Une liste: la partie finale!

Fin. Finished. End. Caput. No more. 

My time in Paris is at an end! Ten months down the line, my year abroad is drawing to a close (but is not ended just yet, for reasons I shall mention at the end of this post...). I packed up my bags and left my lovely apartment for the last time on Saturday just gone, and now I am temporarily (again, see end of this post) back in Blighty and getting all reminiscent. I tried to do a 'Paris in numbers' post, but it would have been boring, because I couldn't put an actual number on most of the things I came up with, and it would have gone something like this: "Many, many crêpes, Many more croissants, Even more carnets for the Metro..."

Which is boring. 

Instead, I've finally been through and updated my 'Paris things to do/bucket list', crossing off everything I managed to get done in my final few weeks in the French capital. 

Voilà.

1. Visit the Versailles Palace

2. Go to Notre Dame Cathedral

3. Visit Les Catacombs

4. Indulge in la cuisine, including croissants, macaroons, snails, frogs legs, seafood, and everything else French and/or Parisian. (On the seafood side of things, La Bar a Huitres is the place that I went for my birthday, and it really was delicious. There's several of them in Paris - I went to the one in Montparnasse. They've got a menu that ranges from massive seafood platters costing a few hundreds of euros, to a nice fixed menu for 44 euros, which was much better for my poor student budget)

5. Go to see the Pantheon

6. Spend time in La Jardin du Luxembourg

The next three I didn't do, and I always knew I wouldn't actually be able to do them this year - the first and second because I'm elsewhere at the time they happen; the third because I spent it at home. But I'm keeping them on my list because they're three things which really ought to be done in Paris, and though I won't be doing them this year, I'll be making sure to do them at some point!

7. View the Bastille Day Parade

8. Finale of the Tour de France

9. Spend NYE in Paris

10. Go to the Louvre and see the Mona Lisa! I have well and truly done the Louvre. I think I went there at least six times, covering pretty much every wing they've got in that place, and it's massive. To people going to the Louvre - see the Mona Lisa if you want, although she's pretty underwhelming, but make sure to do Napoleon's apartments too, in the Richelieu wing.

11. Go to Disneyland Paris. Disclaimer: I've actually been here before, so I count it as done. I wasn't going to include it on my list at all, but my "little" (he's 16) brother insisted that I include it, which was blatantly a not very subtle hint that I should take him.

12. Go to Sacré Coeur.

13. Stroll down the Champs-Élysées, and end up in the Place de la Concord

14. Rue Mouffetard - home of my favourite place to get a crêpe, Au P'tit Grec.

15. Go to the Palais Garnier

16. Visit Monet's garden at Giverny - I tried to do this, but on the metro heading to the train station realised that I would leave myself properly, PROPERLY skint if I went, which didn't seem wise.

17. Go to the top of the Eiffel Tower AND go see the Eiffel Tower at night

18. Visit at least 3 other European Countries. I did manage to visit Berlin in Germany, and I was intending to go to Brussels, but I just couldn't afford it, so sadly, this didn't going to happen.

19. Go to the Christmas Market in Strasbourg

20. Spend the day at Parc Asterix :) - another one for which I ran out of time and money!

21. Go to Bercy Shopping Village - because, really, what's Paris without some retail therapy?

22. Les Invalides

23. Moulin Rouge - It costs a fortune to actually see a show, but I've seen the outside and that will do for now!

24. Spend a few days on the South Coast and maybe in Monaco - this was another one that ended up being unrealistic.

25. La Marais and Place des Vosges

26. La Conciergerie

27. Visit St- Sulpice

28. Go to the roof at Galleries Lafayette - incidentally, I really loved the interior of this store. It's gorgeous!

29. Go the Musée de l'Orangerie

30. Go over to the Arc de Triomphe

31. Visit some other French Towns. I've been to Strasbourg (see no. 19 on the list) and also to Dijon.

32. Go for a walk along the Canal St Martin

33. Bois du Boulogne

34. See some jazz of some kind while I'm here!

35. Visit Le Château de Fontainebleau

36. Go to Musee d'Orsay

37. See an exhibition at the Grand Palais - Parisa and I went to see the Cartier exhibition back in January.

38. Go to Musee Marmottan.

39. Go to the French Open

40. Take a photo of Kilometre Zero, which is right outside Notre Dame (Km Zero is the point to which distances are measured to in Paris)

41. Find the most famous graves at Père Lachaise cemetery. (In case you're wondering, Edith Piaf and Oscar Wilde are just two of several famous names buried there)

42. Parc des Buttes Chaumont

43. Visit La Sainte-Chapelle

44. Browse the shelves at the bookshop, Shakespeare and Co

30 out of 44 things done. Not bad, even if I do say so myself. I'll be adding everything I didn't do to my mainstream bucket list, which I keep in the back of my journal. I'll cross everything off of it at some point, be it next year or in the next ten!

The next part of my year abroad is completely un-Erasmus related and it is all down to a company called Projects Abroad - http://www.projects-abroad.co.uk/ - who offer lots of volunteering projects in countries all over the world. I remembered them all the way back from the Gap Year fair at my Sixth Form College, and now I'm finally off on my Project, having got here rather in a rather convoluted fashion.

I'm going to be working for a month in a law firm in Chengdu, China, which is super exciting, and I'm jetting off again in about a week - so watch this space!

Vicky xx

Un weekend des châteaux: #2 - Fontainebleau

As I mentioned in yesterday's post (two in a row! And there'll likely be more this week), one other thing on my bucket list which I have now managed to cross off is the Palace of Fontainebleau, about 55km outside of Paris.

Anne-Marie and I took the transilien from Gare de Lyon (one of the most confusing metro stations I have ever been to, thankyou very much), which took about forty minutes or thereabouts, and then walked from Fontainebleau-Avon to the Château itself, through quite a lot of lovely parkland.

This area is actually home to the Fôret de Fontainebleau, and people come here on droves at the weekends with their bikes to follow the trails. It's home to several endangered European species and used to be a royal hunting park, which I would assume is why the palace was built where it was, essentially as a rather over the top hunting 'lodge'. Although don't quote me on that. It's a bit of a lame description for a château which, along with its park is actually listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The palace is simpler than Versailles but still very grand. The chapel and the throne room (which used to be the King's bedroom but was converted by Napoleon) are two such examples.

The palace's library is also pretty impressive and held a certain amount of appeal to a bookworm like myself!

Despite it's royal heritage, I actually found myself more interested in the château under Napoleon (Bonaparte). His famous uniform is displayed there (and really, I know it's famous that ol' Boney was very short, but seriously, he was short!) as is the room where he abdicated before he was exiled to Elba in 1814 (from where he later escaped). 

It was an another absolutely boiling day though, and I found myself flagging pretty quickly. The park (and its nice shady trees) ended up being much more appealing to me than the château, interesting though it undoubtedly was. I think I would have appreciated it more if I hadn't been to Versailles just the day before, and I think that at times Anne-Marie and I were thinking more of how much our feet hurt than what was in front of us, but it was a very lovely day!

Vicky xx

Les Invalides et le fin des examens

This weekend just gone, mon père was out here in Paris with me, and we had a lovely weekend, catching some live music in a bar on Rue Mouffetard and catching some dinner at La Bar a Huitres, which has become my go to place for seafood (to the delight of my dad, who much to my disgust, is a big fan of oysters).

We also headed over to the Musee de l'Armee at l'Hotel des Invalides. My Dad is ex-navy, and with both of us being history buffs, it was ideal for this weekend.

It's actually really interesting. Unlike the Imperial War Museum in London, it covers more than just the two world wars onwards, but also goes back to the time of the Musketeers and the Napoleonic wars. 

When we went on Saturday, we only had time to cover the 1914-1945 section of the exhibition, and to grab a verrrry quick look at Napoleon's tomb, so at some point before I head back to Blighty I hope to take the opportunity today to go back and look around a bit further. 

Well, that's not ostentatious at all!

In other news, my exams are OVER and I went out to dinner at Entrecôte tonight to celebrate. 

It's so nice not to have any more exams hanging over my head. By Monday this week, all of my stress caught up with me at once and I'm currently coughing and sniffling my way through one of the worst colds I've ever had. To be honest, I've been waiting for my body to say 'no! No more!' for a while. In fact, I'm impressed I made it this long without getting ill - in all my time in education, I have never been through a year as tough and as challenging as this one. 

It's been difficult, exceptionally so, and while I'm glad that I chose to come out here this year, I'm not at all sorry to say goodbye to the university element of it. Not even a little bit. Au Revoir Assas, not gonna miss ya.

On a lighter note, I've 8 (full) days left, including today, to enjoy living in Paris without exams hanging over me, and I hope to make the most of them.

Vicky xx

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

C'est la saison de travail...

Argh! So despite my best intentions, March has been probably the most boring month of all boring months. Uni has taken over; I've got two galop's and an interrogation to revise for before the Easter Holidays, and all of my time has been spent in books. Hence the silence of my blog.

As of tomorrow, I will have been living in Paris for 7 months and I have just under 3 months left to go, however, and with plenty still to accomplish on my things to do list, life isn't going to stay boring!

This weekend, my flatmate Parisa had a houseguest, so I did shove the books aside for long enough to go out on Saturday night, where we spent the night having pre-drinks at a friends' flat in Le Marais and then went out in Bastille.

That's basically all I have to report, though :( sad times. Although Parisa and I have managed to get tickets to the French Open, which I am really excited about :D

I love being on my @thirdyearabroad casually just bought tickets for the French Open :) #rolandgarros #excited
— Victoria Goodsell (@9victoriag) March 13, 2014

OH and seeing as today is the 30th I want to say a big HAPPY MOTHER's DAY to my lovely Mum who I miss very much and can't wait to see when I go home in two weeks (woo!)

That's about it - TTFN, Tatah for now.

Vicky xx