Examens, mon dieu!

Once again, it's that time of year. Exams are upon us :(

The past few weeks have seen me permanently stationed at the dining room table in our apartment, surrounded by paper, pens, empty water bottles, packets of crisps and textbooks of varying thickness. Sound familiar?

And as of this afternoon, I am two exams (the two worst ones, as well) down; three to go. They went okay I suppose, or as well as they could have gone. I'm just counting down the hours until the revision and the exams end for another year (it is very hard to revise for exams when you know that all the facts are working against you. Queen Mary is requiring a higher pass standard of us than Assas requires of its students who are actually french, despite several unhappy emails I have sent in their direction to see if this is something that could be changed. They've not been the most supportive this year, and it is very disenheartening to know you're being set up to lose.)

Of course, there's been the odd hours of procrastination, and the like, which to be perfectly honest, is the only reason that this particular blog post exists. I'm sure none of you care about my exams, but writing this post gets me another ten minutes out of trawling through the delights of french communications law. Joy. 

On top of which, I'm exhausted, and my lips hurt due to my unfortunate habit of chewing on them when stressed. Honestly, you'd think I'd be used to it all by now - exams have been part of my life since I moved into the upper school and started my GCSE's when I was 14 (and I'm 21 now!), but I have to admit that the usual exam stress has hit me harder than usual this year, both now and back in January. I think it is probably because with the language difference, everything is taking twice as long to sink in, and I've been worrying that I'll run out of revision time and fail everything. Call me overdramatic, but there we go. I've always been a touch that way about exams.

And in any case, a year abroad can't be all fun and games, I suppose.

Having said that, I must immediately contradict myself (yay!). Today is exactly one month until my Parisian adventure comes to an end, and I've absolutely crammed my last few weeks here with things to do. I'm going to be all over the place. After all, it's my very last chance to get everything done that I want to do, and so I'm going to be busy, busy, busy. It all starts this Sunday - I'm taking a day out of my revision schedule so that Parisa and I can go to Roland Garros, which is exciting! :)

Expect lots and lots of blogging!

Vicky xx

À Dijon

Parisa and co. have trooped off to spend the next few days in Cannes, because they at Paris-Sorbonne have already finished their exams, the lucky people. Most of my time has been spent revising, because I've still got just under a fortnight to go before my exams start - but no way was I just going to sit around on my lonesome and do nothing but read while they're all down at the beach, *goes green with envy* - so I broke out of my revision schedule on Saturday to spend the day in Dijon!

It was actually a toss up for quite a while between there and Lyon, which is somewhere else I wouldn't have minded going if I'd had the time, but in the end, Dijon is just thaaaaat much closer, thaaaat much cheaper and much smaller - vis-à-vis, better suited for a day trip.

I'll start by saying a word or two about French train travel, however. When I went to Strasbourg back in December, I went by TGV and I printed my tickets at home. All's well and good.

This time, I went by TER, from Paris-Bercy, and I wasn't given the option to print my tickets at home, I had to collect them from the station.

And here is my advice. If ever you are travelling by train in France, and you need to pick up your e-tickets at the machine, leave plenty of time to get to the station. And if you've already left plenty of time: Leave more.

The SNCF ticket machines are confusing. Being a good Erasmus student, I tried to pick them up using the French language option at first, but eventually I had to switch to English and I still had no idea which option I was supposed to select. Every option I did select decided to pretend my reference number didn't exist.

So I joined the ticket queue to beg for help. Except that buying tickets in France is apparently nothing like at home where you tell them the destination, hand over the cash and get given your ticket in the space of a couple of minutes, because everyone in front of me was going through a ridiculously long drawn out process, and I mean long. It appeared to involve the filling out of forms and all kinds of other things. I'm not joking - I actually started to wonder if I was in the queue to take out a mortgage and buy a house, rather than collect a train ticket. A nice four bedroom place, in a cul de sac, with a decent sized garden for the children and the dog. That kind of thing.

You get my point. Minutes crawled by, to the point that I literally had my face in my hands, feeling increasingly nauseous and wondering with sinking heart just how I was going to explain to my parents, who very kindly gave me the money for the ticket, that I'd gone and missed the train.

Clearly, as I'm writing a blog post about Dijon, I got my ticket and made it on to the train (with literally minutes to spare, causing me to have a minor heart attack before we'd even got to 8am - not a great start, I grant you). But there is a lesson to be learned from this story: in France, they take things s.lo.w. Plenty of time still won't be enough time. Remember that, people *wise face*.

Got there in the end!

Having said that, the train journey itself was an absolute pleasure, because we took a winding route through the countryside, and out of the window there was an image of true France, and all drenched in the May sunshine. I would post pictures, but they're all a bit blurry :(

Dijon itself is beautiful, and reminds me in some ways of Strasbourg, in that there are still a lot of traditional wood/timber buildings, although obviously with more if a 'French' feel to it. Unlike Strasbourg, Dijon doesn't have UNESCO world heritage status, and I cannot fathom why. It's beautiful, and absolutely brimming over with character, full of buildings which date from the Middle Ages to the very beginning of the 20th century. It's another one of those cities which was lucky enough to escape the bombing during WW2. 

After I got off the train, I stopped in at the tourist information office and picked up le parcours de la chouette, or the owl trail, for €3.50. The owl is the mascot, if you like, of Dijon. You follow little arrows which have been set in the pavement all around the historic city centre (although they do have a habit of disappearing at a few inconvenient moments), like so...

Given that I was literally only there for the day, I reckon it was probably the best way to see everything and to know exactly what it was I was looking at! The trail starts out in the Jardin Darcy, which according to the little guide I picked up in the tourist office was the town's first public garden, created in 1880. It also, judging by what I saw yesterday, seems to be very popular with newly married couples. I must have counted three pairs coming into this garden alone, and I wasn't even in there very long!

The entrance to Old Dijon proper is through this gate, Porte Guillaume, which used to be part of the city's walls. It also marks the start of Rue de la Liberté, one of the main shopping streets in Dijon, which connects to Place de la Libération at the other end. 

I was lucky enough to end up in Dijon on market day. Les Halles, the covered market in Dijon was designed by Gustave Eiffel, who was born in Dijon and who also designed, (no guesses here), the Eiffel Tower in Paris. 

Les Halles and the surroundings streets were absolutely alive when I wondered through them, and some of the foods they had there looked like they were to die for, and it smelt absolutely amazing. 

This is Dijon's Notre Dame (I swear there seems to be one of these whichever way you look in this country!). It dates from the 13th century, and is known partly for the gargoyles which line the west side, which is in the picture, but mostly for the existence of this little fellow: 

"La Chouette" - the owl, is a tiny scultpure on the side o f Notre Dame. The people of Dijon consider it to be a good luck charm, and it's a tradition to rub it with your left hand as you pass it - when I was there, I saw several people doing this, so really it's no wonder that it has been worn down so much!

The church above I mention only because its one of a number of buildings I noted in Dijon which have their roof tiles arranged in unusual patterns. I googled it, but I didn't really get any reason as to why this is, just this quote from Dijon's wikipedia page,

"Dijon architecture is distinguished by, among other things, toits bourguignons (Burgundian polychrome roofs) made of tiles glazed in terracotta, green, yellow and black and arranged in geometric patterns."

...which doesn't help much, but there we go. It looks good.

After I completed the main route on the trail, I stopped into a restaurant near Porte Guillaume for something to eat. Dijon is actually the capital of the Côte-d'Or département of France, which was one of the original departments formed after the French Revolution, from the former province of Bourgogne (Burgundy). It's a region which is home to a lot of dishes which have become internationally known as typically french, like Coq au Vin and Beef Bourguignon. So I decided to cross another thing off of my France bucket list and have something typically French - I had l'escargots - snails - for starter.

And they weren't bad! I've had them before, a long time ago, but I didn't really remember much about them. They're quite meaty, and as for taste, I'd have to say that they remind me in a lot of ways of certain types of shellfish - perhaps mussels, perhaps something else, I couldn't quite put my finger on what exactly it was, but there we go. If you are one of those (cough, strange, cough) people who claims to hate all seafood, I doubt you'd like snails. For everyone else, I recommend you give them a try!

For main, I had magret de canard (duck) with chips and a side salad with, obviously, a salad dressing based on dijon mustard.

And for pudding, I had Crême Brûlée, which was fine, but I prefer my Crême Brûlée warm, and this was served cold.

For all three courses and a drink, it was only €30, which I didn't think was bad at all! 

After I'd finished eating, I headed over to Maille, famous for its mustard. They have branches in Paris and London too but of course, Dijon is its true home. Call me a mustard heathen, but I was under the impression that mustard came in English, French and Wholegrain, but no, far from it. 

They had flavours the likes of which I'd never seen before (although to be fair, that you could have flavours of mustard never really crossed my mind), from nut to apricot and curry, from parmesan and basil to cassis, another Dijon favourite. I tried the red fruits mustard (a bright pink colour) but it, er, wasn't for me *cough*.

After that I headed into Galeries Lafayette - for no real reason at all. 

Galeries Lafayette is basically the same everywhere - Paris, Strasbourg, Dijon... And yet I still have to go in each one and have a look 🙈
— Victoria Goodsell (@9victoriag) May 17, 2014

Then, after sitting in the Place de la Libération for a while and enjoying the sun and my general surroundings (seriously, what i wouldn't give to be seven again. There was this one kid who kept trying to jump through the fountain without getting wet, and I swear, it kept him entertained for a good twenty minutes at least. He was laughing like a hyena, and I'm certain he would have carried on forever if his mum hadn't stopped him), I decided to do the two 'loops' i missed out when i was doing the owl trail.

These two loops covered the Sainte-Anne district, home to a former Bernadine monastry, Place Emile Zola, where Dijon's public executions took place until the turn of the 19th century, the Botantical Gardens and the Puits de Moïse, or the Well of Moses. I would put up pictures, but my phone had died by this point, and I've not transferred anything from my camera to my laptop yet (revising, don't you know). I might come back and add them to this post later, if I remember. 

So that's that! My train left Dijon at half seven, and all too soon I was back in Paris. I had a lovely day though, (I highly recommend visiting Dijon if ever you get the opportunity) and I'm glad I made the most of it. It would be a shame to waste the few weeks I have remaining here in Paris just because I have exams coming up. It's all about getting the right work/life balance, I suppose. 

Vicky xx

Un weekend avec grandmère...

This weekend, my Mum and my Aunt brought my Grandma to Paris.

It's a trip which has been in the making since Christmas, when my mum made the suggestion. Not two days later, my Gran was down the Post Office picking up a passport form! She was quite well traveled when she was younger, but is less mobile these days and so this weekend was very special for her, because she never thought she'd go abroad again, and she never thought she'd ever see Paris. 

With that in mind, me and my mum sat down with our laptops when I was at home for Easter to do some planning and with a bit of perseverance, we managed to come up with a plan that covered the 'Paris Basics' if you like, and even though I've done them all before, there's something to be said for doing them again with a person who never has and thought they never would.

Enthusiasm, as they say, is infectious.

After my TD on Friday, they all trouped into a cab and came over to my apartment. We walked down to the Jardin du Luxembourg for a stroll, and may I say, now that we are in May and experiencing some decent weather, it is looking beautiful there.

For practicality purposes, they hired a wheelchair for my Gran which we've been pushing around all weekend in quite a workout. Paris is quite a flat city, Montmartre aside, until you need to wheel someone around it. Then you notice slopes and cobbles and hills that have never existed before, kind of. (Muscles I didn't know I have are hurting). 

Anyway, after that we headed back to my apartment where I cooked Coq au Vin, which is rapidly becoming my french specialty dish, and provided pudding on the form of Tartes aux Framboises. I don't know if I have ever mentioned this before or not, but the tarts from P. Plané patisserie at 53bis Boulevard Arago in the 13e Arrondissement are to die for. If you're in Paris, it's totally worth going a little bit out of your way to buy some. If I'll miss anything about Paris after I leave, it will be those raspberry tarts.

And some other stuff. Obviously.

Saturday morning we really got exploring, despite the rain, covering the Arc de a Triomphe, Champs-Élysées,  Jardin de Tuleries (again, really coming into its own as we move further through the spring months), the Louvre and Notre Dame - the obvious stuff.

I had never actually noticed this plaque before - it's just in front of the obelisk in Place de la Concorde

I finally got round to taking a 'look-I'm-touching-the-top-of-the-pyramid' pic...

...And there was a Fête du Pain in the square outside the Cathedral, which smelt amazing.

Sunday morning we went up the Eiffel Tower - I did this all the way back in 2007 or 8, I forget the exact year, when I went on a school trip with my senior school to Futuroscope, near Poitiers, but obviously that was quite a while ago now so I'm glad I did it again while I was here.

And after a crêpe and a chocolat chaud a l'ancienne, they all headed home again, having had, I think, I nice weekend.

Next time I see my Mum, my time here in Paris will be over, which is a weird thought.

Vicky xx

La touriste est retournée!

My blog has been sadly excitement free of late, what with one thing and another, but I woke up this morning, and it was a beautiful sunny day, and so I decided to go for a walk. I ended up going all over the place and having a really lovely Sunday afternoon.

My apartment is in a brilliant location in that we are exceptionally close to the Latin Quarter, and therefore close to pretty much everything. I don't start out with any particular destination in mind, I just meandered around for a bit appreciating how lovely Paris is in May.

Eventually I ended up on the banks of the Seine and literally right in front of a shop that I've been meaning to go to for ages.

Shakespeare & Co is an English language bookshop located at 37, Rue de la Bûcherie, and it's quite quirky.

The original Shakespeare and Company was founded in 1919 by Sylvia Beach and was basically the centre of English Language Literature in Paris. Writers such as Hemingway, F Scott Fitzgerald spent loads of time there, and James Joyce basically used it as his office (in fact, Sylvia Beach published Joyce's Ulysses, a plaque as to which I found on my way home this afternoon...)

The original Shakespeare and Company closed in 1940, supposedly because Ms Beach didn't want to sell a Nazi Officer the last copy of Joyce's Finnegans Wake. It never reopened, even though...

"...Hemingway, as a major in the US army... at the liberation of Paris in 1945 drove his tank straight to the shuttered Shakespeare and Company and personally liberated Sylvia Beach."

Which I think is just brilliant. 

(Quote taken from http://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/mar/07/shakespeare-and-company-bookshop-paris)

The existing Shakespeare and Company was opened in 1951, but as Le Mistral. It was renamed Shakespeare and Company in 1964, and having spent a good while in there this afternoon, all I can say is that the atmosphere is brilliant and I could probably go back and read for hours if you'd let me. 

As it is, I spent much more money in there than I should have done, and although I know I shouldn't have done it, and although I know I should have been much more frugal, I can't bring myself to regret it. 

Sorry, not sorry. 

Anyway, after this, I headed over the Pont Saint-Michel to Île de la Cité to look for the plaque indicating Kilometre Zero, whose existence I only learnt of about a fortnight ago, and which I failed to find even after phoning my brother back in England and asking him to tell me where it is. #fail

Giving up on finding the plaque, I went to Sainte-Chapelle, built between 1242 and 1248 by Louis IX to house the relics of the Passion of Christ. It's all very interesting, but if you want to know more about that, I'll tell you to Google it, because right now what I'm interested in is the architecture and the building itself.

The visitors leaflet describes it as "A gem of High Gothic Architecture", which it is. The following three photos are of the Lower Chapel - and they're all very lovely. 

But calling Sainte-Chapelle a "gem of High Gothic architecture" is, quite frankly the most inane and rubbish description ever.

Why? Well, here's what I have to say on the matter.

I am a very lucky young woman, I know that. I've been to loads of places, very stunning places, and I've looked up at ornate ceilings, and to masterpieces of artwork and architecture, and down to mosaic flooring, and I've appreciated what I've seen and made the appropriate comments of, "Oh, isn't that beautiful."

But never, ever, before today have I been to a place that literally made me suck in a breath - an audible breath, no less - when I laid  my eyes on it.

La Haute Chapelle, or the Upper Chapel at Sainte-Chapelle did exactly that. 

I climbed up the narrow, winding stone staircase, I got to the top, I looked up, and my jaw dropped. I felt moved by its beauty. 

It is quite possibly the most beautiful and stunning man made thing I have ever seen, and quite possibly ever will see. 1113 scenes are depicted in 15 stained glass windows of the like I have never seen before, telling the story of mankind from Creation to the Resurrection of Christ. 

No words of mine will do it justice. No pictures of mine will do it justice - you'd need a much, much better camera than my puny iPhone and my pathetic efforts on instagram, and even then, I'm not sure you can truly appreciate how beautiful the upper chapel truly is unless you go to Paris yourself and look upon it with your own eyes. 

If you ever do go to Paris, and find yourself with a spare hour, I cannot recommend enough that you make the effort to go over to  Île de la Cité and go in to take a look for yourself - you absolutely will not regret it. 

That said, I will now let you take a look at what I'm talking about.

The photos speak for themselves, even with an iPhone camera. 

If you've even begun to see what I'm talking about, then I'm a happy woman, and you'll be adding it to your bucket lists as we speak. 

Just next door to Sainte-Chapelle is la Conciergerie - both buildings are part of the current Palais de Justice. The Conciergerie began life as a royal residence, later became the administrative centre, if you like, of the French Royal family, and finally ended up as a prison, most notably during the French Revolution. 

Between 1793 and 1794, thousands of people appeared before a tribunal at the Conciergerie charged with being an enemy of the Revolution, including Queen Marie-Antoinette, who was kept there up until the very morning of her death, when she was taken to Place de la Révolution, now Place de la Concorde, and, ironically, Robespierre, who had sent hundreds of people to be guillotined himself, during the Reign of Terror. 

Marie-Antoinette's Cell

La Cour des Femmes, or the Women's Courtyard.
Condemned prisoners would wait in groups of twelve in the 'Corner of Last Goodbyes'
for the cart that would take them away to be guillotined. 

Exterior of the Conciergerie

Emerging into the sunshine, I crossed the Pont au Change onto the la rive droite (Right Bank) and headed down Rue Rivoli, passing the Hôtel de Ville ('City Hall') on my way and dipping into Starbucks for a Mocha Frappe, which went down very nicely, in case you were wondering :)

Hotel de Ville

Le Marais is a district which spreads across the 3rd and 4th arrondissements of Paris, and it's one that I've not really explored very much, except (kind of) at night. It's home to one of Paris' main Jewish communities and lots of little art galleries and boutiques.

Anyway, that  was where I was headed, in particular, to Place des Vosges, which is, according to Wikipedia, the oldest planned square in the city. It's also very pretty, and at one time or another has been home to several famous français, including Cardinal Richelieu and Victor Hugo, author of Les Misérables and the Hunchback of Notre Dame. 

Being a Sunday, and being a lovely warm day, it was predictably full to the brim with Parisians and tourists out to enjoy the weather :)

Anyway, after spending a little while sat on the grass, lapping up the sunshine, finishing my frappe and starting one of my new books, I headed home, sat out on the balcony for a while, and then decided to blog about my day before I forgot it all.

Speak soon!

Vicky xx