La Fin des Examens!

Hurray! My exams are over and I can get back to normal life once more. January is not even over yet and I can safely say that it has been the longest, most stressful and most tedious month of my entire year abroad so far. Revising for exams in another language is hard. And I am extremely thankful that the way my exam timetable panned out means that I have this week off because I am also exhausted. The Christmas holidays were not all that long ago, really, but any rest and rejuvenation I brought back with me from that fortnight at home has, without a doubt, long since been destroyed. 

Next week, my second semester modules will start, along with two from last semester that, rather to my dismay, I have to carry on with, and I am planning to learn a lesson or two from the misery that has been revising for these exams to make sure that in the summer I am markedly less miserable!

Luckily, just a few hours after the end of my last exam, my mum and my brother arrived in Paris to stay with me for the weekend. My younger brother, Sam, has never been to Paris before, so we did a lot of the old tourist favourites, which are definitely more exciting to re-visit when you're with someone for whom it's all new and exciting.

I would make exhibit A the Eiffel Tower, but for one thing, our trip there on Saturday was actually the first time I've made it to Paris' most famous landmark since I moved here almost 5 months ago, and for another thing, I've not actually been here in any case since a Year 9 school trip, 7 years or so ago. We didn't go up - Sam will be back in Paris in March on a college trip, and he will go up then. I'll go up again when my mum, aunt and grandma make a Paris stopover in May. 

 

Of course, the main reason we hopped over to the Eiffel Tower in the first place is because my Mum has always said that Paris is a place that ought to be explored by river, and so she'd booked us on a short river cruise which took us up past Place de la Concorde, the Louvre and Notre Dame, effectively covering all the major sites - and she was right, Paris does look a lot different by water, so it is definitely worth doing if at all possible.

 

 

And - bonus - we got given a lovely hot crêpe all smothered in Nutella to eat on the way around.

 

What followed this was an awful lot of walking. Sam wanted to see a lot of stuff while he was here, and so what we ended up doing was getting the metro to Charles de Gaulle - Étoile, which is immediately in front of the Arc de Triomphe.

 

So we went over to the Arc, did that, walked all the way down the Champs-Élysées, through Place de la Concorde and the Jardin des Tuileries and up to the Louvre - again, we didn't go in because Sam will when he comes over on his college trip, but we did however spend an inordinate amount of time trying to take photos like this one...

 

 

Anyway - once we'd done that, we walked from the Louvre, along the Seine, crossed over the Pont des Arts [the bridge which is covered all over in padlocks], and then walked down towards l'île de la cite, where we grabbed some lunch and went into Notre Dame Cathedral.

 

Mum wanted to see Galeries Lafayette, so we took the metro there next and went to the rooftop viewing terrace, before deciding that the last stop on our list should be Montmartre, because I wanted to see the Sacré-Cœur again, and because Mum wanted to see Moulin Rouge.

 

 

We actually got really lucky with the Sacré-Cœur, because we managed to time our entrance perfectly with the nuns coming out to sing. I'm completely unknowledgeable about these things, and I have no idea what they were singing, but it sounded beautiful and was very peaceful to listen to.. oh, and also, the view from the top of the hill was gorgeous :)

 

And here's the Moulin Rouge...

 

Not much else to say about that really.

 

We added it all up, anyway, and we reckon that we managed to walk about 16.6km which (I think?) is about 10 miles, so it's really not surprising that I woke up yesterday morning with muscles stiffer than a board!

We had to think about their train on Sunday, so we only did the Catacombs (third time lucky!!!) as opposed to a completely full day like Saturday was.

And I thought it was so worth it.

'Stop! Here is the empire of the dead'

 

It was really quite creepy seeing all the bones piled up - it is the largest necropolis in the world, apparently, and they reckon the remains of more than 6 million Parisians are down there, including several notable people such as Robespierre.

 

With the audio guide, you actually find out quite about about Paris' history. For instance, it was created because a local cemetery, which had been in use nearly 10 centuries was a major health risk - the milk in nearby houses would go off in less than a day (which really gives me such an unpleasant image of what the smell must have been like)!

 

So that was my weekend! I finally got to the Catacombs, I did a lot of walking and exploring, and thanks to Mum, my fridge is now well stocked up with Cheddar Cheese and other British essentials! ;)

 

I'm going to use this week off mainly to sleep and catch up on some well deserved (in my opinion) chillin', but it would be a waste for me not to use the time to go out and do a little more exploring, so at the very least I will be going to the Cartier exhibition at the Grand Palais!

 

Vicky xx

Les stéréotypes parisiens

As I mentioned would be the case in my first blog post of the year, I've not been getting anything in the way of fun stuff so far in 2014, because sadly for me, and everyone else in my situation, January is exam month. 

I've done two of my five exams now, and the light is at the end of the tunnel. Still - I don't like to leave my blog abandoned for weeks on end if I can help it, and so in the odd hour I don't spend revising, I've been racking my brains trying to think of something that I could post with.

Then I was out and about last week, and doing a little bit of people watching, and the idea came to me. I've now been in Paris for 4 and a half months or so, which I think means that I should be able to cover it pretty well, as I don't feel like I'm a starry eyed tourist anymore. So - how does Paris (and it's citizens) match up to it's stereotype?

When I was home for Christmas, and people kept asking me how things were going out in Paris, it became fairly clear that most people - not all, but quite a few - clearly had the following image in the minds when they envisaged my life here. 'All Parisians walk around dressed oh-so-chic, with baguettes tucked under their arm and a wine bottle tucked under the other. They drink coffee for hours, and there's a man with an accordion on every street corner playing the romantic french music you hear in the movies. That's when they're not being brusque and rude.'

Source: Google Images / www.languagetrainers.com/blog/

That's the image. It's probably an image which those people would extend to many French towns and cities, not just Paris - and of course, whilst not a completely authentic view, it has to be said that most (and here I mean most, not all, because I'm sure we can all think of several unpleasant stereotypes which are the exception) stereotypes have a foundation, however small, in fact. Still - the fact is that they are still stereotypes and still don't universally apply.

For instance, take Paris Chic. A few months ago, when my flatmate Parisa and I went on an epically long walk around the city looking for an H&M which turned out to be just 15 minutes or so away (and that is the short version of that story), we came to this conclusion, although I'm sure a lot of people would disagree with this - Paris chic is a myth, everywhere except the super posh St Germain.  Most people dress just the same as you and me. This isn't completely true, sure,  because you'll always see that occasional man/woman walking around looking like they're something straight out of French Vogue - but we decided it came pretty close to it.

Baguettes. Okay, this isn't far from true. You never have to search very hard for a patisserie or a boulangerie in Paris, and it's not uncommon to see people going home from work on the metro with a baguette tucked away in their bags. Wine? Not so much. I don't see people swigging wine here any more than I do at home.

As for the man with the accordion - they're not everywhere, but I am happy to report that they do crop up every now and then, usually hopping onto the metro and playing a tune or two for a couple of stops before walking up and down the carriage with a cup for people to drop change into. Not really the romantic image you get in films, but there we go.

I took this photo back in November - and it's not the only time
 we've been treated to Metro music!

'Parisians are rude.' Okay this is both true and untrue. True in that they can be very brusque and impatient - I've had quite a few experiences of some very rude behaviour since I have been out here, as have a lot of people I know. On the flip side, I can't help but feel like the french language is a inherently geared up towards good manners, of a kind. Why else do they have the informal tu and the formal vous? I'm also taking into account the fact that everyone seems to greet everyone else in this city. I've noticed this most particularly in the lift of my apartment building, where you can be saying Bonjour and Au Revoir like a parrot if you're not careful. By contrast, I'm firmly of the opinion that if you tried chatting to strangers in a lift at home, you'd probably get nothing more than a weird look. 

What else, then? Well it seems like 99.999999% of the French Population smoke. I have no idea what the true statistic is, although I'd be interested to find out. The Assas building of my university is set back a little way from the road with a small courtyard in front of it, and I am literally on the point of buying an oxygen mask of some kind in order to make that 5 metre or so trip from the pavement to the front door, because it's always crowded and the air is absolutely thick with smoke. I don't know whether smoking is really a french stereotype - I would say probably not - but it's an observation nonetheless.

A stereotype that you do hear all the time, and not just about french people but about Europeans in general is that none of the women shave. I'm including this because it is a pretty big stereotype - but I also don't go around staring at people's legs or armpits - so I'm not in a position to comment. 

The next two are absolutely classic stereotypes. The first is poodles. On this, I will say that all Parisian dog owners have small dogs. I'm almost able to state that as a categorical fact. I have not, however, seen any poodles. The second is stripy shirts = I do see a lot of these but there's a back story of sorts to that, in that on my very first night here, my Mum and I were people watching while eating out, and it came up in conversation. Since then, I think I've been consciously looking for them, so I think I probably just notice them more than I usually would have!

My final observation - Paris is a beautiful city - but it also smells really bad. The Metro is the worst offender for awful smells, particularly in comparison to the Tube in London which smells like a summer breeze in comparison. And if anyone reading this has ever had to go to the Metro Stop on Line 5, Place d'Italie, they will know exactly what I'm talking about!

Last but not least, I couldn't write a post on French Stereotypes without including this skit from Blackadder


Tehe. Until next time -

Vicky xx

Bienvenue, 2014!

Bonne année, tous le monde! It's now 2014, and yesterday I caught the Eurostar back to Paris after a lovely, lovely Christmas at home with my family, filled with presents and turkey and lots of wine and Mount Gay Rum. 

I actually found it a lot harder to go back than I did to move out here in the first place, perhaps because moving out here I was anticipating everything and now, to go back, I have a much better idea of what I'm heading towards.

Still, I can't spend to much time brooding because this month is exam month, boooo. That's actually been an adjustment of sorts of itself, because I've not had any January exams since I left college nearly 3 years ago. I didn't manage to get much work done over Christmas, and what I did manage wasn't very effective - so I've got a lot of knuckling down to do for the first few weeks of January. 

On the plus side, I will have a week off when they finish before my new courses - still to be decided upon - start, so that will be good and will give me a chance to regroup and do a little exploring around Paris, which I've not had a chance to do properly in quite a while.

This blog post is really just a bit of nothingness to gradually get back into the swing of things, but normal service will be resumed within the next few weeks once I get out and about. Plus, next month one of my absolute best friends in the world is coming out to visit me; I've got loads of ideas of things I would like to see and do in the next six months, and then there is my 'things to do' list to see about completing, or getting close to completing... so once things get going again I'll have loads of stuff to blog about in  2014!

Until then, I hope you all had a lovely Christmas too, and Happy New Year :)

Vicky xx

Ich fahre nach Berlin - Part Two

If you read my blog regularly, you'll see that I've already posted about part of my trip to the Deutsch capital, Berlin (see 16/12). This post covers the second and final half of my trip.

You may have noticed from my first post that one of the most famous elements of Berlin - the Berlin Wall - was conspicuously absent in our whistlestop tour of all the sights. That's because we made sure to cover that on Saturday, my second day in Berlin, braving absolutely freezing wind and fog to do so (woe is me!)

We started off my taking the U-Bahn over to the site of the East Side Gallery. The East Side Gallery is a 1.3 km stretch of the Berlin Wall, which runs along the River Spree and which has been covered in graffiti art by various artists - apparently there are 105 paintings [or at least there were originally - a lot of the graffiti has itself been graffitied], all painted in 1990, the year after the wall finally fell, on its east side.

It's interesting to go and see - despite the fact that what's left of this part of the wall is covered in colourful and meaningful pieces of artwork, and is full of gaps through which you can see the river and everything on the other side, I still found the wall to be very imposing.

We all walk past walls every day and barely bat an eyelid at them or what is in the other side of them. But somehow, I think that the Berlin Wall seems a whole lot more solid than your everyday wall.

I suppose that part of that is knowing what it once represented; what it meant to the people of Berlin. But some of it, I think, is it's height and length, even considering it is much reduced from what it was. It was built to be imposing, after all, and to cause unease to the human psyche, and cause unease it does, by both it's physical presence and, now, also by it's reputation.

From the wall, we headed back into Central Berlin to see Checkpoint Charlie, which was the only official entry point between East and West, marking the entry into the American Sector.

It took us a good half an hour or so to get from the East Side Gallery to Checkpoint Charlie, which really started to give you an idea of the scale of the disruption caused by the wall. But what really put everything into perspective for me was going to see the Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer - the Berlin Wall memorial.

This is a 60-metre (200 ft) section of the former border, including an old watch tower, and information about how there used to be a row of houses there, from which people tried to escape in the early days, before being forced to evacuate. The houses were later blown up. 

It was seeing this part of the wall - which felt a lot more real again than the section of the East Side Gallery - and reading about the effects of these evacuations and escape attempts, which really made me think about the wall. It only fell a few years before I was born, so not all that long ago really, and it's something I feel like I should make an effort to know a little more about, especially now having seen it for myself. 

After we'd finished at the memorial we called a halt to our strangely Cold War themed day and stopped off at the department store Ka De We (which reminded me very much of Harrods, and was exceptionally festive inside). We grabbed some dinner and then attempted to go the Christmas market at Alexanderplatz (I say attempted because it was actually closing when we rocked up, but there we go!).

The Christmas Section in Ka De We

Then on Sunday, we went for a meander around the flea market in Mauer Park before going back to Immy's flat to 'festify' it before some of her Erasmus friends came over, which lead to a lovely afternoon/evening of Christmas music, good food, conversation, and glühwein!

And with the end of my Berlin trip, that's basically my limit for cool year abroad stuff for 2013. We're already mid way through December. This week we've had a mini Christmas Dinner at our apartment with some friends, and in the next few days I am going HOME!! It feels like absolutely ages since I was there at the end of October for my 21st, so I absolutely cannot wait to see my family and to get in some Christmas traditions. 

On which note, this will be my last blog post for 2013. I'm pretty pleased with how things are going so far with my year abroad (and with my blog) and I hope to keep it up for 2014! 

So, I would like to wish everybody a Joyeux Noël et Bonne Année. I'll see you all again when I start posting again in the New Year!

A bientôt, Bis später!

Vicky xx

P.S. I feel the need to mention my flatmate, Parisa, here, because as I am writing this, she has just read Part One of my Berlin Blog and announced that she's very disappointed to see that she hasn't been mentioned, and did I not miss her at all? Yes, Parisa, I did :) I even instagrammed all my photos in your honour because I know how much it annoys you when I don't edit them! x

Ich fahre nach Berlin - Part One

So, have you guessed what my second exciting event is yet? The title of today's blog is not in my customary French, but in German, and that's because I visited my uni friend Immy in Berlin this weekend!

I was super excited about going to Berlin. Literally everyone I know who has been there before had told me that it's a really amazing city, and so I have wanted to go there for quite a long time. So what better chance than on my year abroad when a friend of mine happens to be doing her year abroad there?

I'm splitting this blog post into two parts because it's promising to be just as long and photo heavy as my Strasbourg post (see 8/12) which I almost made two parts itself, and that was just for a one day trip!  I arrived in Berlin late in Thursday night, and the air was absolutely thick with fog, which didn't bode very well weather wise, but thankfully we woke up on Friday morning to beautiful (if wintry) sunshine and crystal clear blue skies! 

We got up and got going nice and early to fit in as much as we could. Berlin was the European Capital of Culture in 1988 - for good reason - and it has advanced so much in that time so there was an absolute ton that I wanted to fit into three days! 

We started off by taking the U-Bahn to Alexanderplatz, which is a large public square practically in the middle of Berlin and close to pretty much everything, such as the Fernsehturm Berlin - a TV tower which at 368 metres is the tallest structure in all Germany, and was built by what was at the time, East Germany.

Walking away from Alexanderplatz, we passed Berlin Cathedral, on 'Museum Island'. It is pretty spectacular from the outside, and it seemed a shame not to explore a little more, so we decided to go inside and see what it was like.

For only €4 euros we got to explore most of the Cathedral - from the main section to the crypt, where lots of royalty are buried, and the large dome at the top, which was rebuilt after being bombed twice towards the end of World War Two - ...and wow, was it worth it! Berlin Cathedral is absolutely stunning inside - really, really beautiful. A bit like last weeks Strasbourg post, I shan't try to do it justice myself. As they say, a picture speaks a 1000 words.

Climbing up to the dome made me laugh, as it was the second cathedral I've climbed in a fortnight and anyone who's read my Strasbourg post will know how that turned out last time! Luckily, I didn't embarrass myself this time and made it to the top in one piece, which provided me with my first view over Berlin of the day [the second of which I'll come to later on...]

Once we were done at the Cathedral, we carried on meandering down the road, passing the Neue Wache (Central Memorial of the Federal Republic of Germany to the Victims of War and Tyranny) and Humboldt Univeristat, where Immy is studying this year (and whose building is also pretty spectacular, certainly in comparison to my own glass and chrome building back in Paris). Eventually we reached Berlin's famous landmark, the Brandenburg Gate. 

For those who don't know is a former city gate, a triumphal arch, and the site of a lot of famous by US Presidents during the time of the East/West German split and the Berlin Wall.

Then we grabbed a coffee each (everybody should know the the Christmas Orange Mochas from Starbucks are amazing!) before heading for the site of my second view over Berlin. 

The Reichstag building (history students will know that this is the one which famously caught fire in 1933) has a large glass dome at the top from which you can see most of Berlin, and which Immy booked for us and her friend Emma to go and see.

The dome has a giant ramp inside which takes you to the viewing platform at the top in a massive spiral and which, at certain points, automatically triggers a new commentary on the free audio guide that is available.

It explained a lot about what I was actually seeing of Berlin, and a little of it's history, which was interesting seeing as Berlin is absolutely rolling in it. 

After we finished in the dome (and we sure took our time, because there was a lot to look at) we headed to the German Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe which is just a few seconds away from the Brandenburg Gate.

The memorial basically consists of 2711 concrete blocks of varying heights, which is supposed to (and again, this is all thanks to Wikipedia which I freely admit may be leading me up the garden path):

"produce an uneasy, confusing atmosphere... [and] represent a supposedly ordered system that has lost touch with human reason"

I personally found it a bit, well, random, and thought it looked a bit like a graveyard, but there we have it. Ours is not to question why.

After that we went back to Immy's flat to freshen up and grab some dinner, before we headed back out in the evening to meet with her friend Casey at Rosenthaler Platz. We walked from there to the Weinerei Forum, which was effectively a wine tasting bar.

Okay, so the photo isn't wonderful, but the inside of this bar was wonderfully quirky and, so I'm told, very 'Berlin'.

It's effectively a wine tasting bar. You pay €2 to get in and get a glass, and then you can try out and then drink as many of their different wines as you so choose, with helpful recommendations from the bar girl, before giving (at the end of the night) what you deem to be a fair price for the amount of wine that you've consumed while you're there.

Result: the most cost effective few glasses of wine I've had since hitting the continent back in September and a thoroughly enjoyable night out - and that was just Friday! There was a lot more to do in Berlin besides that which I have covered and I planned to do a lot more of that over the following two days...

On which note, the second part of this blog post (covering the said following two days) will be definitely go up by the end of the week, so keep an eye out for that, it will definitely be worth it! 

Until then, tschüss!

Vicky xx

À Strasbourg: le Christkindelsmärik

Hooray! A proper Erasmus post! This is going to be very long and very photo heavy - I've been on an instagramming spree! I mentioned in my last November post that I had some really exciting and Christmassy things coming up. Well, now it's December and I'm allowed to feel festive (according to my little brother who has apparently decided he is the authority on such things) - and this is the first of those Christmassy things!

Ever since I decided to come to France on my year abroad, ever since I found out that I'd be spending this year in Paris, ever since the beginning, I have wanted to go to Strasbourg for the Christmas markets - there are several - or as they say in Alsatian,, the Christkindelsmärik. 

Strasbourg, for those who don't know, is a city in the east of France, practically sat right on top of the border with Germany (and it has actually been German at certain points in its history). For that reason, it's quite different to a lot of French towns. It is France's little piece of Germany - the architecture is quite German, and scattered throughout the city there are little hints of each culture, such as the French/Alsatian road signs [Alsatian being a German dialect of sorts] It's an interesting blend!

The Dual-Language Road Signs found all over Strasbourg

Anyway - a couple of weeks ago I finally acted on this plan and booked my ticket. Then, yesterday morning, I hopped on the metro over to Paris Est and thanks to the TGV, I was in Strasbourg nice and early to spend the day there :)

Now, it would be a shame to go all the way to Strasbourg to do the Christmas Market and not to look at anything else in the city, so I was actually armed with a list of places to visit, and a route of sorts to take in my meanderings. I only had 7 hours or so, and I meant to make the most of them! 

So on leaving the Gare de Strasbourg, I didn't barrel straight for the market but headed off towards Barrage Vauban. It's a 17th century on the river Ill. That and the Ponts Couverts, where I headed next, make for some great views, and kind of act as a gateway into the city centre; a pretty entrance into La Petite France.

Barrage Vauban

The Ponts Couverts

The centre of Strasbourg itself is actually an island, the Grand Île, and in 1988 it was granted UNESCO World Heritage Status [according to Wikipedia, this was the first time it was conferred on an entire city centre]. I can totally understand why it got this status having wondered around La Petite France, where I went next.

This part of Strasbourg is so pretty. It is also known as Gerberviertel - the tanner's district - and all the buildings are very Alsatian and very medievalesque - I have no idea when they actually date from.

It was gorgeous, and after the past few stressful weeks I've had in Paris, really lovely to be able to meander around winding streets and just dip in and out of little shops and the various markets [they're literally scattered all over the city] as I felt like it.

By this point I was basically at the Cathedral, which is interesting both on its own and as the host to part of the city's Christmas Market. The Cathedral itself is something very like what I have come to expect from French cathedrals - at least, to those I have seen, which admittedly, it very few - with it's very gothic architecture, although it's kind of a rose colour, which is a little bit different.

I'm told it has a quite interesting Astronomical Clock, which puts on a performance every day around half twelve. I was in the the Place de la Cathédrale at the time, but I walked around several times and didn't actually spot it. I have a feeling that this is probably just another example of my not paying enough attention to my surroundings, for which I am sadly well-known by my friends.

Strasbourg Cathedral. 

Then, seeing a sign, in my wisdom, I paid the €2.50 to climb to the top of its spire. There's something like 322 steps to climb, which didn't seem like alllllll that many when I was stood at the bottom but seemed like a very different story half way to the top! 

The steps were very steep and in a spiral all the way to the top [unsurprisingly], and I had to stop several times up the tower huffing and puffing [only to be asked, quite embarrassingly, several times if I was okay by the 50-something year old French woman following behind, who was clearly convinced that I was about to drop dead of an asthma attack and that she had better not overtake me in case I needed resuscitation. Or something]

Although in my defence, I wikipedia'd the cathedral tonight when I was writing this blog, and I am quoting this directly from that webpage:

“At 142 metres (466 feet), it was the world's tallest building from 1647 to 1874 (227 years), when it was surpassed by St. Nikolai's Church, Hamburg. Today it is the sixth-tallest church in the world and the highest still-standing structure built entirely in the Middle Ages.”

So please don't judge me too badly!

On the plus side, the view was totally worth it. On a clear day, you're supposed to be able to see all the way to the Black Forest in the East, and the Vosges Mountain Range in the West, which despite the clouds, I could definitely make out in the distance.

When I eventually got my breath back enough to go back to the bottom [I swear, I'm really not as unfit as it sounds!] I went inside. I'd try to describe it, but I'm not sure that any words I could come up with would do it justice, so I'll let you see for yourselves.

Now [finally] we come to the Christmas Market! It was founded in 1570, which makes it one of the oldest Christmas Markets in Europe, and it's a good one!

The main thing that you notice about this Christmas Market, which I have never picked up on anywhere else [and this is also on its Wikipedia page, funnily enough] is that the streets smell heavenly, of Vin Chaud and spices. It's enough to get anyone's taste buds drooling, so it's no surprise that I sampled some of the Mulled Wine. I also got my hands on some marron chauds [chestnuts] which I have been craving ever since I spotted them at the Paris Christmas market, and a gaufre au chocolat [waffle]. My family will inevitably read this and point out that yet again I am talking about food, but I don't care. I'd like to see them do any different!

Other than the copious amounts of food on offer, there was a complete range of things, from beautiful hand made wooden dolls, to Christmas decorations, hand painted candlesticks and many many candles, models, Christmas decorations and so so much more that I'd never be able to cover it all in one post. 

One thing I did notice, though, was the lack of any music whatsoever - Christmas or otherwise. To me, a Christmas Market needs carols, which granted, are quite an English thing, but there was no music at all that I noticed, not even French music. I had to walk around humming to myself to fill the gap it left, like a slightly deranged person!

Back on track: finally, I ended up at another Christmas Market on Place Kléber, which is also home to Strasbourg's MASSIVE Christmas Tree. I got photos of it both before and after the sunset, and it definitely made an impression at night, when all the lights could properly be seen.

So that's pretty much that! I was going to walk up to see a few other things in Strasbourg, like the European Parliament, and the Jardin Des Deux Rives, which is basically the last stop before you cross the border from France into Germany, but I was having such a nice time meandering around the markets that I didn't bother. As it is, I have like a trillion more photos, and a trillion more things to say, but this blog post is long enough without adding all that in! Strasbourg is a beautiful city and I see myself going back there one day, not least for the fact that my mum has her name written all over it! I'm very jealous of all you Erasmus people who get to live there :)

I've got something else really exciting coming up next weekend as well, which I will also make sure to post about afterwards and which is also likely to be pretty long and photo heavy - so please keep an eye out for that! It's something I've wanted to do for a long time...

Hope everyone is having a lovely December,

Vicky xx