Australia vs. France

I was looking forward to this day for ages, I brought over so much aussie supporter gear and so far all it had done was sit in my cupboard (what a waste of lugagge space). But all was forgiven after we kicked France 59 - 16! Woohoo! I managed to get cheap tickets (26 euros) and dragged Rachel along who is not a sporty person but with some vodka and an aussie scarf wrapped around her she acted the part! Although she got seduced by some south african guys who made her wear the springboks scraf in the photo!
I was a bit worried at half time, thought I may have to de-aussiefy for the trip home, we finally strated doing good and I rubbed into the frenchmen sitting near us. There was probably a handful of other aussie supporters in the stadium and we were sitting right at the back! Luckily we managed to smuggle some vodka in so could keep warm, ended up drinking it straight coz we couldn't find anywhere to buy coke.
Afterwards, we drunkedly made our way over to Cafe Oz, the australian bar in Paris expecting to find a heap of aussies there celebrating. There weren't a lot of aussies but plenty of booze as you can see from this photo! I love cafe OZ and now that I know its not just a place for bogan aussies to hang out I will be going there more often!
I finally did find one other supporter in the place, I still haven't actually met an australian who is living in Paris. It was a great night, the next day was very hard to handle, had planned on going to Disney land but there was no way I was going to get on a rollercoaster in that state!
Aussi! Aussie! Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!

Starting to feel a lot like Xmas!

Well as you can see the Xmas decorations have strated to go up in Paris, these two photos show the tree in front of Notre Dame being decorated. The Xmas markets are in full go and the ice skating rinks open up this weekend - yay! On Thursday night we ditched french class to sammple some french xmas culture along the Champs Elysees, the smell as you come out of the metro is amazing! I had my first Vin chaud (hot wine) which was alright, I'm going to try the Scandinavian version this weekend which is meant to be a bit sweeter.
The Xmas lights in Paris are beautiful and classic, none of these flashing reindeer and santas (that I've seen) just elegantly decorated trees. This photo was taken lloking towards the Arc de Triumph.
There was a lot of russian influence at the markets with Caviar and vodka shots that you could buy for 3 euro, we settled on some fresh oysters...yummy!
After trauling trhough the markets, we headed off to Montparnasse to see the new Harry Potter film. We ended up only getting a ticket to the late viewing so decided to take the oppurtnity to go up the Montparnasse Tower. The view was amazing and almost worth the 8 euro cost of a glass of wine! You can do a 'tour' which costs about 12euro so you may as well buy a glass of wine and sit by the window to see the Eiffel tower and Paris spread before you! Not the best photo because forgot my camera :(

SNOW

Ok, time for a confession. I have never seen snow EVER, on the tops of the mountains and as 'ice' in a supermarket in SA once but I didn't realise what I was missing!

SO when I saw snow outside my window - the proper flaky, floaty, stay on the ground, not watery SNOW I was out in the cold as quick as I could!
More expereinced snow-addicts told me I was pathetic and that it was only 'kindergarden' snow and I should wait until it gets better. Can't wait to make a snow man!

Just an ordinary night in Paris...

I decided to have a quiet weekend in Paris for a change, my study is actually starting to impact on my social life (luckily only have another 3 weeks left!). I had plans to go out for dinner but as I was coming all the way into Paris, Rach & I decided to go chill on the steps of the Sacre Coeur which has the most gorgeous view of Paris and the best free entertainment.
Armed with a bottle of wine, crackers and the best cheese known to man (cream goat cheese) we spent a few hours whiling away the time until the sun went down. The acts are always pretty funny and apart from the occasional guy trying to sell beer (which we ahve totally nailed - don't pay more than 1 euro!) it is absolute bliss.
I heart Paris, so nice to actually be able to chill out in this gorgeous city. I feel so sorry for the tourists whenever I am just chilling out - you don't get an aooreication for it just passing through!
After finishing our wine, we headed off to a cute little restaurant on the Ile-st-louis, which only holds about 30 people and is cheap and cheerful and away from the touristy crowds - my new place to take visitors!

Wine & Cheese evening

EPF has a group that holds wine tastings for students, the last one was a champagne tasting, the one before was a tasting of wines from Bordeaux but I've only made the one event -wine & cheese matching. I could not miss that! Look how delicious it all looks!
We had six cheeses, three from goats and three from cows and we then had to try and match the wine with one of the cheeses. After 6 glasses of wine (I don't spit) I don't actually remember which cheeses went with which wines and quite frankly didn't care! They are uploading the correct answers so will be able to bring all my knowledge home to show off!

Firenze

After a fairly uneventful bus trip from Rome to Florence, I headed straight for my hostel - another really great place. It was a nice place that was really social and the owner gave us wine from his brothers vineyard. It was also nice that the people there were all around my age, normally the people in backpackers are like 19/20, everyone there was between 24 & 27 which made a nice change.
I was still a bit disappointed at not fitting everything in in Rome so woke up early and was out of the place at about 9am (my train only left at 9pm), ended up getting a bit bored in the afternoon but at least I did everything. First on the list was seeing David. Managed to take an illegal photo of his bum!
This is a photo of the fake David's front which was in one of the many squares.
Next was off to the bridge with the houses on it to look at all the bling, was going to try and buy something but my pockets are not long enough!
I'm pretty sure eveyone who goes to Florence has this photo!
Then it was time for lunch and I decided to go to the Da Vinci museum which had a deal on, get in and a slice of Pizza for 8Euro which I thought was great. They don't do bad pizza in Italy. I really enjoyed the museum-such a nerd! He was a very clever person though to think of all those machines!
After my lunch and a gelato, I decided I was in need of some excercise so instead of taking the bus up the hill in Florence I decided to walk. Trust it to start raining!
But I appreciated the views so much more knowing how high it is!
So I managed to tick everything off on my list so wondered back into town to browse through the leather stalls and picked up some souvenirs. I got bored so ended up taking the bus back up the hill to see Florence in the dark. Was very pretty, I am so glad that I spotaneously decided to do it (photo does not do it justice!)
Hopped back on the train to Paris, had the worst night's sleep thanks to some overweight french guy snoring, it honestly vibrated the cabin. Woke up in a grumpy mood to arrive in Paris late and it was raining. Was NOT happy to be back home!

Roma

So I arrive in Roma at about midday and headed off to find my youth hostel, it was in the best position-walking distance to the main train station and had only been open for 10 days so everything was nice and new. I was really sad and came home early on the first night to have a nice long shower without wearing shoes. It's very sad that showers in youth hostels are better than at 'home'. Since I was travelling alone I decided to go on one of those open-top buses and got a 24 hr pass. It was really great but in hindsight, if I was more prepared I should ahve gone straight to Vatican or Coloseum and got one of the major sites out of the way. But I spent a lovely afternoon exploring Rome, hopped off near the spanish steps and watched the sunset over Rome, was gorgeous!

Then headed to Trevi fountain, where I had the most amazing Pizza for dinner (so so good). Threw a coin over my head into the fountain (I'm not entirely sure what the fountain is meant to bring you...hopefully its good luck!).
Wondered through the shopping district which was bliss by myself, can stop and browse and buy whenever you feel like it, was great and picked up a few winter goodies.
The next day I had grand plans to see the Colosseum and the Vatican in 1 day so woke up nice and early (had another LONG shower) and headed to the station to drop my bags off. Ended up having to wait in a queue for about an hour (thanks terrorists) because now you have to get your bags scanned before you can leave them in the lockers!
Headed straight to the Colesseum, decided to pay the extra 4 euro for an audio guide which meant I could skip the queue too. I thought it was a really smart idea until I got there and there were no more english guides left! Signed up for the guided tour, but had to wait about 45mins for it and since I had paid I was getting my money's worth!
The tour was actually wirth it, learnt so much more about it than you do if you just stroll thoruhg (there isn't actually a lot to see). The ticket gets you into a few other places near like Circus Maximus and another place which I have forgetten about!
Sitting by the fountain in St Peter's Square
Grabbed a Panini for lunch (not as good as Pizza) and headed to catch the bus to the Vatican which ofcourse I had just missed! I htink I got to the Vatican at about 1pm. Coloseum
My bus left at 5pm from some godforsaken station miles away and the queue for the Vatican was so so long (almost around the entire square!). So I made the decision to rather spend the last 3 hours I had exploring the rest of Rome rather than waiting in a queue! And now I have an excuse to go back!
At the Colosseum
Ended up walking all through the little Piazza's and seeign the Pantheon and other famous monuments, my feet were aching by the end of the day but was nice just to chill out. Ending up buying a gorgeous winter coat which I love and got to the bus to Florence on-time which was good!
A different Arc de Triumphe!
Trevi Fountain
Spanish Steps
Sunset from Spanish Steps.

New Job & Trains!

Well, much to my amazement I actually found an internship in France, where I don't ahve to speak much French! yay! I'll be starting a 6 month internship in January at MethoCAD. It is a software company that helps with sit scheduling, especially with regards to cranes and formwork. Here's a short video... Soon Thursday I got to meet a client from Holland who is constructing a harbour and needed to know how many cranes he was going to need. Its a brilliant piece of software and really easy to use, I'll be doing a lot of the client liason (in english!), helping them with problems and also doing a lot of the training in the software which means I get to travel...London and Abu Dhabi were mentioned! YAY! I was a bit nervous about it because I don't really have that much knowledge or experience with buildings but software pretty much does it all for you which is going to be nice and easy :)
After my meeting with my client, I was off to Italy! woohoo! I had booked a sleeper train from Bercy to Roma, it was an overnight train. It was so exciting and had a pretty good sleep, I've always been good at sleeping in cars but this was so much better youy got to stretch out (albeit not much) and there was a dining car (v. exp) so you could at least strech your legs. It beats air travel anyday, you can turn up to the platform 5 minutes before you leave, no security checks, no putting luggage in the hold and then waiting at the other end to pick it up and you arrive smack bang in the middle of the city and don't need to get from some godforsaken airport like an hour away into the city. I have been converted to train travel!

Paris BNP Masters

Yay, for organised friends, we managed to get tickets to the Paris Masters for the 2nd round. I'm not the biggest tennis fan but it was actually quite exciting and nice to be there live. We watched the eventual winner of the comp Monfils -claim to fame!
We got to watch 2 matches, the first was brilliant, lots of douce and tie breakers. The last match was a bit boring to watch but still good.
Can you beleive it was a no alcohol event, they hdd beer but it was without alcohol! I doubt this would happen in Aus where sport goes hand in hand with getting pissed. I'm crossing my fingers for the rugby next week!

Vincennes Weekend

Another quiet weekend in Paris with no plans apart from just enjoying ourselves. I went over to Rach's place with her au pair family for dinner and drinks which were meant to end up with us getting drunk and hitting the town. That never happened but it was nic enight in drinking wine and chatting! The party plans were put on hold for Saturday night.
Saturday it rained all bloody day but we still went for a long walk through the woods of Vincennes which were amazing with all the colours. Such a sucker for orange leaves reflected on water...you guys must be getting so sick of seeing these photos of trees!
On the way back we walked through the Chateau de Vincennes which is ANOTHER old castle(must be gettign sick of seeing these too now!). It has its own church and is also quite pretty and tourists come to see it but when it is on your own doorstop it is not such a big deal!
So after a nice late pizza lunch, we started getting ready to go out so we wouldn't miss happy hour! Made to the bar in Vincennes with a few hours to spare and laid into the 'cheap' cocktails. After a while we were accosted by a french army boy - there is an army base just around the corner (nice!), they broke the sad news to us that happy hour didn't work on the weekends :( Ofcourse we had chosen the most expensive cocktails thinking we were getting the biggest bargains - ah well win some you lose some! Who knew Metro poles could have another use!
After priming ourselves on not so cheap cockatils we were off to Bastille (apparently the party place!), without any other information we walked into pretty much the first bar we saw since it was raining! Started chatting to a mildy cute french boy who gave us his seat. After another few cocktails and some chatting in broken french (although I think I am quite fluent when I am drunk!) we decided to go with mildly cute french boy to pick up some of his friends (who lived at a hospital!) and head off to a club that he knew about.
Turned out his friends weren't keen, so we took the last metro home (last metro is so much later than the last RER - I want to live IN Paris!). Sunday was spent in bed, eating McDonalds, watching movies and generally recuperating from our hangovers - French vodka is nasty! How normal is my life now...

Chantilly

The 1st of November is a public holiday here -woohoo, my first short week and gave us(Rach & I) the oppurtunity to explore some the places in Ile-de-France (the area surrounding Paris. After much searching on the internet we decided on Chantilly. The place famous for Chatilly cream and Chantilly lace.
The Chateau at Chantilly also includes a hippodrome (racetrack) and the most gorgeous stables which hold the live horse museum. When we were walking from the train station we mistook them for the actual Chateau (crazy - these people loved their horses!).
The stables have a number of breeds of horses that you can come and visit as well as all different sorts of tack from all over the world. We also saw a dressage demontsration which was a little bit disappointing but over Xmas they have a much bigger show with costumes and the like. We weren't allowed to take photos but I was able to take this sneaky one
The actual Chateau was gorgeous, just like a fairy princess castle with a moat. It looked like you could actually live there, it was so so pretty! Inside was a museum, which I am sure would be very interesting if you were into art and the like- apparently there are paintings inside from Raphael & Botticelli. Not sure I care or would have noticed!

By far the best part of the day was wondering through the immaculate gardens and the woods. I am sure you are all totally sick of seeing pictures of trees with yellow leaves. It was so pretty though with the reflections on the canals and little water ways. I'm sure it would be lovely in summer to, they have boats on the canals and there is a maze made of hedges and a little play-village similiar to the Petit Trianon at Versailles. Guess what else we found! Wallabies in Paris, poor little things they must have been sooo cold! It was so nice to see them though, they are pretty unique and cream Australia - I was so proud :)

The weather was still decent enough to have a picnic (probably the last we'll have for a while) so we lay on the grass in a clearing in the woods and ate our baguettes near the wallabies, it was so nice :)
Rach & I had an awesome day, so very different from Paris and yet only about 45 mins away on the RER and it turns out we didn't even need a ticket to get there because there are no machines at the station in Chantilly - will be a very cheap day next time. We won't be paying for seeing the inside of teh Chateau or the horses, just a nice picnic in the park next to the roo's!