I'm not a cat hater, but ...

I just want to state that I am not a cat hater, but when there are cats that jump out of dustbins in the dead of night it is a tad frightening and also when they jump on your lap and you know that they have been in a dustbin it's a tad disgusting. I'm not a cat hater, but I do not trust the cats in this country. The thousands and thousands of street cats that roll around in rubbish bins and skulk around searching for food. All they'd have to do is grow opposable thumbs like in that advert and I'm pretty sure they will take over this city and possibly the world, we've all seen 'Cats & Dogs'! So I'm not a cat hater, but I wish they would all just p*** off!

I like that rock!

After a week of not so stressful exams I am reminiscing on those five wonderful days away from the humdrum life of Amman. As someone once said; all literature is sad, even when it's about good things, because it is written after the good has ended. This is not entirely true in this case, because the year abroad isn't over, but I will never forget this trip to Petra, Wadi Rum and Aqaba.

 A week off of school. What to do? Originally the plan was to get a personal driver person to take us to the south of Jordan, but it fell through and looked like it was going to be too expensive anyway. Instead we just got a bus on Friday morning and went off to Petra with no set plan and only one night in a hotel booked. The JETT coaches, as well as some other buses, are the only public transport around Jordan. They seriously need to install some public transport here, I'm thinking a tram or a tube line or something in Amman and a fast speed train instead of the scarcely used steam train the goes from the north to the south of Jordan. All this said the coach was actually fine and it took me to Petra in a mere three and a half hours.

Arriving at Petra we walked to a taxi rank, "a taxi rank in Jordan!" I hear you say. In reality it was a line of men who were asking for a ridiculous amount to go not very far. We as streetwise Ammani residents refused to pay such prices and called the hotel instead who agreed to come and pick us up for free. Little did we know that the taxi driver would then complain to the police that the hotel was taking away their business. We therefore accompanied the hotel manager to the traffic police station in order to explain that we were not willing to pay the unreasonable prices that had been asked for. As guests at the hotel it was part of his hospitality to help his guests and therefore we could not understand why the police were saying that it was wrong for him to pick us up.

When we arrived at the hotel finally the brilliant hospitality continued. The owner of the hotel was so nice and I would thoroughly recommend the Cleopetra to everyone, that's if you can look past the horribly punny name that as far as I could tell made no sense as Cleopatra never went to Petra. As we had not eaten breakfast and it was getting on for midday the lovely owner gave us some bread and cheese and things for free which was really lovely and the start of a beautiful relationship!

Petra. Where to begin? I suppose the most important thing to say is that usually the entry price is roughly £50 for the day. As residents in the country we got tickets for £1! This is no joke. Our student cards gained us entry for 1JD which is amazing. So for the entirety of the day we couldn't help but randomly shout "One Dinar" in jubilation and to rub it in the faces of all the tourist who had had to pay 50.

Petra is fantastic! We were walking for roughly 7 hours pretty much straight, clambering over rocks, climbing up mountains and looking in very old tombs. The ancient city is very impressive the buildings that are carved into the rose coloured rock are one of the seven man-made wonders of the world and quite rightly. You start of the day walking through the Siq which is a really long canyon that opens up onto the Treasury, possibly the most famous view in Jordan. Down the length of the canyon are sort of ditches along the sides which back in the day used to carry piped water. Piped water! The bedouin who lived here years and years ago were amazingly advanced. i cannot fathom how they managed to do all of what they did with the materials they had and I can't believe they managed to keep it secret for so long!

Of course there are still Bedouin living there, which we discovered when we got lost and ended up walking to some cave houses that are currently being used. They were a bit more advanced than the ancient ones, but impressive still the same. At the end of the day we made the effort to climb the hundreds of steps to the Monastery which is one of the farthest points from the entrance and man is it worth it. You can't go to Petra without making the effort to walk up there, because it is twice the size of the treasury and it is beautiful. We spoke to a man who owned donkeys, I forget his name now, who told us that he walks up to the monastery at least once a day and he often does it at night as a sort of purifying experience and I can imagine that no matter how many times you see it, it would never get boring.

This being said after a while a sort of holiday phrase set in. "I like that rock, that is a niiiiiice rock." As I'm sure you know, and if you don't then you should be ashamed, this is a reference to Shrek when donkey exclaims that he likes a boulder at Shrek's swap. Well there were a lot of rocks. This isn't just in Petra this is the whole of Jordan. It's basically filled with rocks and sand and well all there is to comment on are the rocks. I don't want to seem sad, but I definitely have preferred rocks now ...

The Siq

Jasmine and Lottie pretending to be statues.

The treasury

Bedouin policeman

Jack Sparrow on a donkey

Jasmine at the Garden tomb.

The monastery (my favourite rock)

To be continued ...

The Dead Sea and Madaba

It has now been several weeks since I went on my weekend trip to the Dead Sea and Madaba. They are both in what Elias calls the wider area of Amman. Truth be told they are not far from Amman at all, it takes less than an hour to get to the Dead Sea and Madaba is about half way in between the two. So basically it takes me about the same time to get to the Dead Sea as it takes some one to get from one side of London to the other on the tube. That being said it only takes four hours to dive from Amman to Aqaba which is pretty much the length of the country, so the time it takes you to drive from one side of London to the other is about half the length of Jordan. That just shows how very very small this country. I mean I was always under the impression that the UK was small, but I think it is clear that Jordan is much smaller!

We went as a group as a sort of Birthday celebration for Ruth's birthday. The drive from Amman to Aqaba is all downhill, which is to be expected considering the Dead Sea is the lowest point on earth being 400m below sea level. This is the reason why the dead sea is sooo salty, because it is a basin where the River Jordan collects and then has no where else to go so the water evaporates leaving behind it very salty water. We went to Amman beach which you pay 16JD for the day to use the pools and the beach.

When we arrived we went straight to the sea to experience that floating feeling that everyone talks about. It was very strange and when we went up to the pools afterwards I felt like I was a rock. The pools were glorious and we sat by them pretty much all day watching crazy Jordanians diving into the pool in all manner of ways. I lost count at the number of belly flops that occurred. To round off the experience we got mudded up in the famous Dead Sea sludge that is supposed to make your skin as soft as a babies bottom. I can't say that my skin was softer, but it was an experience especially the applying of the mud. The guy who was rubbing me all over, whilst doing my inner thigh managed to hit my gooch numerous times.

After we had had enough of the Dead Sea we split into two, some went back to Amman and the rest of us continued to Madaba. In true risky Jordanian style we crammed six of us into a taxi to make the price cheaper, but in no time at all we were there and for only 3JD each.

Madaba is famous for its mosaics. So the next day we walked all around the town looking in the many many churches and remains of churches looking at bits of mosaics. It is amazing to think that those mosaics have been there since the early centuries. They are very impressive and I definitely want to go back to buy a mosaic souvenir. My host mum's family live there so we will definitely be going back at some point.

This Mosaic map is the oldest map of the Holy Land in existence. It's not extremely accurate or to scale, but you can see all the necessary bits are present. It would have been amazing to the see this church floors in their original glory,  because all that is left is fragment of the original thing.

Over all the weekend was thoroughly enjoyable and it's nice to know how close it all is to my new home.

Next time on this blog : I will be talking about my holiday in Eid break to Petra, Wadi Rum and Aqaba.

FOOD!

Hello tout le monde. I am terribly sorry for being so lax with my blog, but it wasn't my fault I promise. A lot has happened which I have wanted to write about, but I didn't get pictures of all of it so I wanted to wait until the people who did take pictures put them on Facebook, which they still have not. However, the meal I just had was so lovely that I just had to tell all.

The food here comes in masses. Mama Zein cooks a massive meal most mornings which we sit down and eat at about 2 in the afternoon and then after that I've been told to eat what I like, when I like which usually means me eating more of the same meal at dinner, because there is usually enough to keep us going for days on end.

The Jordanians / Arabs in general I think are really eager to feed you. It is there way of being welcoming. So several times a day I get food thrust at me with the accompanying 'eat!' Today I got up to get some kitchen roll, because I was making a tad of a mess and Elias says 'eat' and quite unintentionally I whipped round; 'I am eating!' I didn't mean to be so blunt, but sometimes you just can't fit any more down your gullet.

I have found myself eating some great things and some things which I have to force down my throat. They have this pudding which is basically cinnamon gloop with nuts. I'm not a massive fan of nuts and gloop, I'm afraid, isn't the texture of any appetising food. Yet I take it and eat when ever it is given to me, because it is just impolite not to and I no Mama Zein makes them herself and I don;t have the heart to say I don't like it.

However when the food is good, the food is really really good! One of the best meals I've had is a dish called mansaf which is made with rice and laban, which is a yoghurt/oil thing, and meat or chicken. It goes in a big dish in the middle and everyone grabs at it with their hands using a bit of bread as a vehicle. Today we had a fantastic dish that was basically stuffed tomatoes and peppers with an amazing sauce made from the insides of the tomatoes and chilli and other things. Never have a tasted more flavourful tomatoes! I seriously need to learn how to make these things.

Other meals have included stuffed corgettes, stuffed aubergine (yes there are a lot of stuffed vegetables) maglobi, which means upside down and is rice and meat (yes most meals include rice and meat as the made bit). Also one day Mama Zein cooked us what tasted like kofta and chips. It was amazing, enough said.

Over all I am loving the food and when I come back to England I am determined to be able to make it all so I can feed you all of these wonderful dishes.

Oh an of course I have tried the McDonalds and the KFC just to make sure it is the same as in the UK.

My Weekend

As many of you will know the week in Jordan goes from Sunday to Thursday allowing for the weekend on Friday and Saturday. This Thursday evening we went for a 'barty' around Pip and Kirk's swanky pad where we were shouted at by an elderly woman across the street who kept spitting on the ground in disgust. It was fair to say that on that night was perhaps cut short.

Friday came and I stayed in most of the day, but then in the afternoon Awat and I went to go and meet Jasmine on Rainbow Street  (شاريع راينبوو) where there is a special handicrafts souq (سوق) on Fridays. The street was buzzing and there seemed to be a lot going on. Awat and I saw a drumming group playing outside Subway, yes that's right there are Subways here too, but we didn't think a great deal of them. Then after we went to a shop called ملابس (malaabis) which means clothes. It is a really cool shop with great T-Shirts with funny Arabic puns on them. That night there was also an up and coming artist playing upstairs. His name was Perfect and Insane and this is one of his songs.

I really liked him and I really wish he had an album, because I would have bought it right there and then. He was kind of Newton Faulkner-esque, but sung in Arabic for the majority of the time which was great!

We then had a falafel and hummus rap thing, which I like to say is chickpeas with more chickpeas or fried chickpeas with a chickpeas sauce. It was actually very nice and we had a good time sitting on Rainbow Street before going to meet the other Exeter students at La Calle, which is a bar.

The next day the JLA put on a tour of Amman which meant that we had to be at the JLA for 9 which I was not a massive fan of at the weekend. However, the day was quite fun except for the hour we stood around waiting for the muslims in our group to pray. Actually I had pretty much seen everything that we were shown, but it was good for meeting people from the other universities who are studying with us and we also got a free lunch at Hashems, which is a really famous hummus and falafel place. (Yes you are right all they eat is hummus and falafel, no I'm only kidding they eat shawerma as well!)

Amman

Well I am one week into Jordan and I am loving life.

This week I has been my first week at school. We went to the JLA (Jordan Language Academy) bright and early on Monday morning for a 9am test. We sat down eager to show what we could do and it turns out we can't do very much. The test was nigh impossible! Nevertheless I wasn't immediately sent packing and the lessons began.

The JLA is a small building that is just off the 7th Circle, the people of Amman like to pretend that their road system is not complicated by saying that there is one main street with 8 circles (دوار) along it. However there are lots of main streets and lots of roundabouts and therefore this one street doesn't really help all that much. Just look at a map of Amman it is unnavigable.

The lessons were great and I am learning so much so quickly. The influx of new vocab is alarming and it is impossible to remember all of it, but the more I use it the more it sticks in my head. I have directions down now, so I can always tell the taxi driver where to go.

The Taxi drivers are great here! I nearly always chat to them. The other day I only had a twenty JD note and I told the driver this near the start of the journey, so for payment he pulled over and I bought him a coffee and some cigarettes.

There is too much to say as I have left it so long since my last blog so I'll leave it until I have done some more exploring and taken more photos to fill you in on the inner workings of Amman living, but for now I will leave you with two little bytes.

When everyone lives in flats sometimes the only way to get furniture into a building is a pully system up the side. This picture was taken whilst we were sitting at the JLA with the Manchester students who are all very nice. This was the building opposite where Amin is going to live so this may even have been his new sofa!

Tailoring is renowned for being for the wealthy. To have perfectly fitted trousers and shirts and jackets is a luxury. Not in Amman! Elias took Awat and me to downtown to buy Awat some new trousers. So he bought some for 9JD and then we crossed the street and went through a door flanked by two burly men who were sitting there sowing. Then up some old tiny stairs to a tiny room where we found this lovely gentlemen. He measured Awat up and within 20 minutes had shortened and tightened the trousers all for 1.500JD (£1.50)!! This is the price all tailoring should be!

Well the croissant stint of my year is over

Well the croissant stint of my year is over and I have begun the camel portion. Quite fittingly I saw a caravan on the way from the airport to my new home.

The packing process and everything was incredibly stressful and the last minute paying for my accommodation was just the cherry on the cake. However, getting to the airport really early and having an incredibly bad headache for the majority of the flight has not dampened my spirits.

The family who I am living with is made up of Mama Zein (ماما زين) and her son Elias (الياس) who works at the Serveton Hotel. I am glad that I had the airport pick up; it made the whole thing less stressful at this end. The family are Christian and very kind and welcoming. I was told several times by Elias that this is my house too and that they are my family. He just kept saying welcome home like I was some long lost brother. So I feel really comfortable here.

Elias has told me all about his past lodgers, a pair of Americans who sound great fun! He showed me pictures of all the parties they had in the house, where they played ring of fire and got horrendously drunk ending in Elias having his tenth car accident, nothing serious I may add.

After dinner we went cruising around Amman in Elias’ pimped out car. When I say pimped out I mean that it has a massive amp in the boot of the car from which he blares out tunes as we drove around Amman. This city is none like any I have seen. It is buzzing with energy and people, but also seems incredibly residential and almost half built. After all it is a very new city.

We drove past the enormous hotels looming over the eight circles (دوار) which are used to navigate the city. We drove past the lines and lines of parked, pimped up cars that wait for the streets to be empty to drag race up and down the main road. When I say pimped up, I mean pimped up. The engines of average cars are exchanged for massive ones, new hubcaps and spoilers are added and all the drivers are sitting at the side of the roads smoking shisha.

We stopped off at a famous coffee place which was just a van in a car park. Finally we went to Rainbow Street were we had a couple of beers.

I thought the night was drawing to close as we got back in the car, but no. We then went to Elias' aunt's house where I met more of the family who were preparing for a birthday tomorrow so were making some puddings. I tried some Arabic sweets and I was corrected on my accent.

My knowledge of Arabic is slowly returning, but I can feel that I am going to learn so much so quickly by being immersed like this and I can’t wait to go to school on Monday.

Giverny

My last weekend in Paris I decided to get out of Paris and go to the country. So I took the 45 minute journey to the house and gardens of Claude Monet in Giverny.

Giverny is a beautiful little village. All of the house and gardens there are spectacular. The weather on the day I chose was in fact the worst weather I think I had during the whole two months of being there, but it did not ruin the experience at all. Monet's house itself is gorgeous. It's not oversized, although his studio was quite something. The walls throughout the house are adorned with his paintings as well as Japanese art, which he was particularly fond of and his contemporary Impressionists. The kitchen was covered with blue and white Dutch tiling and the brass pots hung along the wall in size order. It was just perfect and you could imagine how Monet created his masterpieces there.

However, the main spectacle was the famous gardens that we all know from the infamous paintings that Monet completed over his long life. The gardens directly behind the house are excellently kept and the lavish plumes of colourful flowers lined the narrow pathways. As you followed the unfortunately crowded pathways you find the passageway that leads to the momentous water lily pond that inspired Les Nympheas. even in the rain this pond is glorious with amazing reflections of the trees and the clouds that Monet captures in his paintings. The Japanese style bridges that imitates the bridges he saw and fell in love with on his travels.

I think it is safe to stay that I thoroughly enjoyed my visit although I did not stay long, I would recommend it although perhaps not in peek season as the several tour groups made it somewhat hard to move at times.

The Lock Out

I'm sure many of you have heard by now the troubles I had in my last week of living in Paris. Having managed to last seven weeks without a single hiccough in my trip I found it hard to breath after this tremendous one. It was Tuesday night and I decided that I wanted to go out thanks to the Cheesy Tuesday weekly withdrawal symptoms I suffer from. (For those of you who don't know Cheesy Tuesdays is a club night in Exeter where they play cheesy music and it is my favourite night out in Essex, so much so that I didn't miss a single cheesies the whole of second term.)

On leaving the flat I realised I no longer had my keys. For the next I don't know how long I tried to contact the landlord who I assumed would have a spare key. I knocked on so many doors including his for an extended of period of time before giving up and calling a locksmith. This was probably the biggest mistake I've ever made. Certainly the most expensive.

The locksmith arrived and he said without a second glance that he had to break the lock to get in. I being tired and foolish and never having heard of a locksmith before that night agreed without thinking. To cut a long story short, because I have dwelled upon that night non-stop for the last week and I really don't want to dwell on it for much longer. I paid 303€ for the forced entry and 1100€ for a new lock. I know it's ridiculous, but I assure you that the lock was a very expensive lock. I looked it up online to check that I wasn't being completely screwed over.

I am liaising with the insurance company currently to see if I can get some of my money back, because as it stands I have managed to spend the entirety of my loan for this term leaving me with ziltch especially as I haven't been paid by PNB Paribas yet for working with them over the summer thanks to the misspelling of my name on the cheques!

Anyway I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in Paris and I can't wait to return to the City of Lights. The incident with the lock has taught me valuable vocabulary about locks and DIY in French and as my sister said; "it's about time something went wrong for him."

#Characterbuilding

La Paris gruyère

There are many nicknames for Paris ; La Ville-Lumière, The City of Love, Paname, but the one which I was most surprised about is La Paris Gruyère. Gruyère is a type of French cheese that has holes in it. Paris is named after this cheese because it too has holes throughout the city. The Métro, the sewers, the catacombs make up the tunnels that burrow all around the city.

Le Métro

Having lived in Paris for near to seven weeks now I have had many experiences on the metro to both male me love and hate it. It is in dispute as to whether the Paris Métro is better or worse than the London Underground, personally I think it is. The trains on the metro are squarer than those of their London relatives this means that I can stand up straight even when I am right next to the doors! I know isn’t life marvelous!

Depending on what line you are on the underground is air conditioned  is a God send on hot summer days! Also the seats are often wide enough to actual sit on without being on top of the person next to you.

On line 1, which is the line which goes parallel to the Champs D’Elysée from Saint Paul all the way to La Défense, there is no driver at the front which means you can see right out the front of the train like a roller coaster! I was sooo excited when I first saw this.

La Mairie de Paris auditions and allows only the best to play here. There is a fantastic String Ensemble who play at Chatêlet. There are also unofficial buskers who actually go on the metro who aren’t actually supposed to be there. However, I quite enjoy these and they often make a journey more enjoyable. There is this Michael Jackson impersonator who I have seen on the trains a few times. His dancing on a moving train is more than impressive. Unfortunately I never understand how these people make a living because I rarely see anyone give them any money.

On the otherhand, the older trains on the metro can be small with very uncomfortable seats and certainly no air conditioning. There are often very strange people on the Métro as we found out in April when we saw a man with a cat in a sock in his hood! Bizarre!

But all in all the metro is a very good service and I have barely had a probably with it since arriving.

Les Catacombes

This is the attraction I have queued for most out of everything since arriving in Paris. I went the day I dropped Dad of at the station and went directly there at about midday. Stupidly had forgotten any water or food and ended up queueing for a total of two hours, because there is a restriction on the number of people allowed down there at once. This is probably for the best, because some of the places I've visited have been so jam packed that you really can't enjoy them as much because you feel like your just being herded like cattle.

The catacombs are  2 km long and the temperature drops to 14C down there! Maybe it's because I had gone delirious from the lack of food and water, but I found it incredibly interesting. There was lots of information provided for you along the route about how the tunnels were first made for limestone quarrying when Paris was a lot smaller, then as Paris grew over the top of tunnels they were forgotten about until they started to collapse behind buildings. It was then that they blessed the tunnels and started moving the bones from the overcrowded cemeteries  of Paris down there making the largest underground ossuary in the world. The bone lined tunnels seem to go on for ages, so much that it almost didn't feel as if they were real. It is fantastically creepy and I felt like I was entering the Court of Miracles from Hunch Back of Notre Dame.

Les Egouts

So the last and final chapter of this holey post is les egouts, the sewers! Yeah it doesn't sound all that appealing, but I was thoroughly recommended it by my trustworthy former French Assistant, Pauline. So when my mother came to visit instead of going to Monet's house and gardens, which are a little way outside of Paris, we decided to go here instead. Now in my imagination I had conjured up this experience where we got to go down the sewers in a boat or something, but now it is quite a small exhibition with a lot of not very interesting information about how the sewers were developed to deal with the growing population of Paris. The most interesting thing was imagining Jean Valjean  dragging Marius through them. Apart from that it was just smell and damp and I don't really recommend it. I don't even have any pictures of it. Sorry Pauline!

That sums up why Paris is sometimes referred to as gruyère, because under the surface there are lots of holes.

Les marches aux puces

Just had to tell you about my day yesterday. I have had a very casual weekend not really doing much at all, but yesterday I thought I would check out the flea markets in the north of Paris, just the other side of the Peripherique. They are ginormous! Full to the brim with old bits and bobs from old photographs and coinage to full renaissance dining sets. Full of secrets and wonders you can spend hours searching through this labyrinth of hidden treasures, there is bound to be something for everyone. Unfortunately I did not take much money and I didn't take any pictures, but I am sure to return so will definitely take some next time!

I then went to Montmartre to find some food. I eventually chose a cafe after walking past a thousand (it's a terrible syndrome I have where I can't ever stop I just keep walking past cafes until I get so annoyed with myself that I actually have to stop.) Being entirely French now I ordered the tartare which is raw meat. Usually it is mixed with herbs and spices and is very refreshing on a hot summers day, but this was literally just a slab of raw meat. Which wasn't very pleasant and as always the waiter was extremely grumpy. So grumpy in fact that when I said thank you and goodbye he said nothing! Parisians!

Today I walked to Bercy and discovered a lovely park which in my opinion is the best Park in Paris I've been to so far! It was great to see a more modern side of Paris. There was a skateboard park and everyone was having picnics and playing Frisbee and what not on the grass. I crossed the river to find the BnF (Biblioteque National de France) which was a very impressive, very modern building next to the Quay Bercy which is home to the well known Batofar bar as well as several others and looked like a trendy place to go out of an evening.

Wandering around I stumbled across what I had been looking for; A great woppy old building that looks as if it's about to crumble, but covered in fantastic street art. This is known as Les Frigos and it is the studies of young artists. It is open to the public, it wasn't today but I will return, and you can wonder in and talk tot he artists about their work and chat to randomers, which sounds perfect for helping my French. There was some people sitting outside and I really regret not going to talk to them, but I let my nerves get the better of me. I have decided that I need to stop being so afraid to talk to strangers so I'm going to ask someone a question tomorrow and start a conversation! Let's do this!

MAM and Rodin: A cultural evening

So I have become quite lax on updating this blog. Which is exactly what was not supposed to happen.

Paris is a creative city. Everywhere you look there are remnants of a long history of artists, writers, musicians, designers, architects. A trait that has been inherited by the Parisians of today. Every time I walk through the streets of Paris I feel inspired. My venture to the Musée d'Art Moderne (MAM) and the Musée Rodin left me very much in this state; itching for a pen, a pencil, a paintbrush or anything with which I could fashion a creation of my own.

MAM is an impressive building overlooking the Right Bank of the Seine. On a lovely summer evening the tables on the verandah are bustling with young artists and below them the steps are frequented by skateboarders who enjoy testing out their skills on the rails and ramps there.

This summer at MAM there has been a fantastic exhibition of the lifetime works of Keith Haring. Advertisements for the exhibition has covered the boards in the métro since I arrived, tempting me to go and see what all the fuss about these stick figures was and what the artist had to offer. As it turns out, a lot!

Haring was a fascinating man who started his career in the Subway of New York. He believed that art should be available for everyone so he started to sketch in chalk on unused blackboards in the underground. This way thousands of people could see his work everyday. He later moved his street art to Paris and other cities around the world. If you have ever been to Paris you will know that Street art is massive here and it is partly due to this man who made it very popular.

His work is quite cartoonistic and I was unsure whether it was going to impress me at first, because I can be quite harsh in my criticism of art sometimes, but I was pleasantly surprised. The bright colours were immediately captivating and a welcome change from the worn colours of the portraits I had become accustomed to in the Louvre and Orsay. There was a lot of striking imagery, much of which was symbolic of politics and wider issues of consumerism and capitalist societies that is still current to us today.

I would thoroughly recommend the exhibition to anyone who has the opportunity to see it. It was enlightening and certainly showed a side of art that I certainly hadn't been exposed to before.

After MAM I took the metro the Left Bank to the gardens of the Musée Rodin which are open to the public until 23:00 on Wednesdays in the summer months. These famous statues by Rodin that are dotted around the gardens draw many aspiring artists who come to draw or photograph these monumental figures. I was recommended the gardens by an old friend of mine who is in fact Parisian and she was right to do so, because they are beautiful.

It was amongst the sculptures, the artists with the poised pencils and the beautiful pathways that I had that moment of inspiration. That bolt of lightening that strikes down everyone that has ever visited Paris. (If you have visited Paris and you don't know what I'm talking about you are soulless.) It happens to me daily, but on this occasion it was particularly strong. I pledged to myself in these gardens that I could never have a job that wasn't creative. I guess it was the spirit of Paris washing off on me. It has finally sunk in. This is why I am back to blogging, because what better creative outlet is there than the internet.

(I apologise that I was unable to take a still picture of Le Penseur (The Thinker) I assure you I took several to no success and this was the best of the bunch.)

La musique

So I have tried to immerse myself in as much French culture as I could this past month knowing that it is only going to get harder as August beckons, when the French flee from Paris as if it has been hit once more by the plague. However, for those who can't escape the city in the summer the Mairie de Paris gets a load of sand and dumps it by the Seine to make Paris Plages. It is here where I spend many a weekend pretending to be on an actual beach, but this is all besides the point because this post is suppose to be about music.

The Paris Plages opened with the Festival FnacLive. Four nights on a stage outside the Hotel de Ville (which has now been taken over by beach volleyball courts). It was here that I got some of my first taste of live French music.

Lisa Leblanc: you all know how much I love folk and country music, well this girl knows how to do that with a twist of Paolo Nutini and all in French! Cerveau Ramolli

Olivia Ruiz: A bit of a sensation in France at the moment, although I've heard it both ways. But I love marmite and here is my favourite song of hers. La Femme Chocolat (also it's about chocolate!)

In a completely different world of music my colleague at work has been introducing me to French rap. He gave me a long list of rappers to listen to and I have chosen my favourite for you.

Hayce Lemsi: I liked the refrain of this song and I have been practising at saying this line "Technique de typique petit loco mélomane éliminant malement les mégalomanes." (It's really hard!) Hola Hello

1995: This rap group took my fancy thanks to their funky backings this song is called La Source

So there you have it a touch of my attempt at becoming more French!

Versailles

This was one of those things that I really wanted to do, but was kind of dreading at the same time. I had been told by so many people that it is a day of mass crowds pushing you through very hot rooms especially as this is now the heart of High Season, but I wanted to do it before it got any hotter. Therefore, as a proper Englishman I grinned and bore it.

The day didn’t go off to a great start, because the RER C double decker train (oh my God so cool) service was not running from the station I went to due to les travaux. You’ll find this a lot in summer in Paris, or maybe it’s all year round I don’t know, but they seem to be closing everything for travaux. Whilst I'm on things closing actually, the Paris Opéra doesn’t have anything on between mid July to September. What is this?!?! I was really looking forward to that!

When I got to Versailles I realized that I did not have any water with me, I know, reeeally prepared.  I kept my eyes open for a supermarket on the way to the Palace, but didn't see anything. I later found out that there is a Monoprix just further down the road from the Versaille Chateau Rive Gauche station. So my advice would be to buy any sort of food or drink for the day from here where the prices are far more reasonable that actually inside the Palace. So just walk straight past the boulevard from which you can see the Palace and it will be on your Right.

I followed the advice from the website and did the gardens first and left the Palace for last. This is in fact the best way of doing things, because even though I didn't have to pay to get in I had to queue and the queue is much shorter in the afternoon. 

The gardens are amazing and just as vast as the pictures suggest, maybe even bigger. The fountains are fantastic and were accompanied by 17th Century music so as you walked around you could imagine yourself as an French Aristocrat in the times of Louis XIV. (Just saying I quite fancied myself that job)

It is quite incredible that you can be amongst so many people but the grounds are so enormous that I found a place where I felt completely secluded to have my lunch. It was the first time I had been out of the city and it was lovely. turns out I quite miss the fairly rural Exeter! This is perhaps the reason why I loved Marie Antoinette's Hamlet. She too felt like a bit pressured, by the workings of the court not the city, so she order a Hamlet to be built in the style of the English Countryside. It is beautiful. It is like a magical, enchanted, hidden dwelling and no trip to Versailles is complete without seeing it!

The palace itself is amazingly grand just as you would expect and everyone was right it is packed and really hot, but definitely worth it. My favourite bit was in fact not the Galerie des Glaces, but the Galerie des Batailles. This was created by Louis-Philippe who was the first elected king of France. It displays all the great battles that have lead to modern day France and is twice the size of the Galrie des glaces.

Overall, a very successful day and i thoroughly recommend it. A must see!

La Piscine

You guys know that I am totally addicted to swimming and I have missed it like hell this last year. En fait I miss it even more when it is as hot as it is here. So this is a little gem I have found in Paris for any of you who ever find yourself staying here for an extended period of time. La Piscine Georges Vallerey is une piscine découverte and is beautiful. 50m long and open late so I can go after work. Everything you need on a hot summers day after a day of doing nothing. 3.40 euros for once or 24 euros for 10 times.

148 Avenue Gambetta, 20e Paris

Oh and don't forget that only tight trunks are allowed and it's obligatory to wear a swimming hat, un bonnet.

I was lucky enough to have the trunks down as many of you know I own a pair of infamous red speedos, but unfortunate in finding out about the swimming hat until after I had got changed so ended up walking down the street in my red speedos and towel and scaring a lady by knocking on the window of her closing shop in order to buy one. 

Le 14 Juillet / La Fête Nationale

The second installment of last weekend, the biggest celebration that France has all year. To put that into context they have 35 minutes worth of fireworks on this day whereas on New Years they have none. This is the big one for them. To us it is known as Bastille Day in remembrance of the day when the Bastille Prison was stormed and although there were only seven prisoners to release it was a symbol of the empowerment of the people which lead to the Third Republic that we know today.

 

The day starts with a défilé down the Champs d’Elysée where all the various sectors of the military, navy and air force are involved. It is renowned especially for the airshow and the Champs d’Elysée is packed out with people who have travelled to see it … So I accidentally slept through all of that having been out until 6am the day before with a girl who designs for Marc Jacobs!!

 

You see the night of the 13^th and the 14^th the Bal des Sapeurs-Pompiers are the places to be. Every fire station is opened up for the public for big parties. Some are more popular than others with queues, of mainly young girls eager for the chance at pulling a young Fireman, all the way down the street.

 

When I did wake up I went to the Champs de Mars where I sat all afternoon watching the crowds grow gradually bigger and drunker as the day went on. I made friends with a couple more fashion girls who happened to be sitting next to me. Crazy coincidence I must have been attracting them or something …

 

At 9:30 it all kicked off with the Concert de Paris with Classical music by the Paris Symphony Orchestra  and various soloists ending in a rousing chorus of the French National Anthem, which it turns out no one knows the second verse of, just like the English. After this very patriotic gestation to the French Nation there are the longest fireworks I think anyone has ever seen. They are set off behind the Eiffel Tower which is lit up and turned off in sequence. It was quite impressive and the last hoorah was amazing.

 

After that there was nothing to do, but walk all the way home as the Métro was packed. All I can say is that I felt quite patriotic for France that day.