she didn't do anything to stop him! CONTROL YOUR CHILD WOMAN! I was so exhausted and cranky that I wanted to turn around and say that (as well as other.. not so nice things...) to the woman behind me. It didn't matter, I'd say it in French, Russian, or English, I thing she'd realize what I was trying to say according to my tone (along with the couple sitting beside me... they weren't very happy either). 

Well in the end, the let me into France. Not that it's a hard process, once you actually get here... the French embassy back in Canada.... well that is a different story. 

The family greeted me at the front gates, which was so lovely! They were actually happy to see me. I say "actually" because I have read too many horror stories in au pair blogs. For some reason I only came upon these blogs 3 days before I was leaving... and all I could think was "what did I get myself into, crap!" So that was lovely. Then we spent the day going to Mcdonalds, IKEA, and a lovely french restaurant.

Now I have divided most of the things into categories, if there is a category you would rather not read, then just skip to the next one. 

The House

Their house is located about 45mins away from Paris (by car). It is in such a lovely little village. The surroundings kind of remind me of Hobbiton (but not really). If you have seen the movie "The Holiday" with Cameron Diaz and that Titanic girl; The England village place that Cameron Diaz stays in, is almost exactly like the village I live in. It's awesome. There is a forest in the back, a stream in the front, and nature all around me. It almost reminds me of home, which helps with the homesickness. 

The Family

The girls are really quite nice. They seem to like me which is a very good sign, and will hopefully make my life a little easier. However, they have so much energy. Every night I am just exhausted. It doesn't help that I go to sleep at 1am every night. They think I am cool! Ha! Best compliment ever received from a small human that wasn't related to me. 

Leo (5) and Connie (9)

Leo, the youngest, is just the cutest little girl. Her favourite word to me however is "Quoi" [What], due to my broken french. Connie is a little easier as she understands English, however doesn't usually respond in it, making things a bit difficult for me. Hopefully she will be speaking back in English soon, I'll make sure of it. 

The family overall is very welcoming. Very different from the horror stories I have read of other au pairs. We will see how the rest of the year goes as well. 

Finally a sunny day in France! 

Things that have surprised me so far in France

1. Canadians, our school teachers have lied to us! The french don't us "ne" with "pas". For example to say "I don't like" is just "j'aime pas". Perhaps this is slang, perhaps not, but I have adapted this way of speaking now. 

2. Holy crap, there is so much cheese! And they are all so different... and smelly. 

3. The roads are very narrow. Like "pull over to the side for others to pass" narrow. This is going to be interesting when I am driving... the standard.

4. Did you know French eat raw beef? No, not "rare", raw. I was a little taken aback when Cindy (the mom) handed over a slab of raw ground beef to Connie for lunch. Apparently this is very common. You eat the raw beef with mustard, salt, and pepper. I believe it's called "Steak Tartar". 

5. Roundabouts everywhere. Something else I should get used to. 

6. The french drink, but they tend to be very classy about it. 

7. People aren't as mean as I was told they are going to be. Geez people, what is with all these stereotypes. 

Well I have finally wrote this. Hopefully my next one won't take a week for me to write. I have new experiences everyday, but I get lazy to actually write, when instead I can read about other peoples experiences, some which are pretty horrid. 

Next step: actually make some friends, preferably ones that speak English. I am very tired of all this FOMO when people speak around me. 

Goodbye love, hello panic.

Tomorrow I leave Alberta. I don't really like Alberta, it doesn't have my friends, my family, and my regular favourite places. However, there is one thing that it has that matters the most to me, that makes my heart break every time I leave this province. It is my boyfriend. We have been in a long distance relationship for 1 year (2+ years together). Now with me moving to France for a year, that is another year of long distance.

The short is: long distance sucks. The greatest advice I can give anyone that is in a long distance relationship is: Keep yourself busy!
This doesn't mean keep yourself busy with continuously annoying your significant other, it means: find your own hobby! Preferably more than one hobby.

The first year I had my fifth year of University left, which included my thesis. I was super busy. He works here, so he is obviously very busy. However we obviously run into many more conflicts, miscommunications, and other ugly things that come along in long distance relationships.

I hope this year will be better than the last.

We'll see each other in December for New Years. Then hopefully again in Europe over the summer.

While I am excited for France, it doesn't feel like I am right now. Instead I am sad and lonely.

I hate airports, because it is a tear fest.

Life.

Why do we mourn for people we do not know? I did not know Robin Williams personally. Therefore I believe I cannot mourn for the person, I can mourn for the death of his art.
Art of humour, art of laughter, art of smiles.
No matter how a person may portray themselves they could be feeling completely different on the inside. We should never forget that.
That comment you may choose to say about how much someone is "gay" or "ugly" or some other creative words one may think off, should be kept to yourself. If someone is that human who prefers to say some disgusting thought or do a vile action to someone or something should not be allowed to breed and should be taken out by evolution as soon as possible.

Celebrate life everyone. Stop caring about how people may perceive you, do things for yourself and the people that love you.





If anyone likes similar music to me you can check out my first mix I made on 8tracks. It has some of my favourite chill music