I love autumn!

Here we go!

This is the moonrise:

This is the sunset:

This is the moon and a big fountain I found near me:
Duck!
A beautiful sunrise which cast pink light everywhere when I got up!

Alas my camera failed to capture how truly green this grass was! (It had rained in the morning!)



I loved the colours and the shapes here:

I loved these colours too:
And this chimney!

Shapes!


Snails...

Crazy critter!

Snail fail!

Last Friday we were in the office on our own, with nothing to do and in grave danger of becoming more than a little bored and so I challenged my colleague Chris to a game of great skill: throwing screwed up bits of paper into a bin across the room. I’d forgotten quite how terrible I am at throwing (there have been a few near misses when he asks to borrow some lip balm and I chuck the tin at him – note: at him, rather than to him) – Mike even took me down Worthing beach once and we spent an ENTIRE afternoon trying to stop me throwing like such a girl but to no avail… Anyway, it was pretty even (1-0 to Chris is as even as it's ever going to be!) until I got a phone call and had to stop and then he scored about a million and was dancing about in my face whilst I was trying to speak with this guy in India! After that the game got ridiculous, I think we ended it when I finally scored two and Chris had lost count…

And then I had the most spectacular walk home passing beautiful Parisian buildings and monuments bathed in the setting sunlight with golden haze on the street corners and I strolled along the Seine with the leaves all changing colour to find the boat we’ll be staying in for my birthday. There down by the water’s edge I watched the sunset and the moon rise up out of the dusk and just as I turned to face the Eiffel Tower, it lit up before my eyes! Altogether it had to be the most beautiful evening I’ve had so far here!

Saturday I went with Gaby (a lovely German girl from the foyer) and her boyfriend to a science/natural history museum that had opened up all the buildings usually closed off to the public! I saw the most spectacular butterfly collection and sat in on a lecture about the amphibian populations in France and studied bacteria and other tiny things through a microscope. I did bring my camera only to find that it had no battery left!

As I came home I got caught in a positively tropical thunderstorm, which proceeded to get worse and worse until I had to duck into a little café, where I ate duck (complete with impression from the waiter!) and the most beautiful light fried potato discs!

Sunday I went to a fantastic exhibition at the Petit Palais with Gaby, Reporters sans frontiers, which was a collection of photos taken by a father, and daughter who were French photojournalists. The sunshine came out just as we went in and so we decided to make the most of it and go for a little stroll. We found leaves and stuck them into the trunk of a tree, even trying to get conkers to stay in there too and called it the most beautiful art ever made and then left it there for the rest of the world to enjoy. I’ll post the pictures when I get them!

Then that night we went to this INCREDIBLE crêperie (Laura – think Belinda’s tea rooms but pancakes!) again, I got pics on Gaby’s camera…

Last week, having had some problems with the emailing systems (run by a programme called Neolane) I asked our publisher what was going on and her just replied that he didn’t know but that:

“Parfois Neolane eats a big red candle!”

And then this week I got an email asking for instructions with a pretty picture at the bottom – you know what it was!

This weekend I went and sat in the Jardins du Luxembourg and enjoyed the autumn. I’d forgotten autumn had a smell! There were the most beautiful colours and I took a seat on a quiet path next to a big tree and read my book (Dexter!) looking up every time the sun came out. It did my soul good! That night I went out with Amel and then today (after my second choir session!) Anne-Laure took me out to dinner!

I ate snails.

I’m pretty sure I’ve had them before in garlic and thought them to be alright and I was so determined to like them and the first mouthful was ok, I noted a distinct earthy undertone which only became stronger the more I ate until halfway through I truly felt I was eating compost and had to stop! I also had a salad with eggs, cheese, ham and special fried potatoes which was delicious but I couldn’t finish. Afterwards, we wandered round Montparnasse cemetery and admired the autumn some more.

I’ll stick all the pictures in another post!

Grown-ups: I checked and I DEFINITELY don't like apple pie

Hmmm... I can't really remember what I did this week.

Oh, well on Monday the scary tattooed chef man was serving up the dinner I wanted and so in order to make friends with him and discover that when you get to know him he is in fact lovely, I attempted to strike up a conversation with him and asked him how his weekend went. He said it was good and so I said "What did you do?" And I kid you not he looked me right in the eyes and with a scary laugh said "You don't want to know" and handed me my dinner!

(Lancaster girls: I'm guessing he raped someone and threw them in a ditch but for REAL.)

I am no closer to being any less terrified of him.

Apart from that... work was alright - more to do towards the end of the week. Ooh, there were strikes all week and so I got a bit of a lie-in as my usual train from St Lazare had been cancelled and the first available one was just before ten!

I'm struggling more and more with sharing a room and lack of personal space - and would DEFINITELY appreciate prayers for it. I also feel homesick but have a friend from uni passing through Paris next weekend so that should be nice!

Friday I forgot to attach a file to an email and the OTHER non-english-speaking person at the publishers pointed it out to me, saying "You ate a big red candle, don't ya?"!!!

I ate the most delicious bread and fresh bread so far last night and enjoyed every last mouthful! It was accompanied by boursin (original), compté cheese, lettuce, saucisson and the last little bit was smothered in redcurrant jelly! Oh and I also was at the boulangerie in the morning and must have mispronounced "croissant" as the man looked at me and indicating a different pastry replied "BlahBLAHblah?"

Seeing this as an excellent occasion to try something new I nodded vigorously and said "OUI! Oui!"

It turned out to be apple pie.

I still don't like apple pie.

In my defense, I ate about half of it and all the pastry round the edge but the appley mush inside proved sadly to be a little much.

Thursday I had a lovely evening chatting to Laura and Jess and then Mum and Dad. During this time I was playing with a tealight I'd lit. First I was melting old candle wax into it and when I'd finished doing that I was playing with a match (I kept snuffing the candle out from laughing so kept needing to relight it) this led to several minor burns but then I had to stop because I'd dropped the match in it and couldn't get it out. Half an hour later the candle flame starts getting a little bigger so whilst Mum was talking I tried to blow it out. It got bigger. So I tried to blow it out again. Again, this only fuelled the flame. So I tried with a REALLY big breath. The flame got REALLY big. The thought then occurred to me that this candle was perhaps a little out of control and that it was probably time to put it out. So I nipped into the bathroom and turned the tap on it to extinguish the flame. As I did this, I was vaguely aware of a small voice at the back of my head saying - this isn't a good idea, don't you remember the uni safety demonstrations, doesn't water make it worse?

It turned out that this voice turned out to be right. There was a huge noise and a VERY LARGE amount of big fire (I think I almost wet myself!) and then the flame went out, but the water and molten wax were boiling furiously making quite a noise.

It turns out that Mathilde had heard the death noises emanating from the bathroom and looking up from her laptop said "What was that?" - I replied that I was just putting a candle out and that it was ok, and then turned to reassure my parents (who had also heard the death noises) that all was well and that the candle was now out (which it was!)

Also, last night I was so absorbed in the delicious bread that I crossed the road on a red light but it's confusing here because the red light at the top was a pedestrian one and the green light at the bottom is for cars and so my head just hadn't fully registered and I was in the middle of the road with a car right by my legs with the middle-aged couple inside looking at me confused and I thought "why are they so impatient to go?" so I turned and took a long hard look at the lights and it genuinely was a two-second time delay for me to process that it was me who was in the wrong! I very quickly apologised wide-eyed and beat a hasty retreat to the other side!

And then today I went to a swisher launderette with Mathilde and wandered round a beautiful Saturday market whilst we waited for our laundry to do and then spent the afternoon in the Centre Pompidou, fretting about my coursework...

...I think I'm going to go and find the Houseboat we're staying in for my birthday!

Pretty lights, sunshine and sorbet!

So, last week I went to La Belle Ronde and ate a Bistrot:

Hot goat's cheese, lardons, salad and tomato with a yummy dressing!! Perfect winter warmer!

I went to see Trop Loin Pour Toi (I think in English it's called "Going the Distance") with Marion (the girl I met at the Palais Royal) on Saturday night and we then met up with her friend Valerie (who also studied languages and worked in England and Madrid!) and went to go to Nuit Blanche.

I think they do this in lots of major cities across Europe but for one night, places stay open all night and the city centre is turned into a massive exhibition with pieces of art put up all about. I think we failed quite spectacularly as we all neglected to look it up in detail and so didn't know what was where and just ended up wandering about but this was the town hall:

It said "love the differences" in lots of different languages!

And there was a ridiculously long queue to get into Notre Dame for what as far as I could make out was an organ concert - don't get me wrong, I was interested, just not two hour queue interested!

And Chris tells me he managed to find a car with a chandelier floating on a pond...

Everywhere was just packed out with people and they were all over the roads and everyone was moving quite slowly, there were lights and dancers and music and delicious smells and cars slowly trying to push through the crowds on the roads and as midnight approached we were tiredness began to set in and so we began to head back home.

The week at work was hard. It was dark and cold, people around me were having big arguments over ridiculously petty stuff and I felt decidedly homesick. However I went and saw Moi Moche et Mechant or "Despicable Me" with Mathilde on Wednesday for her birthday and laughed a lot and by Friday the sunshine and warmth had made a welcome reappearance and I had a spéciale:

This contained ham, emmental, onions, mushrooms, egg, salad and tomato. I ordered it with the full intention of ordering a sweet crêpe after but found that it was indeed enough!

Then Saturday I went to try and sort out a money transfer that appeared to not have worked the week before and as I stood in the queue to get to the very bored and irritated-looking clerk, Karine walked by full of sunshine and exclaimed "Sophie! Comment ça va?" greeting me warmly and leading me to her office saying she'd tried to get hold of me this week to help sort out the very thing I'd come for! She then proceeded to transfer the money in 5 seconds flat.

I love her.

Then I went to the park above the train station and sat and sunbathed and read more of my difficult book which I'm now finding easier and more interesting (nothing at all to do with the fact that a Sophie has just appeared in the story!) and then met Li and went to the art shop. (I promised I'd give her some art lessons as she never got to have any in China!) Armed with the basic tools we came out and walked past my favourite little ice-creamerie.

"Oooh! Amorino! - Is it good?" Li asked

haha... Is it good? She asked!

I let the ice cream do the talking.

I went for a small pot of cherry, mango and lemon sorbet:

(Actually I think I may have found myself there the weekend before having a pot of dark chocolate, pistachio ice creams and cherry sorbet! I DO love it there!)

Then we went back to the Atlantic gardens above the train station (not many people know about it and it's big and spacious but quieter than the other parks which are just PACKED!) There I attempted to explain how to sketch a tree, then realised I had really chosen something quite difficult so gave her my water bottle to draw, but that had loads of reflections and was also difficult so then I got my umbrella out. This was a good choice but I think she'd had enough by that point!

Anyway, the afternoon was lovely and we sat and chatted and drew and ate the best sandwiches in the world (fresh warm baguette with brique au lait cheese and saucisson and rocket!) which I'd had the foresight to make earlier! There were also these kids playing a hide and seek-type game next to us and kept trying to hide behind us - Li very obligingly moved herself and her bag better to conceal them and we were delighted when they won!

Saturday evening I went to a youth group at church that I'd been invited to, expecting teenagers but getting 20 somethings but the leaders were two hours late! We sat and chatted and sang and got to know one another (there were two girls from Mexico!!) and when Anne and Mathieu finally arrived they came with delicious lasagne and chocolate cake so I forgave them!

Then today, to make the most of the sunshine I went to Montmartre and sat on the hill in front of the Sacre Coeur writing letters all afternoon, basking in the heat and taking in the spectacular view (along with all the other tourists) and marvelling at the big blue sky (I miss big skies in this city!) and then a little mini-festival struck up with drummers and music and comedy and dancing - it was such a treat!