Paris je t'aime

1. 3. Jud
2. Not exactly sure what was going on
4. 5. Bal des Pompiers a la caserne Blanche
6. 7. Views from Pont Alexandre III
8. Garden along the Seine

After 2 and a half weeks in here and living like a local, I finally feel like I've begun to settle in.

• I get verlan and I can sometimes talk fast and actually contribute to conversations. 
• It's become impulse to say "non merci" to vendors who wander the streets and into restaurants/cafes/bars selling roses. 
• I'm getting to know the 9ieme and 18ieme pretty damn well and
• I've been able to hold my hunger off to about 9pm every night.

Also,

• I haven't gone a day without drinking.

I love it. I've already moved out into an amazing apartment in Montmartre with friends and it's amazing. But I know I can have this anytime. Being completely immersed in a different culture is the most rewarding experience in the world and I know I'll do this again; spend six months, a year, more in Paris. Soon. I've fallen deeply, madly in love with Paris, its culture and its people. Being told that I have a good accent, that I speak French really well....best feeling in the world. I still have 6 days left but every now and then I feel like I've left already. Oh dear getting all nostalgic in here.

La vie parisienne

 

1. 2. 3. Sacre Coeur

4. Judith

5. View from the Musée de Montmartre

6. Au Lapin Agile

7. .... don't remember what this place was called.. shame on me...

8. Place Des Vosges

9. Super old house

10. 11. 12. Friday night I watched the sun rise

Some observations

All Parisians smoke. It's not a stereotype, it's a fact. I've met one person who doesn't smoke and I can't imagine how they don't, I even believe, if I lived here for long enough; I would start somehow. It doesn't help that a packet is 6 euros compared to 20 australian dollars at home and that's still expensive apparently.

Parisians are very passionate about politics and philosophy and often talk about deep and meanginful things. When I think about what it takes for me and the people I know to talk about stuff like that you really begin to see the cultural differences. I've witnessed heated discussion about who voted for who at this years french election and when I was asked about how politics works in Australia my thoughts went to our ranga bogan prime minister and our double-y bogan opposition leader and I managed to establish that the main two political parties are labour and liberal but liberal is actually conserative and not liberal and they're more or less the same thing at the moment. 

The french people have revolted against the residing power, there has been much war even within the city of Paris. They're very persistent and passionate people that know how to argue and I think it stems from their history and the amount of conflict that their country has experienced. And it makes me a little jealous that we don't have that at home. Except at the end of the day I still love how easygoing life is in Australia and wouldn't change it for the world.

The streets in Australia are all straight. Streets in Paris wind and twist without end and I love it. there's always something around the corner. There is no such thing as a purely residential street; there is always a cafe, a gallery, a little store, or something.

Eating: Breakfast is small and sweet. A baguette with jam/marmalade/some sweet spread, or a croissant, or cereal that somehow contains chocolate. Kind of miss bacon and eggs with avocado and bread, wholemeal bread, or mulitgrain, rye. Lunch is normal. And then I have to wait a minimum of 9 hours for dinner.

I've been here for 2 weeks but I still feel like I'm dying by the time it comes to having dinner. I've accepted that I have to be a weirdo and announce at around 6:30/7 that I am hungry and have to buy something small so that I don't pass out when it comes to 9, 10, 11pm, even midnight. I'm used to eating small amounts, constantly. I'm pretty sure I look like a gluttonous pig.

Alcohol is the same price as water.

Normandie

Spent the weekend in Normandy in the north of France for a 20th birthday. Needless to say.... it was amazing.. Not meaning to brag or anything. Never having experienced a 3 day party in the country I didn't know what to expect but it more or less involved not sleeping for 2 nights. I didn't manage to take many photos but here are the best of what I have:

1. Les beaus mecs francais!!! hahah Xavier, Bricky, Nath and Judith. Not sure about some of the spelling sorry.
2. ""
3. Spinach
4. The beautiful creature that I'm staying with and who has welcomed me into her home and into her life.
5. Horsie.
6. Pitched tents in a backyard scattered with apple trees. I really wish I'd taken more photos now.
7. Kitty.

Ran out of supplies after the first night so went to faire les courses for everyone.

Paris

I don't really know how to start with Paris...

1. Hotel de Ville
2. Centre Pompidou
3. Beside le Centre Pompidou
4. (below) Notre Dame

I can't speak proper English anymore it's weird. Je me suis encore balader le lendemain.........
1. Home for 2 and a half weeks.
2. Wandering around Paris through the 9ieme,10ieme and 18ieme, got lost, several times. Amazing walk though.
3. Managed to navigate myself to Montmartre, where I'll be staying from the 12th to the 23rd with Chelsea. The view from the Sacre Cœur.
4. View from behind the Sacre Cœur.
5. A cute cafe behind the Sacre Cœur. Overpriced (given, in the Paris)
6. Cafe des 2 Moulins - from Amèlie

The night after Judith finished her last exam we went out to celebrate. I am really incredibly lucky to be able to experience Paris through the eyes of a local, really incredibly lucky, it's unbelievable. Whoever says French people are snobby have no clue what they're talking about. Spent the night drinking on the 5th floor of a Parisian apartment, then drinking on a bridge on the Seine. The photo above cannot do the view justice. There were love padlocks scattered across the length of the bridge and you could see forever into the distance on either side of the bridge, the Seine, the night, the spotlight from the Eiffel tower revolving around in the sky getting into bed at 3am nghhhhhhhhh I'm lost for words.

There's a lot more to post, hopefully I'll be able to get the rest up soon.

wo de zhong wen jiang de bu hao

At the moment I'm in the beautiful city of Paris and it's incredible. The view during the bus ride from Charles de Gaulle to Pigalle where I'm staying with a friend took my breath away. It's my second time here, but last time was for 3 days jam-packed full of tourist-y things and this time I'm here for about a month which really gives me the chance to fall in love with the place; even though that's already happened.

However, I'm firstly going to finish with Shanghai.

See what I mean by grey? It makes everything quite dull and it's a shame because it makes life here seem extra nitty gritty. Don't get me wrong though, Shanghai is an amazing place, crazy, but amazing. Development only really started in the late 20th century so the entire city has been one massive construction site for the past 40 years or so. Buildings are shooting upwards, each containing thousands of people, hundreds of families. There were 1500 families living in the complex where I was staying; about 10 high-rise apartment buildings surrounding a man-made lake.

1. View from my bedroom
2. View from an 8+ storey carpark in central Shanghai

I don't have a photo of the area but my dad told me a story about how one time at 'People's Place' some old senile man dropped his pants and took a shit in the middle of the concrete quad.

How to drive in Shanghai

• Traffic lights are merely guidelines
• Same with lanes
• Number plates? Unnecessary (see above)
• Never indicate
• Never give way
• If you're on a scooter/bike just go wherever you want, in any direction, whenever you feel like it
• Don't wear your seatbelt
• Honk at everyone and everything for no particular reason
• If you can't be bothered paying for parking, just leave your vehicle in the middle of the road

I don't remember what these things were called. But they were oily and delicious as fuck.

1. (right) Some little bun things that had already been eaten by the time I'd remembered to take a photo, (left) Tofu and blood (in my spoon) soup
2. Steamed then fried pork bun things with soup stuff inside.

God I'm great at explaining things.

Introducing my new baby half-sister; Guo guo

Some jelly in Carrefour

This last one is for Hannah:

Shanghai

Well hey there boys and girls, long time no see.. probably cause I'm in Shanghai, where Facebook and Blogspot are blocked. I can't go on youtube/vimeo and Google maps doesn't work either. However I've penetrated the web to let you know that I am alive.

I think the first thing you notice when you step off the plane in Shanghai is the smell. It's a musty/humid/grimy kind of smell that seeps into your nostrils. The sky is grey. And nothing else. And I can't tell if it's actually always cloudy or if it's the dust/pollution that's hanging over the city.

Also, I'm sick; sniffling and coughing up bits of phlegm. Yum.

Haven't been up to anything tourist-y because I'm here mainly to visit family. I have, however, eaten a shitload of amazingly unhealthy oily sickeningly sweet food.

Sadly, I can't post pictures at the moment because I'm not on my mac and I can't figure out how to insert my memory card into the computer I'm using.... but if I do manage to figure out how to do it, I'll be updating soon... Otherwise, see you in Paris!

Traveller's Block

I've reached the point where everything seems so overwhelming I've been reduced to sitting around and staring into space because my brain can't handle/process what I need to do. That plus the random feelings of shit-I'm-leaving-fuck-shit-balls-what-is-happening has made me extra spacey. Today I went to buy a bouquet of flowers for a friend's 21st and I ended up walking up and down a street 3 times before I walked into a florist.

So now I'm sitting here blankly with my throw, with a birthday I'm meant to be at in half an hour, and my own farewell drinks later on, and I just feel like curling into the fetal position and rocking myself backwards and forwards in the dark because my brain has hit a block. Like writer's block where an author will stand on their head to try find inspiration and stand on the edges of buildings (from what I've drawn from watching Stranger Than Fiction) except I'm a traveller.

God help me.