Observations on Paris 2

1) French people write "ahah" instead of "haha" in texts. This makes me feel profoundly uncomfortable.

2) Wear any weight gain with pride, as a testament to all the great wine and cheese you eat.

3) Parties never really get going before 3AM.

4) "Le goûter", or the after-school snack, is practically a religion here. Expect tears if this is forgotten.

5) Always assume that everything in Paris is covered in urine. Hand sanitiser is a must.

6) Public toilets do exist here but are NOT worth the risk. Instead, walk into the nearest café with an air of impatience and pretend to be a paying customer. Confidence is key! This week I convinced a waiter that he was going mad as he'd " taken my order five minutes ago".

7) "talons" (high heels) and Parisian streets do not a happy couple make. Embrace your real height and stop pretending to be glamorous.

8) The word for lawyer and avocado is the same.

9) Always avoid the stretch of land from the Eiffel Tower to Palais de Chaillot. If you must cross the Seine use Pont de Bir-Hakeim.

10) Nothing prepares you for the immense patriotism and pride you feel when French people talk about how great M+S Food is.

Jardin du Luxembourg

Soldiers, fashion and beaucoup de champagne

I can't believe an entire week has gone by! Time flies when you're rushed off your feet, and with the last of this years' beautiful weather (I think) it was great to be out and about. A bit of context on the weather: August was a complete write-off for Paris, so on the advice of friends here I brought zero summer clothes with me from England. Sod's law prevailed, and it's been 20 degrees or more almost every day this month. On Sunday I went to look around Ecole Militaire for the end of the JEP weekend, having walked past it twice a day for the last month.

They had a great exhibition about France during WW2, which naturally created the opportunity for old ladies in 1940s garb to hand out some sort of nut paste on crackers to all of the passers-by. I believe my reaction was "Oui, c'est....interessant." There were lots of young soldiers in Charles de Gaulle hats too so I wasn't arguing with that. 

I also had my first brush with the fashion world this week. As it's Fashion Week, it's a prime opportunity for sartorial supremos to stalk celebrities, take 'street style' photos and try to blag their way into the shows. I was not one of these supremos, but I happened to be at Les Invalides as there was a show going on (I can assure you, it was Napoleon that drew me there, not the clothes). I really fitted in, attired as I was in my stylish work wardrobe: jeans, trainers and a Primark T shirt. Regardless of this, I acquired a free goody bag and enough dirty looks to last a lifetime. I was surprised at the amount of people who came dressed to the nines, acted as if they owned the place, and then left when the show began as they hadn't actually been invited. My favourite moment was watching the sheer confusion of two Buddhist monks as people swarmed around them, asking where their outfits were from. Nonetheless, I left happy, having watched countless fashionistas fail to walk on the cobblestones in their outrageous shoes. Très chic! 

I truly let myself down at the Musee Rodin - the most cultural thing I did there was Instagram 'Le Penseur'.  I know very little about sculpture, but the house itself was stunning and had great topiary (I'm sad to say, this inspired many bush jokes). Much more in my comfort zone was the aforementioned Les Invalides trip. I'm always down to visit Napoleon and his 200-year-old stuffed horse, and this time there was a great Charles de Gaulle exhibition on. Enlightening as this was, my highlight was the French spelling of Khrushchev, Khrouchtchev, although this is probably my "weird Soviet Union side" coming out, rather than actually being funny. 

Friday night was two ends of the fun spectrum. Fun: VIP entry into Le Milliardaire (a happening Parisian club, I'm told), champagne bottle service, and way more food than I anticipated, all free of charge with my crazy girlfriends. Not fun: wearing heels on a night out in Paris, wandering around aimlessly for three hours waiting for the first metro home at 6AM, the lack of eateries open at the totally reasonable hour of 4.30AM, and of course, Saturday morning. Ouch. (photo stolen from Natalie)

I paid my first visit to two charming Parisian parks this weekend: Jardin du Luxembourg and Buttes-Chaumont. The former was breathtaking and I felt like I'd walked straight into the Belle Epoque: people were promenading, judging each others' outfits, listening to music from the bandstand, and generally enjoying the afternoon. The outfits were different, but the atmosphere remained. The latter was, like so much of Paris, a testament to Napoleon III's vision for the city. I was so awe-struck that I forgot my camera (this is a lie, I was just too lazy to take photos). 

Next week: starting at language school and the arrival of autumn in Paris!  

Musée Rodin

La Sorbonne

"I knew that hand when it was a nobody"

Bonjour from another crazy week in Paris! The weather's been holding up and summer is still here in full force (apart from the one thunderstorm we had this week which caused pandemonium at the school gates). Exploring my local area (read: figuring out where to buy cheap booze and pizza) is very high on my priorities list, and this week I was not disappointed. In the food capital of the world, with French haute cuisine on every boulevard and avenue, we of course took in the delights of a meal deal at a pizza place. There were generous portions of wine, pizza and tiramisu, and a good time was had by all. 

A girly lunch near the Palais Garnier got off to a weird start when Lizzy's hand was filmed for a TV segment. I hope fame doesn't go to its head. 

We also know how to take a great photo. So graceful, so composed, and the view of the opera house in the background is amazing! I get the feeling that terrible photography will be a recurring theme this year. 

The lunch was good anyway! And the opera house (and all of the cars in front of it) was looking great. This week was a week of firsts: the first time I caved and actually bought and prepared a mango, instead of just going to M+S Food, the first time I ran across Paris, far too full of cheese, in 26 degree heat, to get to the school gates on time, and the first and last time I accept an invitation to a "party" from a group of strangers on a bridge. This isn't as sinister as it sounds! But nonetheless, my idea of a fun Friday night is not sitting on a strip of grass by the Seine with a lot of stoners. Also, boomboxes still exist, apparently. Who knew? 

This weekend  is Les Journées Européennes du Patrimoine, where loads of the buildings which aren't usually open to the public open their doors. I took full advantage of this and went for a look around La Sorbonne. There will be a complete photo spam of this later because it was so great. Anyone who knows me knows that I get all excited over anything to do with oak panelling, cloisters, and Latin, so today was really something. I even went to a public lecture that was being offered on the history of the university, which was not in English and French as advertised, but solely in rapid French, and over an hour long. I'm sure what the lecturer was talking about was very interesting, and I'm also sure that I have a very detailed knowledge of the lecture theatre's ceiling now. 

In true semi-tourist/semi-local form, I got totally lost, and wandered around the Latin Quarter "exploring" when actually looking for a metro station. Somehow I managed to find my way back to one of my favourite places in Paris, Place de la Sorbonne. Which also meant I'd spent over an hour walking in a very large circle. I can't really complain when the views are like this though.

Montmartre

On Sunday, I visited Montmartre. Terrible photography ensued. Highlights included my first macaron since arriving here (vanilla, obv), finding reasonably priced pain d'epices, and a really terrifying taxidermy shop. Montmartre is very hilly and very crowded, but the atmosphere is always very jovial.

'Things That Shouldn't Be On Your Bucket List', the Guardian

Observations on Paris

1) Au pairs do not fit in with the yummy mummies at the school gates. We are the ones in jeans and trainers, they are the ones in Chanel suits with perfect makeup, Celine bags and an air of superiority.

2) Cheese is the best thing ever. It should and will be consumed after every meal.

3) There are three things the French aren't keen on: feminism, personal hygiene, and the English. This year should be interesting.

4) When driving in Paris, you should always remember that traffic lights are more advisory than compulsory. Trust me, the driver always knows best, especially when there are multiple children crossing the road.

5) Avoid the Champs-Elysées at all costs, for the sake of your health and your wallet.

6) It's totally reasonable that French products are cheaper to buy in England than in Paris.

7) When riding the metro, listen out for how terribly the French can mangle an English word. My favourite is "Franklin D. Roosevelt".

8) You get proper drunks in Paris. Real, sitting on a kerb, paper bag of wine in hand, swaying around and singing drunks.

9) Apparently, it's an Asian custom to have wedding photos taken in Paris. Every day on the street/bridge/metro I see couples in wedding dress, complete with entourage. My two queries are: how much must it cost to ship all of that wedding attire? And why take photos in the least photogenic spots in all of Paris?

10) French people make a very odd noise frequently. It sounds like "'op!" and can be used for a variety of functions, such as "allez, 'op!" or "here you go, 'op!" ... It's weird.

New city/house/job/everything

I arrived in Paris just under two weeks ago, a total mess after lugging two suitcases on the metro in 25 degree heat. Luckily, the area I'm living in is lovely, packed to the rafters with traditional Haussmann buildings (one of which I live in). This presents unique challenges while also being pretty awesome. Pros: the building is gorgeous - wood floors, high ceilings, stunning views. Cons: Coming home at 1.30AM and trying to be quiet on aforementioned wooden floors, wondering if the turn-of-the-century lift is going to kill me, having only one plug socket in my room. I never imagined I'd suffer from a surplus of power adaptors. That being said, this is a nice view to wake up to:

My job is how I spend most of my time, it's the thing that allows me to be here, and it's also what I'll write about least. Professionalism, guys! But yes, I am an au pair. I moved in to this apartment with a family I had never met and now look after their children on a daily basis. I bet all of my friends at Fresher's Week are so jealous right now. But, I have a lot of free time to explore the city and the opportunity (not always taken up) of practicing my French, so it works for me. If however you simply must know the gory details of the au pair lifestyle, look up any website with the words "au pair" and "confession" in its title. I'm not saying it's all relatable, but I'm not saying it isn't either.

So far my life here has had its ups and downs. Homesickness is something we all pretend we're too cool for, and it only tends to come when you move to a different country at 18 for a long period of time! But, almost two weeks in, I can't imagine spending this year anywhere else. The great thing about being an au pair here is that you have an instant community to rely on. Only here can I text someone I've never met before saying "Yeah, let's do coffee/drinks/museums!" and as such, I've made loads of new friends already. Living on an au pair's salary means that my social life is more 1 Euro wine from Carrefour than Moet, but it's just as fun, especially as the weather here has been gorgeous and sunny every day. So far, I have convened with hundreds of au pairs for a picnic, been for Rosé Seine-side with 9 crazy single ladies, eaten falafel in Le Marais with a Floridian sorority girl, been to happy hour with a gang of Germans speaking a mixture of German and French, treated food shopping as a social outing with a Spanish au pair, and discovered the ins and outs of French Tinder (hey, I'm not proud of all of this!) Of course, cameras are too touristic and bourgeois for us cosmopolitan Parisians, so few pictures of my exploits exist thus far. I intend to remedy this from now on but forgive me!

As packed as my social calendar has been, I've actually been spending most of my time alone. The children go to school five minutes from Palais de Chaillot, so most mornings I'll sit there and read for an hour as the sun comes up over the Paris skyline. It's a tough job, but someone has to do it! 

(this picture is completely cheating, as it's from ages ago, but it's the same place)

So far my cultural education has been limited. My aspirations for museums aplenty, arthouse cinemas and French cuisine have been somewhat dashed due to the abundance of paperwork I'm dealing with at the moment, but it will all come in good time. For a flavour of my agenda, there was: a new bank account, a french mobile account, a metro card account, signing up to language school, taking tests at language school, getting textbooks for language school, all of which seem to require a passport photo, your life story, and the promise of your first-born child, in triplicate. The French government sure are demanding, and on occasion I have been found to mutter "a bloody revolution, for this?!" to myself when confronted with the latest bureacratic obstacle. I'm still searching for liberté, not from royal authority but from paperwork.

Napoleon wouldn't have put up with this. 

That being said, I have managed to fit in a trip to the Petit Palais, and to Montmartre, as well as just about every bridge going (they're the ideal locations to split a bottle of Carrefour's finest with friends on Friday night!) so in time I should cease to be the uncultured swine I currently am. Onwards and upwards!

"A gap year blog! What an interesting and original idea!"

Not.
But nonetheless, a solid 3 or 4 people are genuinely interested in my Parisian exploits, and I'm getting sick of telling the same stories over and over, so here we are.

My blog's title refers to the wonderful Woody Allen film, 'Midnight in Paris'. For those of you who don't know the film, it paints a beautiful and highly romantic portrait of the City of Lights: Paris in the rain, Paris in the lamplights, Paris in the all-white-upper-class-haven we all evidently aspire to... So, of course, this was my expectation upon moving here. The reality, however, was different: Paris in the traffic, Paris in the "oh my God I'm riding the metro alone at 1AM please don't mug me" state of mind, Paris in the endless mountain of bureacracy... I don't get to see midnight in Paris on weeknights, as I have a fabulous 10PM curfew. Chic, I know.

But regardless of my reality check upon arriving here, the city is magical, and lots of interesting things are bound to happen over the next 10 months. So here I chronicle my journey: read it, ignore it, mock it, whatever you want. I'm pretty much only writing this for my mum anyway.

Allons-y!