Saturday 17 December 2011

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Decorations on the Champs Elyssees


There's a well-known Christmas carol about chestnuts roasting on an open fire and yule tide carols being sung by a fire, and growing up in suburban Brisbane I used to dream about the day I would get to experience  a white Christmas of my own.

The idea of white streets made quiet by softly falling snow, lit up Christmas trees gleaming through frosted windows, cosy nights and days spent cuddled up on a chair next to a fire and all the other cliches used to fill me with longing, especially when Down Under we were entering into the third month of sweltering swimming weather and I knew there were at least another three ahead of me.

As a child I used to cut out snow balls and stick them up on my bedroom window to help out with the daydream, so it seems pretty damn surreal that at 27 I'm finally about to have a Christmas in a European winter.

All across Paris there are Christmas markets popping up - and I've already decided there's no better way to waste an hour or so than by wandering around Montmartre or up the Champs Elysees and browsing the gift and food stalls while cupping a mug of Vin Chaud to help keep some feeling in my fingers. Bright Christmas decorations and lights are lining the streets and brightening up shop fronts, transforming an already beautiful city into a fairyland - with a side bonus of a steady supply of Christmas lollies and drinks.

But despite the daily joy I'm feeling when I ride a Velibe home from work (and constantly trying not to ride into the gutter because I'm distracted by the sparkling lights up side streets) because the realisation of this dream is finally here, I've also discovered the lack of the scent of frangipanis and suncream wafting on the hot air, summer storms and way too many mangoes and plums means in the end not actually feeling a whole lot like Christmas for me. A problem I'm attempting to rectify by the constant playing of Christmas carols and movies, much to The Boy's amusement.

It's strange how we can want something for years and years only to have it dawn on us that although the realisation of it makes us happy, we already had everything we wanted.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Wednesday 30 November 2011

Oh happy days!


Recently I had a whole day free and decided to drag The Boy to Versailles for a little day trip and I fell in love with it all over again.

I did visit Versailles the last time I was in Europe four years ago and had been astounded then by the beauty and extravagance of the gardens alone, but visiting the palace in high summer meant it was next to impossible to actually get inside any of the buildings unless you were prepared to wait for hours before shuffling through the packed rooms, something I really wasn't keen to do.

But at the moment there is a weird lull in the tourist season in Paris and so it was possible to not only walk straight into the palace but to also take the time to take in the beauty surrounding me and wow, was it well worth it.

The day was freezing and the gardens were quiet, muted in soft greys, oranges and browns but walking around between the palace, the Petit Trianon and the Grand Trianon they were so quiet it was possible to not come across another soul for long stretches of time.

The royal palace dominates the grounds, with the new golden gates visible from the main street as you walk up from the train station and inside there were rooms which took my breath away. There was the Royal Chapel with the exquisitely painted ceilings, the Sun King's rooms which were furnished in completely burnished gold tapestries and the Queen's rooms which were still decorated in the green, pink and yellow fleur de lys Marie Antoinette chose (along with the hidden door in her bedroom through which she fled the revolutionists).

But most amazing of all was the Hall of Mirrors. I had heard a lot about how amazing this famous hall was and so had gone in slightly cynical, I mean a room is just a room even if it does have a lot of mirrors to show the wealth and power of the aristocracy. But it did actually take my breath away. There was a floor to ceiling mirror to match each of the windows overlooking the main gardens, huge chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and walls and floored made out of a dark red marble. Just walking along it was impressive but when you tried to imagine walking the length of it to have an audience with the king and queen I understood how intimidating it would be.

True to form, while also impressed with the beauty and the artworks within the palace, the boy was disgusted by the extravagance in which the royals had lived, even saying at one point 'no wonder there was a revolution!'

Heading out of the palace we made for the Grand Trianon, restored by Napoleon and made his home which was also very beautiful, although in a more restrained fashion. However it was Marie Antoinette's domain which stole my breath away. A miniature farm built only 20 minutes walk away from the palace it was supposed to be a place of respite for the Queen who was stifled by court life. All the buildings were built in miniature with small paddocks for animals surrounding them.  There is a tiny tower near the even smaller dairy and little vineyards and rose gardens for the ladies to walk in.

The Boy and I had walked all the way from the Grand Trianon to an entrance near the farms however when we got there we discovered it had closed for the Winter season only two days before and now the only entrance was from gardens back near the Grand Trianon. Not quite defeated we decided to do the only true logical, Australian thing - jump the empty moat and climb the stone wall into the area.

Hey you can take a person out of Australia...

Wednesday 16 November 2011

A whole new page


I love books.
I love opening one and disappearing for hours and days. I love the sense of completion and satisfaction I feel after closing the cover of an exceptional story or feeling like I've been lifted out of my skin.
Back in Australia I could spend hours wandering around a book store and was in seventh heaven when it dawned on me that as a journalist I could ask for a copy of any new release from a publisher to review - and they'd let me.

My bookcases lived to bear witness to this obsession too, with a huge assortment of paperbacks stacked every which way on the shelves and more often than not also knee deep on the floor too.

So perhaps it's a blessing in disguise to be unable to walk into any book store and start browsing because I'd be forced to ditch most of the clothes in my backpack before the year was out.

The Boy is well aware of my tendency to over-indulge in my love of literature, so much so that while packing for France I was told in no uncertain terms that I had to limit myself to 2 books (including and travel guides I wanted to take with me) because he wouldn't be lugging around my books for a year.

Somehow on my last trip to Paris I failed to discover Shakespeare and Co Book store which is a famous English-language book store near Notre Dame but this time around I made a beeline straight for it and was in heaven immediately. It's exactly how a book store should be: inside an old-fashioned house with a tiny staircase the entire interior of the store is lined with cramped, overstuffed shelves that are packed with every genre imaginable, there are little nooks with comfy chairs where you can sit and read, play chess or even the piano if you wanted too.

Suffice it to say whenever The Boy and I are anywhere near Shakespeare and Co I have to ask him to hold onto my wallet or to please please please stop me before I run loose in the store and so far, so good.

For now at least.

Tuesday 8 November 2011

A touch of home


It's been nearly two months since I packed my bags and jetted off to Europe for a year of travel, and although I am starting to tire of living out of a backpack I am excited daily about the different sights and sounds of my new home.
 I am also yet to experience any kind of homesickness beyond daily pangs of  wishing such and such a person was with me to see/hear/taste what I am seeing/hearing/tasting.

But this week I had my first taste of longing for home.

The Boy and I dragged some friends along to see The Cat Empire at Olympia - the first time I've ever seen them live and can I just say wow! - but the thing that struck me the most was after being surrounded by a sea of French and English accents for weeks was how sentimental I felt hearing Australian accents on the stage while I danced to the songs I boogied to throughout my university days.

For a few brief minutes I had my first longing for home and for warm sunshine and lazy, hazy days spent splashing around at the beach.
Come the morning though I was still incredibly happy to be somewhere where chomping on a pain au chocolat for breakfast and a bottle of wine drunk with lunch is completely acceptable.

Tuesday 1 November 2011

I wondered while I wandered.

Exploring is one of my favourite things to do.
Just a whole day in a new city with some comfy shoes, my MP3 player and a decent map and I'm set. I'll head off and intentionally get myself lost just to see what I see along the way.
The Boy is even more of an explorer, taking every opportunity that comes his way to find a new way home or to a new destination, going off what he calls his 'vibe'.

So I guess it's only natural that we would jump at the chance of using our first day off after a month of study to explore our new home (and coincidentally say good bye to our first home in Paris before we moved into the tiniest of tiny apartments).

Paris in Autumn is so incredibly beautiful that it's easy to walk around all day and then when the cold and the tiredness finally takes over to find a snug brasserie to hole up in with a book and a glass of wine.

Autumn leaves on the Seine

Friendly natural art

French delicacies nom nom nom

A rare quiet day at the Arc de Triomphe

Out and about in the Jardins d'Acclimation

Wine at Place Victor Hugo
The first time I came to Europe, right after I graduated from University, I was in such a frenzy to see everything and experience everything that I would leave my hostel every morning with a long list of things I wanted to see. But after a month or two I discovered that although I was ticking a lot of things off my list, I wasn't really enjoying my travels and sightseeing. It was a little hard to focus on Eiffel Tower or the Colosseum when they were in front of me because I was mentally calculating just how much more I had to run around and see still that day.

This time around I'm determined to remedy that. My trusty Lonely Planet guide has been hidden at the back of my cupboard, only to be pulled out when I am heading out to a new, completely unexplored part of the city and am searching for some inspiration - much to the relief of The Boy.


Saturday 29 October 2011

A is for Apple

Stop the press and buckle your seat belts. As I write this I have recently become a *gulp* qualified English as a Foreign Language teacher.

Now let me be frank. I have always greatly admired and been in awe of people who can speak more than one language fluently, but it has only recently struck me just how lucky I am that my native language is English.
Not being one of the bilingual set despite being a mad keen traveller, I decided teaching English during my year of craziness would be the best way for me to earn a crust of bread in France - yes I'm aware a more intelligent person would have relocated to a country where they speak the language - but I have 2 words in return for you: wine and cheese!

In simple terms I can look forward to spending about 20 hours each week attempting to teach the ridiculousness of the English language - both written and spoken to equally unwitting students.
And my god, if I had to attempt to comprehend the why's and wherefores of some of the inane rules English has I would slam the book shut and never open it again.

 But I can sympathise with my students due to my own wrestling with learning French. Throughout my travels I have always attempted to learn how to say at least 'hello', 'goodbye', 'please' and 'thank you' in the language of wherever I am, often resulting after a few weeks in a weird mish-mash of words bouncing around my head which tends to jumble up after a wine or two. But after a month here my few carefully learned French phrases aren't really cutting it and I am facing the prospect of actually knuckling down and learning French - something easier said than done as it turns out.

Hard at work in the classroom.
In complete contrast with the gruff reputation of Parisian's refusing to speak English it's actually becoming a common occurrence that The Boy's and my French questions and responses are greeted with amused giggles and English responses; in particular from the owner of my local brasserie who after three weeks of daily visits now greets my entrance into the cafe with the announcement of my regular order in English. Not quite what I expected but it does give me the warm and fuzzies. And there is always the saving grace of the friendly waiter at the same cafe who teaches both The Boy and I how to correctly ask for things and puts up with my halting French, complimenting me when it improves slowly.

But there are also days when I can have entire conversations in French or recognise the majority of words in the newspaper headlines on the news stands and I skip home, light hearted and singing inside.
There is the beginning of the faintest glimmer of light at the end of a very long tunnel.

Sunday 16 October 2011

Eye spy me an Aussie

There's a certain knack, I think, while travelling to correctly picking the nationality of your fellow travellers.
Is the super stylish woman walking down the street French or Italian? And it's fairly probable that guy with the bum bag and the map is from the States.
But I've found it's impossibly easy to pick out a fellow Aussie, both by sight and sound.
At the moment in France it's cooling down, the days are getting shorter and the nights cold. But only an Aussie it seems would react to this by simply pulling on a beanie and jumper, hunching against the cold but leaving their board shorts and pluggers firmly in place.
Walking around the streets of Paris I've even turned this into a game, picking out a potential fellow Australian for their unseasonable attire and walking as close to them as I can (without being, you know, even more creepy than I'm already being) to check if I'm right. So far the odds have been in my favour.
But I find it's the Aussies I can identify by their voices well before I see them that make me cringe and wish I could pull out a charmingly French phrase to hide behind.
On a recent trip to Amsterdam I had this exact experience.
I was walking down a beautiful street full of restaurants and the odd coffeeshop when suddenly, out of the darkness, came a voice yelling 'fucking this, fucking that' as loud as possible.
Now don't get me wrong, I love spending an afternoon in the beer garden of a pub nursing a beer, and can out-swear most people when I'm in the mood, but in this instance I wanted nothing more than to give the guy a swift shove into the canal to shut him up.
But it struck me the next day that if this had been a Brisbane street I would have just rolled my eyes and kept walking, or possibly, that person swearing at the top of their lungs could even be me.
Why is it that in a different context what I accept at home becomes immediately repulsive somewhere else?

Sunday 9 October 2011

The Pursuit of Madness

I've finally done it.
After 5 years spent slugging away at a uni degree, followed by nearly as long spent finding my feet and attempting to build a name in the small world of journalism in Brisbane I've thrown it all in.
But not just that I've also moved to the other side of the world for a year to a country where I don't speak the language and can't even work in my chosen profession.
Before you ask, yes I've been told I'm crazy and there have been more than a few moments in the past week after the holiday phase wore off when I've been inclined to agree.
 But like it or lump it, I'm here for the long haul, with my patient (and sometimes not so patient) guy along for the ride.
Paris. The city of lights, love and inspiration for countless writers over the centuries. I'm hoping it will help refresh my mind and creativity as well. Or at the very least help me do more than order coffee in poor French.

Wish me luck!