dream car located

A mere three days rest until my parting with this beautiful country as my gap year comes to a close…

It is difficult to come to grips with the fact that this year, I spent so much time planning for, has almost finished, and what an incredible year it has been!

I have visited 12 countries, taken 18 planes (yes, I am single handedly causing global warming), slept in over 30 different beds, been taught how to act by a voice coach to over 25 Oscar Winners, swan in the Dead Sea, served at the bar for an art evening in Germany despite not speaking a word of German, experienced a true Queen’s Day in alll its orange glory in the Netherlands, swan in the Danube, witnessed the breathtaking Bastille Day fireworks in front of the Eiffel Tower, stayed with a friend’s great blind uncle in Italy, taken the autobahn, given English tests to Jordainians, been in four different countries in under 24 hours, carshared with Bulgarians, eaten a deepfried Marsbar, got numerous marriage proposals but, above all, I have learnt that the best thing that one could ever do is to travel. You might say I’ve caught the bug…

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” –St Augustine

Singing ‘shingle hells’ we all helped decorate the Christmas tree on my last chilly Sunday evening in France.

My last weekend was everything I could’ve hoped for. It started with a little reunion with these two, Annie (on the right) my great friend Clem’s younger sister who is currently on exchange, coincidentally just down the road from me, and Clara, a frenchie from Burgundy who was on exchange in Australia two years ago. We started with a tea at the mosque before grabbing falafels and vintage shopping our way through the Marais (they are clenching the bags as evidence of our succes).

Afterwards I headed out to the suburbs to Anneliese’s place where I was invited to stay the night as she had to babysit. So there we sat eating jelly and chocolate watching In Bruges. It was so fabulous watching it now, the first time since I visited it. On the Sunday we decided to do the free Sandeman’s tour, a tour I did my second day in France, as well as in numerous cities around Europe. It was so great doing it now that my perspective of Paris has altered. The tour also provided us with some little surprises such as stumbling upon a very lively Cote-Ivorian manifestation at Palais-Royal and an overflowing Seine, flooding part of the boardwalk along the banks.

After a quick duck home to decorate le sapin (the Christmas tree), I went back out to, for one last time, do our cheap Sunday night movie, this time we saw De Vrai Mensonges, Audrey Tatou’s new romcom.

A beautiful photo taken by a friend today

I awoke today, after yesterday’s 11cm dumping of snow, to an absolutely cloud-less beaming blue sky as far as the eye could see and knew instantly that it was the perfect day to do the final thing on my enormous To Do List that I started compiling and diligently completing since my March arrival- climb Notre Dame. Off I trotted through the snow but much to my horror the towers were closed due to ice. Bummer, I though to myself. Not to worry, I’ll just come back tomorrow, hopefully these clear skies will continue. One can only hope! I decided to go for a little walk around the island and finish the last of my Christmas souvenir shopping and on my walk back to the métro passed Notre Dame the sign had, miraculously, been taken down and a small like of 4 frozen tourists had emerged, a line I quickly joined. After a short wait I quickly made it through and up the skinny, windy stairs to the top.

My jaw dropped. It was awesome, it the true sense of the word, I was filled with absolute awe….. I couldn’t believe it had taken me this long to make it up here.

Staring over my adopted hometown with, what looked like, millions of grey rooves sprinkled with a soft layer icing sugar, I was able to reflect on my time here and how much I have been absolutely captivated by this breathtaking city. I have most definitely fallen underneath its charm. I know, no matter where I am living or how old I am, I will always have a piece of Paris within me…

As soon as I finished French class I headed straight to the train station to catch an RER surburban train to Versailles to view renowned Japanese artist, Haruki Murakami’s, new sculpture exhibition within the palace. During the last few years the Palace has, rather controversially, held avant-garde modern art exhibitions during the winter months. Some of the famous ones has been Jeff Koons and his metallic balloon dogs. I was fascinated and considering I get into the palace for free off I hopped.

I was in luck alright. During my half hour train ride the heavens opened and again I watched as Paris become covered with a thick blanket off snow. Now I could really say I’ve seen Versailles in every season, under rain, during my first visit, hai/snow, this time and shine, during the hot summer months when I paid a visit to Marie Antoinette’s hamlet.

The Japenese anime character were scattered through the rooms. Interestingly I wouldn’t particularly like the sculptures alone if they were placed in a normal gallery setting, yet somehow with the Versailles renaissance wall murals and golden chandeliers as backdrops, they become absolutely fascinating, a quirky, yet genius mix. Of course it is conversial, it is definitely not everybody’s cup of tea, but everyone must admit it must have taken some guts to cook up an extremely unusual mix like that. Fortunately though, it is not permanent…

My camera unfortunately become malnourished and died on me part way through so I have borrowed some photos from friends and even one from google.

Check out that carpet!