FABruary

So... it's been quite a while since my last post, and quite a bit has happened *cough* Paris *cough*, which means I have a lot to talk about. I'm warning you in advance, this will be a long post and I apologise, so if you're feeling up to it, grab a cup of tea, and settle in to read all about my past two weeks. I'll try to let the pictures do most of the talking :) 


So, on Tuesday, February the 11th, Jess and I waited impatiently for the day to be over so we could head to London for the Taylor Swift concert. Little did I know that Michael and Jess had been talking and Michael had organised to meet us at Ardingly that afternoon to surprise me. It was a lovely surprise, and the three of us made our way to the O2 Arena in London to watch Tay Tay's amazing Red Tour for the second time. 

Jess and I danced and sang our hearts out and had a fabulous time. Michael enjoyed it as well, just not with as much enthusiasm :P 

After Tuesday, we had only 2 and a half days left of work before our first holiday (insert squeals of excitement here), which thankfully went by very quickly. 

Friday 14th: Valentines Day

Jess and I, the night before, made Valentines Day digestives, with love-themed decorations. The next occasion will be St Patrick's Day, so we'll have to get green, white and orange decorations going.  Friday was only a half-day, so we all finished work at 1. Then, since I hadn't packed yet, I  packed my suitcase and packed up my room (as it was getting painted and refurnished)... and hours and hours later, I was ready. Michael came and gave me a bunch of beautiful red roses and a box of chocolates and a beautiful bracelet which I received later, in Paris. 

For dinner, we went to a lovely restaurant that had an amazing dinner. The dessert was delicious! Creme brulee, brownie, chocolate covered strawberries and ice cream. We headed to London a little later than planned and unfortunately missed out on the London Eye, as they were shutting it early due to intense wind. So we had chicken nuggets from McDonald's instead. 

Dessert... not bad

In London... Pretty fairy lights in the trees and London Eye in the background. 

Saturday 15th: Off to Paris

The next day, we made our way to St Pancras International Station in London to get on the Eurostar to Paris. We had lunch at the station and then boarded on the train. I think it took about 2 hours, and we may have fallen asleep for some of it, but watching the beautiful green French countryside pass by was really lovely. 

We arrived in Paris when it was already dark. We got a cab to our hotel, Hotel Madison. It is a cute little hotel right on Boulevard St Germain, and about a 5 minute walk to the Louvre. The location was really convenient. After dumping our bags, we went on a walk to the Eiffel Tower. 

My initial impression of Paris was that I loved it. The buildings, the history, the atmosphere... I just got a good vibe from it. 

Me at a lovely little church on our walk to the Eiffel Tower. We discovered this night that Paris gets really cold in the winter. 

First time at the Eiffel tower! I loved it. It may just be an metal tower but I think it's beautiful. 

Michael and I then got some dinner at an Italian place nearby and sat in the warmth. We were really tired even though we hadn't done anything all day, so we headed back home to sleep and prepare for the next day of adventuring Paris... on Segways!!! 


Sunday 16th: Segways

We woke with excitement for our day of Segway riding! I, having never in my life ridden a Segway, was pretty nervous about how I would go. Our tour guide was pretty good, and explained how to use it well. We had a practice before he let us out on the streets, and thankfully, it wasn't difficult at all. In fact, it was a lot of fun and such a different feeling to riding a bike. Each of the Segways used in our tour group had a punny name, mine was Segasaurus, Michael had Seghetti bolognese. 

We took off, first riding through a park to get to the Paris Military School and the Wall of Peace. 

Here is my and the tour group on our Segways...

Here is the Paris School of Military and a statue out the front of it...

And here is us out the front of the Peace Wall and the Eiffel Tower in the background

You can see us sporting our lovely, fashionable helmets in this photo. 

Our tour guide told us that this Peace Wall is one of the features that the Parisians hate. It's all made out of glass and had 'peace' written on it in different languages. One man, one day, broke it with a beer bottle or something when he was drunk because he hated it so much. I think they don't like it because it doesn't fit in with the city. 

Moving on from there, we headed to the Dome Church, a beautiful old church with a golden dome. It's where Napoleon's tomb is, although we didn't get to go inside since we had our Segways with us. According to our tour guide, the guy who ordered its construction, King Louis XIV, loved the paintings inside the dome (inspired by St Peters Basilica), but they were too high, so he made them make a dome closer to the floor with the exact same paintings on it so he could see it better. Crazy. 

Me with my fabulous helmet out the front of the Dome Church. Fun fact: the gold is real

The other side of the church - a history museum...

Then, we rode to Pont Alexandre III bridge, and saw some beautiful views of Paris. We could see the Tower, the Petite and Grand Palais, etc...

After the bridge, which is beautiful and decorated with gold - fake this time - statues and paint, we moved on. We stopped at Harmony Square and Michael and I had the best waffle of all time! Hot waffle with melted Nutella and banana. Was superb. We learnt a bit about the history of Harmony Square - basically lots of people were beheaded there. 

Here is a shot of Harmony Square

From there, we rode to the Louvre and had a look at the gardens in front of it. We were told that King Louis XIV lived in the Louvre many years ago, but the palace wasn't grand enough for him, so he ordered another, grander palace to be built. More on that later... (Versailles). The glass pyramid out the front of the Louvre is also one of the structures the Parisians hate, although I quite like it. 

Then we rode along the Seine and made our way to the Eiffel Tower for pictures. 

The tour was sadly over. We had so much fun riding the Segways and getting funny looks from the people we passed on the streets. We headed back to the Segway HQ and then Michael and I went to Notre Dame cathedral. 

Not really knowing what to expect, we rocked up and I was so impressed by the building itself. The carvings and statues decorating the building are so intricate and I tried to take as much of it in as I could. We lined up to go inside - and it's huge. The stained glass windows are gorgeous and, while it was really busy with tourists, I still really enjoyed visiting. 

We left the cathedral and walked to love-lock bridge where we put a padlock on the bridge (#ultimatetourists) and then headed back to our hotel to get ready for dinner. A nice little cafe on a little street off Boulevard St Germain. It had escargot (snails) on the menu, so it seemed like a pretty legit French restaurant. We didn't try the escargot. 

Notre Dame from the other side of the river

Love lock bridge

Monday 17th: Random day

We were supposed to have a picnic today, but the place we were going to get our stuff from didn't open until later, so we went shopping instead, at Galeries Lafayette! Galeries Lafayette was absolutely stunning! We walked in and were amazed at the beautiful stained glass dome above. Gorgeous. Michael bought me a lovely bracelet for my Valentines Day present and we wandered around and window shopped and talked and had a fun time checking out Marc Jacobs and Prada etc.. We had a lovely lunch before we left, and then we got very lost and it took us much longer to get back to our hotel than we planned. On our way back, we decided to walk up the Champs-Élysées to check out the Arc de Triomphe - we may have had a quick pit-stop at McDonald's for nuggets before admiring the huge arch.

After, we headed back to our hotel to get ready for dinner. We had a reservation at the restaurant up the Eiffel Tower, which was lovely, although very fancy. We ordered the duck foie gras for an entree, not knowing what foie gras is. It came out and it looked like cat food. We ate it. We laughed through the disgustingness of it. I couldn't finish, it was too gross. Only when I got back to WiFi did I check what it was... duck liver that has been specifically fattened. I almost threw up a little when I read that. That was when I decided that I didn't need to try escargot or frogs legs to broaden my horizons when it comes to food because I tried duck liver and that's enough for one trip. The main and dessert were absolutely delicious however, and made up for the entree. It was a really lovely night.

The dome at Galeries Lafayette

Me at the fountain at Harmony Square on our way to the Arc

Us at Harmony Square

Us at the Arc de Triomphe

The Arc...

Drinking champagne at dinner...

Tuesday 18th: Museum Day

So, today was supposed to be museum day... we got up late and walked to the Louvre (Michael fell for one of the scams and almost donated 20 euros to a "peace charity") and wondered why it wasn't very busy. Anyway, we took some touristy photos and went to go inside, when we were told that, "Sorry, the Louvre is closed on Tuesdays". Oh. 

There went that plan. 

So, we walked to the next museum on the list, Musee D'Orsay and had a look around inside - where we saw some of Van Gogh's work and some others. There was also this really beautiful gold room that was just stunning. The other museum we were going to hit up, Musee de L'Orangerie was also closed on a Tuesday, so we went wandering through the streets of Paris and found a beautiful little patisserie where we bought little tarts (citron meringue was probably the fav of the trip) and a baguette and we had a little pre-dinner feast. We may have eaten a lot on this trip... Then, for dinner, we were lazy and went downstairs to the hotel restaurant. 

Wednesday 19th: Chateau de Versailles

Today was the day we visited the palace of Versailles - something I was really excited for. We caught the Metro - where we were entertained by a group of men who brought on their accordions, cellos, guitars etc and played music to the train - to the outskirts of Paris where the GPS told us there was a one minute walk to the bus station that was to take us to the palace... However the GPS lied and we ended up walking for about 30 minutes. Anyway. We finally caught the bus and arrived at the palace, amazed at its size and beauty. We lined up in the huge line for tickets - or so we thought - to be told that tickets weren't sold there and we had to line up again after getting tickets...

Eventually we got in and had a look around the front of the palace. We went inside and got an audio guide and started the tour. I was so amazed. Everything in the palace was so extravagant. Each ceiling had detailed and beautiful paintings on them, the rooms were huge and the gardens were massive! We spent ages just taking it all in and being amazed at the lifestyle that the king and Marie Antoinette lived. People used to go and watch them go to bed, eat their meals and get up out of bed. We then checked out the gardens and went bike riding around them, cos they're huge. Unfortunately they were doing maintenance to the many fountains so none of them were working. But we rode around and had fun and I almost fell off my bike while being stupid on it. Michael thought it was pretty funny. We rode to the other parts of Versailles, like the Grand and Petite Trianon and Mary Antoinette's estate.

By the end of the day, we were exhausted. So we headed back - we figured out that we didn't have to catch a bus at all, we could use the Metro the whole way back... something I wish we had known at the start of the day - to get ready for dinner.

For dinner, we went to Tour Montparnasse (an ugly skyscraper whose appearance has been criticized for being out of place in Paris's urban landscape. As a result, two years after its completion the construction of buildings over seven stories high in the city center was banned). However, the restaurant has gorgeous views and delicious cocktails, and you can't see it when you're in it, so it was all good.

The front of the palace... very majestic

The chapel

One of the majestic, ornate rooms in the Chateau

Me in the Hall of Mirrors - a beautiful gold room with mirrors and windows lining each side. 

Another room...

Me out the back of the palace

Me riding a bike around the gardens

The Gran Trianon... the photo is in black and white, but the chateau is actually pink!

Waiting at the metro station... 

The view from dinner...

Thursday 20th: Disneyland

On Thursday we went to DISNEYLAND. We were very excited for this and the whole place is just magical. We went on as many rides as we could, including Space Mountain which was by far the best one there, and checked out Sleeping Beauty's castle, the Alice in Wonderland labyrinth and many others. We then headed to Disneyland Studios and went on the rides there as well - my favourite was the Hollywood Towers - plus we checked out the cinema which showed the history behind animations and cool stuff like that. By the time we finished both parks, we went back to Disneyland to watch the fireworks - which were just amazing - and have one last ride on Space Mountain. Unfortunately we got rained on most of the day, but it was still a lot of fun.

Magic...

I'm in a treehouse...

Disneyland Studios... Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse. 

Fireworks

Friday 21st: Another random day
Woke up, had breakfast, checked out the Louvre, saw the Mona Lisa - I had been told by many people that it was very underwhelming and much smaller than expected so my expectations were very low, so I wasn't disappointed at all when I saw it -, we checked out Musee de l'Orangerie and saw some of Monet's works. We had McDonald's for lunch, then walked up the Arc de Triomphe to see the views of the city. Unfortunately, they were repairing part of it, so it had scaffolding on half of it, which obstructed the 360 degree view you would normally get. But, it was still beautiful.

We then walked to the Eiffel Tower, wanting to go to the top for sunset, but the line was ridiculously long and we were feeling tired so we didn't go up. So, we decided to walk home slowly and enjoy the city, but we got very lost and ended up having to get a taxi back.

Me admiring the paintings in the Louvre...

Walking around and looking at paintings is exhausting...

The many stairs we had to climb to reach the top of the Arc...

A cool head...

The view from the top of the Champs-Elysees 

Back on the ground... right next to the Eiffel Tower

Last time seeing the Tower....

Saturday 22nd: Lazy day

Tired from a busy week, we spent this day sleeping in, eating and watching movies. Something I desperately needed, especially after rarely getting enough sleep during the term.

Sunday 23rd: Home time
We packed our bags, had our final breakfast and headed to the train station. We caught the Eurostar back to London, where we said our goodbyes and headed off. I went back to Ardingly, and Michael went to Lancaster to stay with a friend for a few days while he sent off his passport to Australia to get a visa put in. In a cruel twist of fate, the courier company lost his passport and he had to get a replacement one in London a week later.

Anyway... we had a lovely week and I wasn't too impressed to go back to work. However, my room had been painted and refurnished which was nice, so now it doesn't look as crap as before. Still tiny, but at least I have more storage now.

Thank you anyone who actually read all of this, I'm very impressed. I'm sorry it was so long, but hopefully I can look back on this blog in ten years and be reminded of all the fun stuff I did. I hope you're all going fabulously. Miss you a tonne.

Love from Maddi xoxox

Here are a couple of photos that I love (as if there weren't enough on here already)... also ps as much as I'd love to claim these photographs as my own, I didn't actually take any of them :P