Pâques!

WEEK ONE of the holidays and it's already been jam packed full of lovely things! I'm extremely lucky to have been invited chez Caroline for the first ten days of my holiday and my gosh it's been fab! First, we went as a family to Tréport Normandie! It was the perfect day for weather...I even got a little bit sunburnt! We arrived at the top of the cliff faces and had a huge walk round to see the views. It was a little windy but still very pleasant, it was great to see such magnificent sights for the start of spring too!

We arrived on a day where there was jet ski competitions too, which was pretty cool to watch! The beach was full of people as everyone was wanting to "profiter" with the sun and the sea! I'm still not sure it was warm enough at 25 degrees for the sea though!The top of the cliffs was a great start to the holiday, with beautiful scenes of the whole town! We then went down the cliff on a railway/monorail system

After a big walk round, we decided it was soon time for lunch - after a few hours of driving I think it was definitely well deserved for Caro and her husband!!! This was also a perfect opportunity to see the jet skiers and crazy water sports up close!

We ate in a seaside restaurant, which was very carefully picked out! It was surprising to see that despite some restaurants claiming to be "home cooked" food, they would use frozen fish - despite being that close to the sea! Instead of these "fake" restaurants we found a lovely, real sea food one to delve into! I had escalope with potatoes and veg! I really thought it was terrific, one of the best sea food places I've been to!

The afternoon was more beautiful walks around the town and beach, soaking up that vitamin D the North had been lacking for a long time! I had a fantastic time with the family chatting and seeing some of the most spectacular sights! It was the most perfect way to start the holidays, especially with the most fantastic boat trip! It was Caroline's idea and a huge thank you to her and her family for having me (and putting up with me) it was an amazing little holiday away from home!

 The boat trip took us all around the cliffs and around by the big cathedral that was part of the town.  

A holiday wouldn't be a holiday without ice-cream!

It was one of the best holidays! I think we were all well and truly shattered at the end of it, but it was a perfect place for weather, food and family! After our trip to Normandie, we went on a trip near Paris this week - to Parc Astérix!

For those who don't know, Astérix is an extremely famous French cartoon, and they've made a whole theme park out of the idea! It was brilliant - it was like a French version of Disney! We began the day with the 'Grosse splash' ride, getting soaked but when its 20 degrees + who cares! We also went on a log floom and I don't think I've ever screamed so much in my life!

Eloïse and I got to meet Obélix and Astérix too so that was lots of fun! I think by the looks of the picture we caught the sun a bit too much that day too...oops

We had a fantastic family day out, enjoying all of the rollercoasters!

WEEK TWO was my trip to Lyon which I organised with Julia! So straight away Lundi Pâques I was off on a train to pack my bag in Douai, then off to Julia's house! We started our holiday off properly with cocktails in Lille and then accidentally had very long conversations on the night...we had to be up the next morning at 4! So after 3 and a half hours later...with huge huge rucksacks we arrived at 9am in Lyon! 

Our first stop was the Parc de la Tête d'Or, a good twenty minute walk or so from the station (claims google) but we were faster than that in excitement - I think the chocolate croissant helped! Arriving at the park is stunning, it has its own botanical gardens and free zoo! We warmed up in the Southern sun and really appreciated the monkeys!

 

We couldn't check into our apartment until 15h, so we decided to do the most as possible before then! My idea that I'd found through a friend at school, was the Institut Lumière - the museum of the famous French film directors: the Lumière brothers. I'm sure anyone at Nottingham will remember the long first year lectures on photography and film, but this museum was fantastic. We got to see so many different film clips, cameras and how film truly had began (MERCI LA FRANCE!)

 

 
 It was safe to say at this point, 14h, we were both creamed crackered. The day had been huge and it wasn't over yet! We'd walked nearly 10km at this point too so we decided to get an Uber to avoid around 2 miles of walking (which honestly wouldn't have bothered us but our bags were murder!!) to our apartment. We decided to have a hot chocolate in a near by café that easily became our favourite of the holiday after that!

  Our next move, after sorting out our apartment with the famous "Tommy", was to explore Lyon and it's old town - Vieux Lyon. We took to the streets and my gosh it was stunning. I wish I could put more and more photos on my blog but I'll upload them to Facebook and Instagram too so follow it there! 

One thing you have to know about myself and Julia, is that we can and WILL talk about books until the sun goes down. Finding a beautiful, second hand book shop was a little gold-mine that day for us!

 


It was lovely to delve into different shelves - and find soooo much amazing French critics and novels! Little did we know this would be the start of a lot of bookstores...

Dinner that evening was in an official Lyon restaurant so I took it upon myself to try their specialities! We call the salad a bit of a 'mystery meat' one, as I literally had no idea which meats I was eating...was very nice though! I then had a Quenelle: this is a small mixture of creamed fish or meat with a light egg binding and then cooked - usually by poaching. Sounds weird right? IT WAS AMAZING. Julia also had lamb, which honestly gave me food envy!

The next day was another early start...5am! We were off to Annecy. My friend from uni Emma lives in Annecy and her photos always look incredible, so I was dying to see it for myself! Annecy is known as the little Venice of France...I think you can see why!

 It's lovely little canal like streams lead into a huge lake - which thanks to our amazing boat ride we found out was the third largest lake in France. Pretty cool! First we ventured into the Annecy Castle - which wasn't bad at all. I really enjoyed the latest exhibit on a comic-book styled artist! Afterwards I can truly say thank god for Julia's amazing ideas, we got on an hour long boat cruise around the lake, it was gorgeous!

As you can see, we even started getting a glimpse of the mountains too. What a perfect place to start in Annecy! I'm very jealous of Emma getting to live here!



After the boat ride, we headed back around the town, hunting out restaurants for food and eyeing up all the ice-cream shops! It's strangely a little like Italy in that way, sooooooo many icecream shops and sooooo much choice!

But first it was time for dinner. We were both desperate for some good old French cheese and decided to treat ourselves to tartiflette - which is like a huge block of cheese melted onto potatoes and bacon and OOOOOO IT'S THE BEST!








We spent the rest of our afternoon exploring the town, buying souvenirs and probably too much ice-cream. I joke. You can never have too much of a good thing.





Unfortunately with Ouibus times, at 15h30 it was time to leave. When we'd arrived at 8am it wasn't bad at all though! We decided to have a lovely relaxing evening in the apartment before another busy day!

Our last full day in Lyon was another stunning one. Full of culture too! The first thing we decided to do was enter a little book shop just across the river, on our way to climbing the giant hill to the church.

Can you spot the book shop? (It's on the left! Past the bridge!)

This was the official highlight in our literary eyes. Hundreds upon hundreds of French lit, all at low low prices...what was even better we got discounts too - merci au vendeur! 

This picture below is just a snapshot of the balcony they have right at the back of the shop, up the stairs. There's books on every wall, on almost every part of the floor in this shop! Glad they gave us space to walk!

Instead of taking a cable cart up to the top of the hill, we prepared ourselves for a treck! But it really wasn't half as bad as it looks - coming from me who has a fitness level of 0!!!


The church inside was stunning and so worth the climb. It even had a huge mosaic of Jeanne d'Arc so of course I was more than happy! The church was also the most perfect photo stop ever! Merci!

We then carried onto the Roman museum, which for 2.50 euros, was amazing. I don't know what I loved more, reading all the descriptions in French and not having to translate into English, or all the amazing artefacts the museum held! The rest of our day was spent in the old town, and the new, discovering more of Lyon's beautiful wonders. I'm envious of anyone who's got to live here!

So now? NOW I'M HOME! Well I'm home in Douai! Tonight Isabelle, Philippe, Marie, Chacha and Julien are coming to have a meal with me and then it's go go go again! Saturday morning I'm off to my tutee's house to spend the weekend with them! Then Monday night I'm back at Caroline's as I start my last week of work.

YES LAST WEEK OF WORK...Crazy right?!?!
I'm finishing my work as an assistant soon...but my travels in France are not over yet. More about this soon!

Catch you later

JR

xxxx

Families and a lot of 'Lovin'!

Hello to all my blog readers! So sorry I haven't posted in two weeks...shocking, but so much has happened! This post could be a little long, but it'll be worth the read... I hope!!!

After Versailles I had a lovely invitation to spend a Saturday in Lille with Julia, her brother Jack and their aunty, Jennie. The day started off with a little bit of a "boo-boo" as we didn't realise the musée de la piscine was closed in the morning, so the 30 minute metro ride and a quick nose around Roubaix is as far as we got! This was really fun though as it gave me the opportunity to meet Jennie and Jack properly and chat Jennie's head off...oops. So the next stop on our day in Lille was The WAF!


The Waf is the dog café, the first in Europe, found in Vieux Lille. The concept is fantastic, you pay for the hours you stay and you have as much free drinks - teas, coffees, squash etc as you want! For 2 hours we payed 7.50! Not bad at all! The café has loads of different dogs that sleep, play and run round for everyone to enjoy. As a new comer, the famous "Ophélie" gave us the tour, telling us all the dog's names and personalities. In all honesty, I'm not a dog person, sorry I like cats, but even I LOVED this place. It's definitely a must in France  
 We then had a fantastic lunch in Pain Quotidien a huge merci buckets to Jennie for that, it was incredible!!! We had a lovely time exploring Lille, walking off the food, and buying of course....MORE FOOD!

Our next trip was to my favourite café/tea room of all time, Chez Méert! I decided to have a Strong English Breakfast Tea! Jack and I both had the Garden of Eden cake too...YUM.

It was an amazing day to meet such a lovely family, I felt really lucky! Thank you so much Julia, Jack and Jennie! Hopefully see you all soon for a 4 J's reunion!

 
The week after was also a very busy one. My tutee had offered Wednesday to take me to see La Belle et La Bête! Beauty and the Beast! I got to see a real French Disney story in FRENCH. I was really impressed with all of the French songs and voices as well as the special effects! After that, we went "karting", or go-karting as we call it. This was TERRIFYING. Never in my life am I doing it again, but there's not many people that have pretended to be 14 years old and got called a snail for how slow they were going!

The picture above is a TV tray my tutees mom had given me when she asked if I wanted crêpes for desert..I had my own tray full of crepes, sugar and jam whilst watching TV!!!!! As you can see another family that are too too kind for words!

That weekend I spent at Caroline's!

 We had a fantastic day helping her daughter Eloïse prepare for a trip to Italy, which meant SHOPPING! I really enjoyed helping to pick some things out for her! We then had the pleasure of going to the Buffalo Restaurant which was delicious, I was so grateful as my meal was immense!

The evening was PIZZA, my absolute favourite food, so it was a great weekend!!! I spent a wonderful time with the kids as well as the lovely chats I have with Caroline and her husband, a family that are just as close to me as my own!

That Sunday was Vanessa's 21st birthday, a huge happy birthday to her again. We went to the Bureau restaurant in Douai together, with cocktails and such amazing food. I had a fantastic night thank you so much Vanessa and I hope you're doing well!

Finally we are up-to-date for this weekend. This weekend was the famous "Escape Rooms" and last weekend for all the assistants in Lille, as after this weekend no-one is free on the same days! This week I became very stuffed up with the flu and cold, even missing work! Anyone who knows me well enough knows that a day off for me must mean I'm either dead or not moving out of bed from being so ill...the second was very accurate. It hasn't been fun. Being ill outside of your own home, your own family sucks. I'm really lucky I had Isabelle feeding me all sorts of medicines and natural remedies, as well as cooking some terrific food, I'll forever be really grateful for this week! I've also had the pleasure of phone calls from Matt and my Mom every day checking on how I am! Thank you so much!!! So Friday it was back to work and then to Lille....

A huge shout-out to Luke for this amazing idea. The Prison Break themed escape room was incredible. I think we were all amazed at how cool the game was and we are all dying to do another together...maybe it could be a group tradition now guys?! 

We were locked in 3 cells in pairs and had 1 hour to get out of there, the main room and the nurses room we ended up in! It was known as the hardest of escape rooms and we failed...with 30 seconds for the final bit to go! DAMN.

A huge joke surrounding this was the fact we spent too long holding some important keys, instead of throwing them. Poor Luke has had this ripped out of him ever since, so I'll stop there. But Luke, really, throw the god damn key. 

So this was my last weekend with my assistant family, (sorry I didn't see you Ellie & Christina but hope Venice was super nice!) as I'll be spending Easter with Caroline's family and then I'm off travelling. I think I'm only sleeping in my own bed 4 times after next week?!?!?! CRAZY. 

A huge thank you to Lauren and Becca, who hosted the greatest soirée ever, and for putting up with me all weekend. It was a great way to spend my final time with you guys! Our soirée was not your typical house party, however, oh no, we had a team quiz on our year abroad, year abroad awards and a music round thanks to Nia and Luke! I was chuffed to win the best candid taker and the best blog. SO THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!! 

The night ended very early this morning, so I am shattered now! But it truly was a fantastic send-off! With French baguettes, cheeses, crisps, strawberries and chocolate! So today/last night was amazing but also really sad. I've now had to say goodbye to some of the most amazing people I've ever met, but thankfully we all live in the UK, so maybe one day we can have a huge reunion. 

I want to take this moment on my blog to say a huge thank you to this group of people. In the 8 months I've been living in France, these people have been my 'UK family'. Stuck together by Nia Jones herself, every trip organised, every day out, every laugh in Lille has been thanks to these people. Moving away on a year abroad is a huge thing and having different support systems has made me feel finally at home. Thanks to these girls and Luke, you've restored my faith in people after a tough previous two years. You've shown me that although we're different, we get on like a house on fire and for that, I'll be forever grateful. So here's to you 'HaLille Galdem', who held everyone together when times were tough, who was always there if you wanted plans and never said NO. It's not every day you'll meet such a special group of people and I fully believe we are going to be friends for a long long time.

So now, I have one week of school before the holidays, two weeks break, 1 week at work and then I'm home (for a little bit, hehe), it's going to fly!!!! 

What is life going to be like after France? Who knows, but I'm ready for the next adventure. 

JR

xxxxx

PS 

SEE YOU SOON MOM!!! xxxx