The Paris Tour from my student Anne-Caroline

When I got into Paris’ Gare du Nord bus station, I was looking around for Anne-Caroline because she said that she was going to meet me when I got off the bus. No Anne, so I ventured off looking around for her. No luck, so I called her cell phone, and no luck there either. Where was she??
I ended up getting a taxi cab to go to her apartment. I thought that I would be able to find her there. When the taxi driver helped me with my luggage, over to her apartment, she wasn’t home. So he let me call her cell phone and I left a message to tell her that I would be waiting in this café up the street. It was dark outside, and a little creepy, so I didn’t want to wait for her outside.
While waiting inside the café, I kept trying to get a hold of Anne. I sat in the café and the bartender lady offered me something to drink. I spluttered the first French drink word that came into my head, which was un café. Haha, so not being a big fan of strong coffee, I got this espresso, which I tired not to make a face whenever I took a sip. It was so strong!
Then Anne came into the café and gave me a big hug! She said that she was sorry that she was late and that she got caught babysitting for a neighbor for an emergency of some sort. I didn’t mind, I was just glad to see her! I thanked the café people and we made our way to her apartment. We got my luggage and ourselves into the tiny elevator (as most French elevators are small, just a good fact to know ;D ) and into her apartment.
It was a small apartment, but if she’s only by herself, it works out all right :D I thought that it was cute. She has a foyer/kitchen. Then into her dining room/bedroom/entertainment room as well. Her bed turns into a couch by day. She has a little balcony that is quite high and you can somewhat see out over the buildings, so it’s pretty at night.
Once we had all of my stuff inside, we talked about what to do for dinner. We ended up going out to this restaurant called the Hippopotamus Grill. It was very cool. We got drinks, a tequila sunrise and a sex on the beach. The tequila sunrise was better though :D Then we picked out our 3 courses. We both got French onion soups, I got a steak and pomme frites (French fries) and for desert I had chocolate mousse :D It was great to catch up with her and talk about what we had been doing. How studying in England went and how much I missed being there already!
By the time dinner was over, it was midnight!! Time seemed to fly by! After dinner we went past her work, which is the Mougador Theater featuring Le Roi Lion (the Lion King) We headed back to her apartment and crashed for the night.
The next morning, I woke up with a good feeling in my head because today we were going to Disneyland Paris!! Whoo-Hoo!! We got changed and ready, then headed out to the metro station. Got a special ticket for the train to transfer out to Disneyland Paris, and were there within the hour. We came up the escalator and then I turned my head to the left and there was the park!! I felt like I was at home!! So there were the two parks, Magic Kingdom and MGM Studios. We decided, when we were in line for the tickets, to just do Magic Kingdom, since there wasn’t a lot of time to do both of the parks. We took pictures of us in front of Main Street, once we were inside, and listening to the Disney town music all around, I felt like I was in Florida (well except that it was a lot colder than Florida haha).
We picked out which rides we wanted to do and then started off with the first one. We decided to get fast passes to Space Mountain, then go do the Alice’s Tea Cup ride, and then go back to Space Mountain. It was a while to do the Alice ride, because of the line, but it went by fast. Once we did that, we were back in line at Space Mountain!! While waiting in line, we were talking and a group of teenagers found out that I was American. I told them that I spoke un petite peu francais lol. They ended up talking to us a little while and they said that they had these extra fast passes that they weren’t using, so we got an extra fast pass for the ride! Once we got to the beginning of the line and into our car seats, the ride took off!! It was sooo much fun!! It went upside down, turned sideways and went super fast! It was great! Once we got off, we looked at our pictures and bought the one that they take of you when you’re on the ride! It was the best out of the 3 times that we rode the ride haha :D
We decided to get a quick bite to eat at Pinocchio’s Restaurant. It wasn’t my usual 4 star lunch that my family and I have when we’re in Disney, but it suited both Anne and my budgets lol :D I had a cheeseburger and so did she, along with French fries and sodas.
After lunch we headed over to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. We waited in line for that, it didn’t take too long. Anne and I entertained ourselves with taking videos on my camera, talking about looking for Capt’n Jack Sparrow & Will Turner ;D We’re so silly haha! It was the old version of the ride, no Johnny Depp mechanical statues in this ride :D Oh well haha it was still a lot of fun to sing along with the Pirates song, “Yo ho yo ho a Pirates life fer me”
After the Pirates ride, we went on the Indiana Jones roller coaster. We were telling one another jokes, well Anne was telling jokes, I couldn’t think of any haha. “How many A’s are there in Indiana Jones”
“2 you say?”
“Nope, 36”
“Da da da, da da da, da da da da, da da da da da da” haha I thought it was funny ;D
After that ride we went on Big Thunder Mountain, then over to Star Tours, and then lastly we did the Buzz Lightyear ride. We both got up to the third kind of space cadet ;D haha
When we came out of the Buzz Lightyear ride, it was SNOWING outside! I couldn’t believe it! I was in Paris, for one thing, then I was in Disneyland for a second thing, and then it was snowing! It was so weird! Lol! Pretty cool I thought!
After our rides, we shopped around Main Street for my family and I also bought some postcards too :D I got my Dad a Disney 2008 Paris hat, Mom a Disney pin, (they didn’t have any Mickey Mouse antenna toppers due to Europe not having antenna’s on their cars lol ) Mimi a Jack Skeleton scarf, and then 3-4 postcards, along with a Disneyland Paris 2008 t-shirt pour moi :D
Before we left, we decided to get hot chocolates and a cookie :D Anne got a discount because she told the Disney till man that she works for the Roi Lion show, and technically he wasn’t supposed to discount her since the show is not related to the park per se, but he did anyway, which was nice of him! I love Disney haha. When we were finishing our hot chocolates, we met this weird Disney busser name Nikodim, and he was just being a goof, when we were filming him haha. He wasn’t French, but Italian I think :D
We sadly had to leave the park due to it closing at 10 pm, and when we got back on the escalator, I felt like my fun was gone. I don’t know what it was, it’s just this feeling when you’re in Disney that you feel young and happy haha. Oh well haha I can go back some day, when I have more money of course haha!
We ended up eating dinner at a Fondue place and it was a lot of fun. Anne was telling me that if you dropped the one of the bread pieces into the pot of cheese you had to do a dare. But seeing as how we were the only ones in the restaurant, we decided not to do the dares haha.
We headed back towards Anne’s apartment and rented a dvd from this weird kind of electronic movie rental shop. You put your card into the machine, then you type what movie you would like, and the machine gets it and spits it out for you. It was very cool! We rented this movie called Paris Je’Taime. It’s a movie that has 18 different directors who each directed a short film in the movie. It was very cool, however all in French, with no English subtitles. So Anne was translating it for me, until she fell asleep haha. So I had to make due with my un petit peu francais, but it was all right, and I got through all of it. There were parts in it that were not in French because they were American or British actors and stories. It was very cool to see all of these places that were filmed in the movie because I would see the Pere Lachaise cemetery and go, “I’ve been there!” or the Montmartre district too! It was very cool to see a movie and say that I’ve been to those places!
On Easter Monday, Anne and I got up early and got ready to go and meet her dad, his girlfriend, (anne’s dad’s girlfriends son) Anne’s sister, and her boyfriend. It was a ways away out from Paris. We met them all at Anne’s sister’s house, in a very nice neighborhood too. Anne’s dad and sister speak a good amount of English, but most of the time they would all just speak in French. I didn’t mind at all though, I mean that’s what would happen when we would have Anne, Marielle, or Mechty visit us, we would speak English whenever we had family around our house. It was fine, I just smiled, tried to understand some of what they were talking about, but just enjoying being around accented voices haha!
We went to this restaurant for easter brunch. It was a very nice place, that used to be a house I think. We had a table all to ourselves in what looked like a big yellow sun room. We started out with appetizer dishes. I had crab inside cooked egg shell noodles, along with a glass of red wine that we all shared. Then came our main course meals and I had slices of duck with mashed potatoes. For desert I had mon favorite crème brulee! Anne got crepes, and they had this kind of sugar on it, where the waiter would light it on fire! It was so cool to see!
After brunch we went back to Anne’s sister’s house and hung out there for a while. Anne’s sister showed me her wedding dress picture, it was so pretty! She’s getting married in June I think. Her fiancée was very nice and funny too! We then had to catch the train back home and we said good bye to everyone. It was a lot of fun meeting them and seeing how they spend their Easter day together.
We ended up just hanging out at her apartment for the night. We watched Pirates of the Caribbean and then went to sleep. Anne wrote down some places for me that I could go shopping. And how to get there and to the Musee D’Orsay museum as well.
The next morning, Anne had to go to work, and she was also planning on getting me a ticket for the Roi Lion show for later that night as well.
I got up, showered, and headed on out to find some gifts for my friends, and a scarf for myself :D
I ended up finding the first place where I was supposed to go shopping, but I didn’t really see any places that I wanted to buy anything. I got a croissant chicken, mayo, lettuce, sandwich with chips and a soda for a quick bite to eat. I then tried to find the area of the Musee D’Orsay, since I knew that there had to be some shopping carts/stores around there to buy souvenirs.
I got a little lost, because on the map it looked like I was going the right way, but I was turned the other way around. So I was actually going away from the museum. But I asked some people on the street, in my broken French, and a man told me that I needed to get on this one bus to take it to the area by the Jardins des Tuileries. So I did that, and ended up back by the two fountains and the Obelisk. It was in the middle of the area by the Champs Elysees, and the Louvre. So I knew that there was a metro station to take to go to the Musee D’Orsay. So as I was walking towards the fountains, I had my hands in my pockets, and I ended up tripping on something, and I fell! Haha I was all right, a little embarrassed, and I also really really had to use the loo! So I also knew that there were restrooms at the end of the gates of the Jardins des Tuileries. So I went to the loo, and also decided to get a crepe with nutella, because I felt sad, all alone and needed something to cheer me up! I was really missing my friends, and a certain someone who I left back in England, and really really really wanted him to be with me, because Duh! It was Paris, the city of Love!
So I made it on the metro and another train transfer to get to the museum. I waited in line for about a half hour and then had to go through their security system and get a ticket. As I was in line, I looked over to my left and saw one of my friends from school at Christ Church. We called him American Ben, because we had a friend who was called British Ben haha. So I saw American Ben and his mom and his girlfriend getting ready to leave! I couldn’t believe it! We gave one another a hug, I asked how he was doing, where they were going next, the Eiffel Tower, and hope that they had fun! It was so funny to see a familiar face again! I forgot that he was going to be there when I was also in Paris haha!
So I made my way through the 3 floors of the museum, looking at all of the cool art work of the impressionist painters! I took pictures once I saw other people taking them and not getting yelled at haha. I got a picture of James Whistler: the picture of the old mother sitting in the chair; Manet: pictures of fruit on a table; Renoir: the picture of the french party; Renoir's drawing of Claude Monet. Van Gogh: of himself. Are just a few of the pictures I saw while in the museum. There was this one room all covered in gold! I felt like I was in one of the rooms at the Versailles palace. I made the mistake of looking out the window and seeing a beautiful scenery of Paris, with the houses, another museum down the street on the opposite side of the Seine, and the Seine river. I almost started to cry, I wanted to be have that someone in England there with me! It was very hard for me that day, than any other day in Paris I think. I didn’t realize how much I would miss being with him, or even just to see my friends again too! I missed our adventures of eating crepes and gelato, traveling around the city, using the subway and seeing amazing places in Paris.
Once I was finished in the museum, I had had enough time to go through all 3 floors, I made my way over to the Mougador Theater to see Le Roi Lion! Whoo-hoo!! I got some dinner at the Café Mougador while waiting for the show. I got un thé glacé, un omelette avec jambon et fromage et un chocolate mousse pour le desert :D Haha ( an iced tea, an omelette with ham and cheese, and a chocolate mousse for desert).
I got my ticket when the doors to the theater were starting to let people into the theater. I ended up having a great seat, that was half the cost! Thanks to Anne working there, my ticket was only 47 Euros instead of the 100 Euro ticket that I would have had to pay! And my seat was in the first balcony in the middle! It was perfect view of the stage too! The show was fantastic!!! Even if it was all in French, I knew the story well enough from watching it on video so many times that it wasn’t hard to understand at all :D The costumes were sooo cool, the music amazing, and the actors great! I loved it all! It was a fun show and am glad that I was able to do it!
After the show I ended up meeting up with Fabrice, my first French host student, and also Anne came to join us back at the Mougador Café for drinks. I got a hot chocolate and so did Anne, while Fabrice had a coffee. We talked about the old times, how Fabrice remembers going to talk to the students at Richwoods High School in their French class :D I told him about England, how much Anne and he both pay for their small apartments in Paris, and we talked about his new job, still in the same lab inside a zoo, where he now got upgraded to work on lab mice, or something along those lines haha.
Then the restaurant was closing, so we had to leave. Anne and I headed back to her apartment and we said goodbye to Fabrice. It was a lot of fun getting to spend time with both of them, and that had actually been the first time since they’ve met each other haha.
The next morning Anne had to go to work again, and I had to catch my bus to get to the airport and go to Sweden. We said our goodbyes and how much we would miss each other! I had such a great time hanging out with her, meeting her family and seeing her side of Paris :)
So she left for work, I had all of my stuff packed and got a taxi that took me to the bus station. Then I got onto a bus and rode it to the airport. I said goodbye to Paris as I was leaving and listening to my ipod. So sad.
I got off the bus, got my luggage, then waited in line ahead of a tall student guy, who asked me if we would need to pay extra for our luggage. I told him I wasn’t sure and that they would probably tell us when we get to the front. We started talking and his name is Raphael Barry, an engineering student from Paris, studying in Sweden. He was on break visiting his grandmother in Paris. I told him I was meeting a friend in Sweden and we ended up sitting together on the plane. We both had to pay extra for our luggage, but mine was about 100 something Euros because it was very heavy. The up side was that I got to be an V.P. passenger and got on the plane early. So I saved Raphael a seat and we talked the whole plane ride. I asked him about Sweden and what fun things there was to do there. He turned out to be a fan of jazz and told me of this jazz club that he likes to go to and play sometimes. He said that he didn’t particularly like living in Stockholm because it was kind of an old person type of city. But he gave me his phone number in case Jen and I had nothing to do and wanted to hang out. It was interesting to talk to another person and get a view on what Sweden was like. When we landed, there was snow on the ground, and I wasn’t too excited about it in the beginning, because I was used to the milder weather of England and France.
So I got my luggage at the luggage area and waited on a bench for Jen’s plane to get into the airport.
So that is the end of my Paris trip and now it’s onto the adventures in Stockholm Sweden!! Whoo-Hoo!!

My Last Week in Canterbury, England :( sniff sniff

Ok, sorry that I have been non-existent for the past couple of weeks….I was very busy with school, hanging out with friends, and enjoying my last couple of days in Canterbury, when not doing my essays/finishing my essays ;)
So…I left off on my trip back from Ireland. The morning we were back, (at around 4am) I slept for a couple of hours and then started writing my American Cinema paper. When I got that finished on Wednesday and turned it into school.

On Thursday, Erin, Jen, Mallory, Patrick, Laura and I went to Orange Street Café. Had a great time listening to jazz music. A cool saxophonist played and the pictures on the wall, along with the lighting and friends all added to the fun of the place.

That Friday we went to Stonehenge and Bath to the Jane Austen museum. It was a looonng bus ride, but we made it. We were given a little pocket hand held walkie talkie to punch in numbers around the outside of Stonehenge to listen to it’s history, the myths and legends of the stones. Some of them were rather funny too. One was that the devil stole them from an old lady’s back yard and dropped them all over England. Apparently there are more around England, and not just at Stonehenge. Another one was about how Merlin found them and would use them for some kind of magic performances. Then the best one is that aliens dropped them off haha.
We walked all the way around and then it started to sprinkle outside. I bought a couple of postcards and looked around the shop. They had some snow globes with little Stonehenges in them haha.

Back on the bus to go to Bath. We had to park a ways off from where the actual street of the Jane Austen museum. It was located on Gay street. The town of Bath is quite quaint. The houses close together and quite a lot of winding roads and hills.
Some of the students were not too excited about going to the Jane Austen museum, some because they don’t read any of her books, others because they thought it was for girls. So they went off to go see the Baths, which is kind of what I wanted to do, but felt obligated to go to the museum for Bevin, since she would totally kill me if I didn’t go inside. There was a tour throughout this house (not Jane Austen’s house, hers was up the street, that she shared with her sister). There was a video on her life and what she did in Bath. Basically, she and her sister didn’t enjoy it very much and much rather preferred the countryside. Then we went upstairs to this other room where a tour guide told us further about Jane Austen’s family, life in Bath and the books she wrote. It was all right, but I probably would have liked to have gone with my friends to the Baths…oh well, next time I think ;)
Once we ate lunch and we then returned to the area where the bus was and made our way back to Canterbury.

That following week I was super busy with finishing essays for British Literature and Modern Britain.
Plus on top of the essays that we had to turn in, we also had to have 2 in class essays, each one hour long. So my friends and I were frantically getting our essays completed and some how manage to sleep as well haha. I wrote on the Romanticism of a handful of different poets of the Romantic period, for my British Literature class. Then the in class essays were about our stories we read, one being the social classes in Great Expectations, and the other essay was on Frankenstein the monster and how certain characters in it were alike ie) the monster, the captain, and Dr. Frankenstein.

The Modern Britain essay I turned in was about the “Special Relationship” between England and America. Then one of the in-class essays was on the British monarchy and the other on how the Prime Minister and the President of the United States are alike.
Finally, our last day of classes were complete, our essays turned in, and we were free!! I thought that I did well on my essays, and I found out that I got an A on my ethics essay already. It was about moral relativism between these two authors in our handbook, I had to compare their ideas etc..So that is good and none of us know the other grades yet, but hopefully we will get them soon!!

Now done with our essays, a lot of us hung out at Spoons for the night, laughing, talking, having a good ol’time ;D It was also Erin’s last night in Canterbury, so we enjoyed our last moments together in Canterbury with her and all of our friends! : ( So sad : (

On Thursday, I ate lunch with Jen, Mallory, and Patrick at Café des Amis for the last time. We talked about how much we were all going to miss being in Canterbury, walking around High Street, hanging out at the local pubs, going to classes together, basically seeing one another almost every day haha :D
I had to head home to wait for the luggage man to get my suit case that I was sending home ahead of me, due to my overspending on clothes, books, a Strongbow glass, clothes, and other things haha. It was basically things that I wouldn’t need to take with me for my two weeks of traveling after March 23, that I was sending home.

Later that Thursday night, all of us, minus Erin, ate one last time at the restaurant we all first ate at in the beginning, Super Noodles. It was good, and I had a great time hanging out with my friends, talking about where we would be going after school, getting together on Friday night for one last drink at Spoons. After dinner, Jen, Megan, Patrick, and I headed over to Parham Road to watch the movie Devil Wears Prada (since Megan had never seen it) and spent the night there, in one of the extra rooms.

Woke up on Friday morning and made breakfast with Jen and our friend Ashley. We made pancakes, but had no eggs, so they were interesting pancakes to say the least haha ;D
Went home to shower, and then hung out with one of my British friends for the day. It was great just walking around High Street, walking along a canal with swans in it, basically having a great time and enjoying the perfect weather outside! We went into the HMV (the British version of BestBuy) and I bought The Last King of Scotland and the first season of the British Office :D Then we sat at Starbucks talking, laughing and having a fun time ;D

Said good bye to my friend and then headed on home. I started to think of how much I will miss walking along the streets of Canterbury, hanging out with all of my friends, being with one British friend in particular, and all of these thoughts were jumping around in my mind, and I started to cry. I couldn’t help it and it was so sad to think that my dream is coming to an end.
Later that night, I had my last meal with Katerina, Michael, and Costas. We had spaghetti bolognese, with my favorite salad and chocolate mousse for desert! Yum!!
As a going away present/hosting me present, I got Costas an early birthday card, and a couple of gift certificates for the whole Grant family from our favorite chocolatier, Hotel Chocolate.
After dinner, all of the students (ICISP, ISU) met up for one last drink at Spoons and it was even more sad. It was horrible to think that I wouldn’t get to see everyone the next day, to hang out and go on trips. But we’re all keeping in touch through face book, as well as school too, so that is good.

Then I left Spoons with Megan after we‘d said all of our goodbyes, and we walked our last walk home together. We parted ways and I slept my last night in my comfy bed, not wanting the next day to happen at all really.

I got up the next morning, said goodbye to someone special at the train station, who I miss terribly, and then I sadly went home to pack all of my belongings into my suitcase.
Katerina ended up helping me pack, I left some things ie)all of my school notebooks, books I didn’t need, hair styling things for the next student that they will host, etc.
I also realized that I couldn’t fit everything into my suitcase, so Katerina let me borrow another one so that I will have to return it the next time I come back to visit them, which I SO WILL, as soon as I have the money haha ;D

Then we ate lunch together, I tried not to cry, and we got all of my stuff packed and ready to go. Costas came out of his room to say goodbye and help me with my luggage. Michael and Katerina both took me in their car to the bus station, where I was to take the bus from Canterbury to Paris. It was a little hectic, due to it being Easter Saturday, and lots of traffic. But I got there all right, and it was a somewhat rushed goodbye. Michael helped me with the luggage out of the car, Katerina walked with me and helped me with the luggage up the curb. We hugged and kissed twice on the cheek, (so British haha) and then they had to get back into their car and leave. The hurried goodbye was due to us all thinking that my bus was here already, so we said a quick goodbye and they got back into their car and had to move out the car out of the way of the taxis trying to get past. The bus however was going to London instead of Dover, and the driver had just not changed the sign.

So, I stood there kind of laughing to myself, and also having a whole shadow of sadness well up inside of me. I will miss living here and living my dream out, sooo much. It makes me almost cry just typing it all again. I try to think of all of the fun times I’ve had and not dwell on being sad. But it’s hard, I’ve learned and I don’t know what I will do. But I suppose, keep on going with this whole international business plan that I have, and then return in a couple of years, if not sooner.
Having had a great time, meeting a ton of new people, making friends, having a fun romance with a great British bloke, and being able to live in England with an English/Greek family, all was such a great part of my life. It’s something that I have never regretted once, and hope to return to Canterbury soon!
Now, this is where my last week in Canterbury ends, and the other adventures of Shannon Helms begin. Next stop, Paris France!!