Dortmund: Travelling Like Hobbits

Dortmund was an unplanned stop on our eurotrip. It was more of a 12 hour layover, which was made much easier because I got to see a friend that I met at the beginning of my au pair year!

I am sure I would have enjoyed Dortmund much more if I wasn’t sleep deprived, it didn’t rain 50% of the time, and the bathrooms were free (even though I didn’t pay for them, but it was incredibly frustrating to be told I have to pay after eating at the restaurant).

If it wasn't for this park we visited in Dortmund and my friend coming by, I feel like Dennis and I would just have slept in a McDonalds. 

It was funny as most of these barrels had drifted to the little island across this pond. So it is virtually impossible to grab the barrels without swimming across. So we had to wait for the only barrel available that was [at this moment] occupied.

Let the hobbit adventure begin! 

Barreling is harder than it looks. It also feels like you might drown at any moment. Not suitable for small children, or people who cannot swim. 

Like I mentioned, this park was really cool. It had the barrel riding (pictured above), these swinging things, cinema, a nice walking path, and... 

Flamingos. 

Advice for future travellers do not take two over night buses back to back unless you are a smaller than average height, function when sleep deprived, or are a robot who can just shut off for a couple of hours.

La vie Parisienne

Staying only three days in Paris meant Dennis and I had to put on those running shoes to make sure we saw all the main points and my favourite non-touristic places. I am actually pretty impressed because we did almost everything that I wanted to do with him including going to a last minute theatre show! I mean there isn’t much I can say about Paris, I’ve literally lived here for a year. I love this city so much. I’ve said everything I can about it in all my previous blogposts.

I do plan on coming back to Paris, the city where I grew and changed as a person… oh and tried to learn some French.

The one last time we can get drunk by the Seine. The true Parisienne experience that Dennis just had to try.

The "eyebrow"

Trying to perfect the "eyebrow" but unfortunately not being up to par with the master (aka me... seriously did you even look at the perfection in the top photo?). 

Of course lots of french food was eaten. Including snails and lots of Bourgogne red wine. 

The build up to the "proposal"...

The unfortunate circumstances that occurred. 

Consolidation.

And then just more cheesy photos being taken by the Eiffel tower. Which are inevitable when you go to Paris with your significant other. 

Next stop: Dortmund.

Getting started: Fontainebleau

How the last day of school went, is exactly how my last week went.

The kids were excited to get out of school; I was excited to be finishing work, have my boyfriend come, and start our eurotrip. 

However the kids were saying goodbye to their friends who they might not see all summer; I had to say goodbye to the most wonderful family I could have chosen to aupair for.

In the car on the way back Connie says to her little sister “We’ll miss you Anastasia”. So many feels!

During the week I was also meeting with people for goodbye’s before either they or I would part ways.

But saying goodbye to some could be saying hello to others. My boyfriend was finally coming into Paris that night.

So my lovely Russian pal and I headed over to Paris to pick him up at the Gare du Nord train station. 

The next morning felt like any other morning just with an extra person to love. The girls were very excited to meet “mon amoureaux” and even more excited to receive maple syrup. 

We have some maple syrup fanatics.

Then it was time to head out and explore Fontainebleau.

Now on the way there something scary and embarrassing that happened that I don’t like to talk about (do not ask Dennis, his version is untruthful!). But lets just say suburban French people are the loveliest when it comes to a crisis!

The next day my host family invited us over to go canoeing.

Little did we know this trip would be a near death experience (exaggeration may apply).

After our first little “rafty” journey of going down some rocks we cracked our canoe. Inevitably we slowly started sinking as we continued our journey along the river. Little did I know (and was continued to be told the contrary to stop a panicky situation) was that our canoe wasn’t sinking that slowly. Turns out when we docked our canoe was so heavy with water that Dennis, who was in the back, was less than an inch away from the water.

After this courageous trip we all went to a restaurant situated in the forest. This was my most favourite restaurant I have been in. The food was really spectacular! We chatted a lot with the family of some fond memories, as well as, our future plans. This unfortunately was our last big meal before Dennis and I officially headed off to our next stop, Paris.

I miss the girls already, leaving the empty room was so depressing , saying goodbye to the girls was even worse. But I was promised letters and drawings in the mail, so there is always that to look forward to!

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

The gist.

So I've rewritten this blog several times and I change my mind on what to write every time. This past weekend has really been one of a kind, not always in the best way. I found out some things about myself I never knew, for example just how angry one persons stubbornness and childish ways can really get me (enough to start causing a scene in a restaurant, good thing it was all in Russian).
But I won't be writing about it here. I've vented to the people that are close to me, and I feel like it would be really out of line for me to write about another person, because who knows, maybe they were having a bad day. So we'll skip to the good stuff!

My dad came to visit me this weekend in Paris. I had such a good time being a private tour guide for my dad, showing him around the city and taking him to places he wouldn't have known without me. I made him try snails (which he then ended up ordering at almost every cafe we ended up in), he took more than 1000 pictures (he was such a tourist with the camera! Selfies everywhere), and we drank a lot... like A LOT of wine.

I started to ruin the selfies, because that's just what I do.

Did I mention there was a lot of drinking that weekend?

My fam jam was also away this weekend, so every time I'd come home from spending the day with my dad, I'd arrive to an empty house (except for Igloo the dog), which really creeps me out. Not many people know this about me but I am really afraid of the dark, and of being along in a big, old house. So I decided to invite my friend to come stay the night with me. Then turns out my friend from north of France had come down so I invited her over too. Then we figured why not invite our Parisian friend and show her what it is like to live it up in the country.

Let just say we got real deep with our conversations, and played one of the most hilarious games that is made for children.

Then we got into the conversation of sleeping-arrangements.
Turns out no one wanted to sleep with me.... because I am a creeper when I sleep.

Every time someone stays the night with me I warn them that I tend to talk in my sleep. Little did I know, I don't just talk in my sleep;
The first time Irina spent the night at my place I had woken her up because I was prompted up and staring blankly at her. She began to calmly explain to my sleeping self that she is here out of invitation and perhaps I have forgotten who this is. Turns out this was enough for my sleeping self that I turned around to lay down and began laughing hysterically. I know... I know... Creepy..
So this second night she spent the night, I jolted out of bed and began rearranging things in my sleep.
We concluded my little sleeping outbursts are due to the fact that I had been drinking both nights, and perhaps that was the cause of my restless sleeps. I asked my boyfriend about these episodes and he said he has never noticed anything like this.... but then again he sleeps through his alarm clock (which is so annoying considering I can usually sleep later than him, but I still wake up to the horrible sound). At least it is something weird and interesting I learned about myself...

This past week I also had to say goodbye to une nouvelle amie who I met here. It is saddening that I did not get to know her as much as I thought I would, and that she had to leave so suddenly. However, it does give me reason to finally visit 'murica! The last picnic we enjoyed as a full group:

You thought there would be people here? Yes.. well so did I... then I realized it wasn't me who took pictures of our faces, but I did take pictures of our food... priorities. 

However I do have this picture of us enjoying drinks after the picnic (not all of us are present though). 

The rest of the week I have spent a lovely time celebrating my host dad's birthday:

Taking long romantic walks with the dog:

It looks like he has no head... but I assure you he does. I just found it hilarious how he was rolling in the mud. I found it less hilarious when he ran up to me all wet... so I ran away... he thought I was playing tag... I wasn't.

I also have dirt in my socks because I was gardening with the girls just now. This is my first time gardening, I hope something grows.