Everything I've been meaning to write

Argh we're way too low on time for me to do this properly! Here's the current situation: Today is Friday afternoon. Tomorrow at ridiculous AM I leave Marseille airport (Check in 6:45) and fly to Paris for two days then fly out of Paris at 11am Monday morning and finally come home Tuesday night :) SO between then and now I need to organise everything I need for my two days solo in Paris as well as dump the collection of untold stories on you before it I a) forget them or b) it reaches that slightly awkward length of time ago where it makes no sense to tell the story now. Thus, without further ado, here are some really brief, completely sporadic stories for you!

I am genuinely just going to pull out whatever I think of as I think of it...

1. Crepes.

I am somewhat worried about my addiction to crepes, particularly with nutella on top. It's like someone took drugs, threw them into a batter and then layered it with chocolate drugs. Except better. One night here we made a stack of crepes which resembled the layer of pancakes that always looked so full of cartoony goodness from my childhood Danish cartoon Rasmus Klump.

Don't be fooled by his indeterminate animal type and/or questionable style of walking.
He's a total badass.

The table was laden with every topping in the world. It was an epic night.

The resemblance is uncanny!

Is that Nutella I see? DON'T MIND IF I DO! :D

Somewhat relevant to this is my love of spreading things onto the fresh baked bread over here. My habit of doing this during every meal has earned me the French nickname of "Tartiner" over here thanks to Patrick's constant happy teasing about me doing this. Which is fine :) I call him ecrouer because whenever I sit tartiner-ing it up, he sits and eats these with me.

Dammit, every time I think I'm going to tell really short stories it turns into a mammoth post. But, then again, how boring would it be if I just said "1. I ate crepes. I ate a lot of crepes." when you could be hearing all about my childhood memories about a bear (?) who seemed to like pancakes almost as much as me... Oh and it's not just in the house I ate crepes. One afternoon I went to a shopping center and after I'd been looking through all the Christmas stuff for long enough I found a cafe, ordered three nutella crepes and sat and read there for the rest of the afternoon. It was awesome. Also because everyone here is really quite nice when I smile and have fun speaking French, the waiters there gave me a free drink and spent a while chatting to me. Plus I had crepes! :) Tonight as my farewell meal Celine's organised a dinner at a Crepe restaurant, I was so touched (touched and mainly just really excited to eat more crepes) :D (ha! I just went to scroll up to the top of this post to rename it "crepes" and then I saw I'd already given it that very simple and eloquent title. I am awesome.)

2. People here drive like maniacs.

I may have already touched on this, but I have to rehash how bizarre it is that people here just drive all over the lines. If there's no one else around they'll just drive in the middle of the road or even if there ARE people around they'll just move from lane to lane, drive in the middle of the lanes etc with no indicating. It's a little surreal and worrying. Oh and for no reason I'll seize this topic to note how tired I am of sitting in the back of two door cars hahaha long legs are getting to be a pain and it's really very difficult to make getting out of the back look graceful.

3. We went to the mountains!

This has to be one of the coolest weekends ever, and it actually does sound like a fairytale location. We all piled into two cars, drove through beautiful countryside for a few hours till we hit serious countryside country. Rusty abandoned petrol stations, axemen, cows...stuff like that. After bustling around one of the last shops we'd see for a few km's and collecting up a weekends supply of food, we drove up the mountain and arrived at the most beautiful little mountain log cabin.

This fireplace was our saviour after the walk through the snow.
Plus it made the pine log cabin smell so good and deeply of hot wood.

For one weekend the only company the mountain had was six 20-something-year-olds trekking for hours through the pine forest up up UP till we reached SNOW!

 I was so stupidly excited about this and started running and clapping and then threw snow at my friends when they weren't excited enough for my liking :) that quickly got them caught up in the fun of SNOW. It was only a touch and it was too icy to do much with, but it was crunchy and fun to walk on, and it was enough to get my soul dancing around enjoying the moment.

Thew views were breathtakingly amazing. I took some video of it but even that will be hard pressed to do the experience justice. This was definitely one of the most beautiful places I've ever been to and I could have breathed in the views for years. Alas! Night was swiftly swooping in to freeze our bursting lungs and sniffling noses so we began to hours long walk home. By the end we could all feel the burn in our legs and butt even though we couldn't feel our fingers and I think we basically inhaled three pots of hot chocolate.

Hallo Christmas Card :)

Dinner was delicious as always over here (I've been so spoilt with deliciousness) but there was something especially beautiful about sharing it with just these other young people for one weekend in the mountains. Everyone cooking together, the food tasting so much better when you've been cold and hungry, lots of laughter and good cheer. Oh and Christmas beer. Yeah. You heard me!

The night wore on with dessert, coffees, dancing in the hallway whenever you walked past the tv while cleaning up (it's a rule!) and then an attempt at playing Star Wars Risk in French. After a very lengthy highly strategic set up and ages of reading rules out loud, debating, translating and arguing we decided this game made absolutely NO sense, even to the people who could speak French and we just randomly attacked each other for a few turns then couldn't keep our eyes open for long enough to continue and had to sleepily lumber upstairs and tumble into the warm squashy beds in the warm loft. The weekend continues in this amazing cosy awesome fashion. Also I want to include this because I find it funny.

The next day at lunch we found our coke had frozen. Inside. Yeah, I know!
Natural ice cubes! :)

It was a really wonderful weekend devoid of technology (and English) with nature and snow :) I'll never forget that for a little while I was allowed to fall into a fairy tale and play around in the snow.

4. Pubs at night in Aix

One of my favourite night time activities over here has been going out in Aix with Manue to the pubs. This is for a mix of reasons. One, Aix is drop dead gorgeous, this place has history that Australia is just to young appreciate (like a highschooler trying to appreciate a good scotch, Ninja turtles, ghostbusters or the real value of never needing to buy toilet paper), two, there's a huge range of really awesome pubs here, three, everyone here is really friendly and it genuinely feels safe to chat to people without worrying about them being seedy and/or dangerous but four, and mainly, Manue is a hilarious badass when it comes to busting down social boundaries. She will always just rope us straight into a conversation with a group of people and that seems completely normal over here! There is zero hesitation with walking into a bar, straight over to a group of men and sitting down and saying HEY can we sit with you? :) What's up, this is Lisa, can you speak English? No? No problem! She speaks French now anyway. What are you guys doing tonight?

I utterly love this confidence and the approach since we've met so many interesting people and had so much more fun than we would have if we'd just sat and had a drink chatting alone. Be aware timid Australian female (and male I guess) friends, I fully intend to bring this behavior back to Aus with me.

This also segways into the story of our Dice game last night which was one hell of a funny weird night. I won't go into too much detail but suffice to say it started with me asking the bartender to make up six options for my drink and rolling the die to chose from these choices and, from a list of simple things like a beer, a martini etc I instead landed on number 3; 10 shots.

This might have hit me pretty hard if I hadn't JUST eaten my body weight in pasta.
I'm actually a little shocked I didn't get drunk from this.

The game continued as we met a range of strangers that we had to bait into playing the game with us and included a lot of hilarious activities, clothes swapping, singing, dancing, questions and spontaneous conversations ending with a completely bizarre straightforward yet complex situation which I will always marvel at the amazingness of. Yeah, I know I'm being very vague, :P so? It was a bizarre hilarious fun night that I'll never forget.

5. Other random walk

I'm running low on time now, we're going out to dinner pretty soon so prepare for my eloquence to plummet. I WENT ON A WALK. IT WAS LOVELY. Hehe. This was a few days ago and I had fun walking somewhere completely new, hoping a fence and scrambling through an abandoned house, suddenly hearing a person and getting shit-scared that some homeless person was about to find me and kill me, running...running hard until I ended up in a really beautiful river, sneaking through bushes like a ninja till I reached the road again and then walking off down a different path. 

I found the other side of the creek/river and a quiet place under a tree overlooking the lake and spent an hour just lying looking at the branches and the sky listening to music and thinking.

I could just sink into the Earth here and die... mmmmm dying... wait, that's probably morbid. Eh, oh well, I'm comfy.
Note these were not my real thoughts. Get real, as if you want to know what really goes on in there...

6. Super Frog

I ate superfrog legs tonight (If you don't know what superfrog legs are, they're just normal frog legs except with a reference to yet another old childhood memory of mine that I get to bask in and force you to bask in. BASK IN IT. BASK IN THE GLORY! *throws bucket of memory all over crying reader*). They were actually really pretty delicious, really frustrating to eat since they're so small and the proportion of bones:meat made it very slow to obtain nutrition, but pretty tasty.

I aslo mentioned the eating of Escargo one night...right? No? WHAT? How have I been so remise! Consider yourself hereby informed of the fact that I have eaten snails as well. They were freaking delicious with garlic butter. I'm not joking, we need this to become part of Australia's culture too...

I have no childhood cartoon character to reference for this sorry.
I can invent one though. Let's call him Trillo the snail. He liked well priced stamps and picnics with his friends. Fin.

7. A rule I would like to instigate

If you are NOT single and attractive, you should not be allowed out at night. I think all people in couples should be given a curfew and should be expressly forbidden from going to bars. In fact if you're in a couple just stay inside all the time, and you definitely should NOT be allowed in France. :) Okay? Awesome, let's start working with this rule from now on, because Scottish guy you aren't allowed to rock up well dressed with a gorgeous accent and chat to me for ages and be all charming and attractive and then have a girlfriend but allude to the fact that if you had been single you would have liked to have dated me. It is completely uncool and unfair. It was still awesome to meet you. But seriously, I think this rule is a good one because I have a theory going that everyone in France is in a couple and screw this, I'm staying single. Ergo, Aus, implement this rule before I return home. :) sanku

8. Songs

Random final observation is how crucial songs have been over here. Seriously, 90% of our communication seems to be through the mutual knowledge of English lyrics to songs. If we can't understand each other at all, I've connected to plenty of Celine's friends simply by singing along to top 40 tracks with them in the car. Furthermore, I can't count the number of times a translation has linked back to a song lyric where they suddenly understand because they can go ohhhh! Like "I've become so numb! I can't feet my pelf and it felm...la...um...blah!" ...yep! Um, just like that! :D Seriously though, hearing English songs in the car has kept me sane when I'm feeling totally out of the loop. Although nowdays I can keep up in French and I really feel pangs of disappointment that I have to leave this beautiful place where everyone is kind of (sorry Au) more attractive (it's mainly the well dressed vibe) and speaks French and everything is pretty. I'm going to have to come back here again. That much is clear. :)

9. Nearly forgot

All the tidbits I nearly forgot:

-We went go-karting! It was real life mario kart and it was epic :D I came second, yay! So so much fun, we need to do this again at some point...

-I have to remember to go write down all those recipes I learnt over here RIGHT NOW before I forget

-There was this other mindblowing walk we went on scrambling over cliffs in a fishermen villiage that I have to remember to post the photos of because it was amazing

Okay, that's going to have to do for now! I know I'm missing a stack of info, but it's just going to have to wait. For now I can't imagine trying to explain why I look so drab for my goodbye dinner with this as a legit excuse. "Lisa, why aren't you dressed? Why does your face look...wrong?" "Oh sorry, I was busy writing a blog about various childhood cartoon characters I now feels as though I've eaten in some form..." hmmm...yeah, probably won't translate too well, it doesn't even sound good in English. So, thus, I leave you once more, and I think this is going to be the last time till I get home since tonight I'm crepe-in' it up then packing then sleeping then hitting Paris solo! I'm extremely excited and happy :) I've had the time of my life over here. I've been exhausted, surprised, delirious, desolate, stoked, laughed till I cried, frustrated, quiet, confused, confident, scared, lost, found, in great company, alone and completely blown away by everything I've done over here. I will sincerely miss everyone I've met over here and all of the little places I found. It's been one hell of a month, it's felt more like 3 months, and I wouldn't take back a single second.

I'll miss you France. Thank you so much for everything.

And thank you all for coming along for the ride with me, your company has been lovely.

I'll write up my final updates when I see you on the otherside!

x

A day of dice-isions

'The Dice Man (...) is a creature whose actions are decided from day to day by the roll of dice, the dice choosing from among options created by the man.' 

It's been quite a while since I read the Dice man and almost as long since I've effectively played the dice game for a consistent amount of time. The last few times I recall was for one full week in year 9 I played and managed to effectively alienate, amuse and confuse the majority of my friends, one lesson in year 11 I managed to bait some friends in my legal studies class to play with me (resulting in one of us having to have a loud argument with the teacher, one person yelling religious propaganda out the window and I think someone ate paste. The end result was some people were converted to the magic of the game and some never forgave me for introducing them to the awful game) and finally one of the most interesting men I've ever met hosted a "dice game" night for his birthday, an idea I've always meant to steal at some point, perhaps this year (yeah, watch out friends mwahaha). So what the hell am I talking about? Well, if you've never read the book, the basic rules are: Grab a die, list 6 options (some good, some bad, some fun, some challenging and at least one that is just a little bit out of your comfort range. Start off with small things until you get the hang of the game), roll the die and follow its instructions. It's that simple. But if you agree to play the game, you agree to follow the die absolutely, you must do what has been chosen. You can also use odds/evens for split choices. The beauty is, it's your choice how deep you want to go and when and for what you chose to roll the die. So, this blog is supposed to be about my France adventure right? So why am I talking about this? Well, today I was bored and decided that in Paris, when I'm accountable to no-one, I'll play the dice game. So then I asked myself, well, if I'm bored now...why wait?

First of all, from a list of options, I was told to go for a walk. I used my ipod odd/even function to pick left, right etc until I picked from a row of shops and ended up in a pharmacy. The die chose I should dye my hair and chose a colour that's quite naturally close to my usual dark chestnut colour, though we were very close to going blonde again today! The walk continued down a weird maze of streets I've never been down here and took me to a bakery where I randomly selected from everything in the shop and bought a lemon tart with chocolate on top. 

We also ended up in a florist where I spent 10 minutes sitting on the floor playing with a tiny shy puppy and learning about the different Christmas flowers the florist was selling,

took a walk through the Noel markets which were just being set up for the evening and eventually home again to a random beverage of lemon tea and to dye my hair.

This afternoon was really just a bit of a warm up for tonight when the dice have chosen we're going out to Aix and Manue has agreed to play the dice game with me all night. I'm not sure she knows exactly what she's getting herself into, but I couldn't be more stoked with who to play with, she's definitely not scared to throw caution to the wind and be a bit weird. I'm very intrigued to see how into the game we get and what this night holds for us... See you on the other side! ;)

I invite any of you to try the dice game someday...even if you just start small, you'll soon be hooked on the chaos.

Oh and, yes, I do have some more normal stories to tell you like my weekend away in the log cabin in the mountains and going to see a hilarious French play, eating frogs legs and my recorded French conversation for Christian. I will write them when I feel like it. :)

Everything sounds better with the word "French" hooked on

Allow me to demonstrate the glorious truth of this title that makes even my most mundane activities over here sound amazing when I report about them...

"I went for a walk to the shops and bought some sugar and eggs so I could bake a shortbread slice for my fake family."

Sounds okay, kind of average, definitely nothing too super amazing. Allow me to now improve it one bazillion times simply by the excess addition of the words French and little!

"I went for a little walk to the French shops and bought some sugar and eggs so I could bake a little French shortbread slice for my fake French family."

Woah! Suddenly it feels like we're prancing through a gingerbread world of cosiness deliciousness where everything is covered in icing sugar snow! And why stop there!

"I French went for a little French walk to the little French shops and bought some French sugar and little eggs so I could French-bake a little French shortbread French slice for my little fake French family! ...French."

You can use this rule to improve absolutely anything. Suddenly the most mundane day plans seem romantic and quaint, the most every-day objects seem magical! Simply add the adjective "French" to anything! For example:

Baby-> French Baby

Jam -> French Jam

Dessert -> French Dessert

Man -> French Man

Tax return -> French Tax return

I know. It's a pretty awesome power. Use it wisely.

If you can't use "French" for some reason, then simply tag on the reminder that you can doing your respective activity IN FRANCE.

Going for a walk -> Going for a walk in France

Doing exercise -> Doing exercise in France

Writing a blog -> Writing a French blog in France

Welcome to being a romantic badass French romantic badass... in France.

Unfortunately for most of you, you can't do this unless you're actually French or are currently in France.

I will continue to French abuse this French power for my final French week before I'm driven out of France by the French.

In the company of myself...

As much as I love writing to you guys, I hope you can appreciate there are many many stories I can't share with you that I've had while I'm over here. And, unfortunately for you, they're some of the best stories I have. They're complicated stories with a bizarre depth that make them seem like I've been cast in a movie without being consulted about that little side note. I've had a lot of really interesting adventures, and I am sorry that I can't tell you all of them here, but they're either just for me... or stories you can ask me about over a bottle of wine. This place is amazing. And weird. And different. And I'm sorry that I must be mysterious... but there must be some mystery ;)

But in short, I will say, do the strange things, be mysterious, take walks alone in the cold with pinks cheeks and a smile, take the road that looks prickly and untravelled, detour through the markets, try the strange food, hold the eye contact in a small moment, talk to the travellers, share a moment with a stranger, taste the tea, detour off the path to find the abandoned park, drink wine in the car with friends, dance till 4am, give a stranger your scarf, read in graveyards, kiss the man, talk to the woman in the old French kitchen till 2am, get too cold, get too hot, learn to cook crepes, eat too much, stand on tiptoes to meet someone new, sketch an old man with his newspaper, sit with frozen hands on a hill and watch the sun go down, get completely lost, run, scramble up the cliffside to watch the sun playing on the sea, talk to the cat in French, help set the table, marvel at the christmas lights, learn the slang this town, buy flowers, eat an entire jar of nutella, share stories with new friends in the pub, share wisdom, get so excited you can't sleep, so profoundly sad you can't think straight, miss him, forget the right words, teach her something, listen to her, learn something, learn a lot, learn from yourself, test yourself, make up fake stories to write in a paragraph on a blog, enjoy being with new friends, enjoy hearing from old friends, enjoy being alone. Really really enjoy being alone. Do a lot. Do nothing. Discover everything. Seize a lot of moments. Get exhausted from all the seizing. Keep seizing anyway, you're only half way through...

By now I've probably established how emotionally/mentally/physically draining/enriching this experience has been and, thus, I often need to escape, run away and take myself somewhere to just be in the company of myself. Since I'm such a wonderful date, I take myself on spectacular galloping adventures to amazing places to retrive little lost parts of my soul and just generally enjoy doing whatever I feel like. The following are two of the places I have gone on these mini solo-adventures to and captured little photolitical moments of to share with you right now :)

Place one: The French Graveyard

I know it seems morbid on first glance, but I love graveyards.
They're one of the only places that are designed to be beautiful
but where you actually have a pretty good chance of being alone with your thoughts.
If you can find me another place like that, then suggest away.

Or perhaps to get lost in oddly suitable books

For a while I just sat and looked at everything and sat thinking in the dying sunlight

I also sat there until I'd finished a poem that had been unfinished for ages and until I had pins and needles

Mmm. This was a good afternoon.

Place two: The abandoned vacant lot/park

I went for a walk alone today through Marignane. It was FREEZING. Seriously like, the air was biting at my cheeks, I could only breath through my mouth and my lungs were burning by the end of the walk, my hands were numb and slow to clench but I was so happy kicking along the little streets going wherever I wanted. I reached a point where I had a choice of going down a road that I thought may have had a chance of increasing my chance of running into someone I wouldn't have minded seeing again, or going down an untravelled road. And, in that moment, breathing in the cold air with the wind playing with my hair, I picked the random abandoned road. I chose it for me. And it made all the difference. I found a tiny rubbly path off the main road that led to a long since abandoned spare lot, or park, or something that I had the time of my life adventuring through, balancing and jumping from pile to pile of rubble, hiding my bag under a pile of rocks and setting off running through the pine trees...

I scrambled to the top of one of the little piles of rubble and dry grass
and sat there puffed and happy

Une fleur pour vous

I made a heart for all of you to share with me :)

The sweet-grassy smell of the pine absolutely filled the part of the park where the dense trees almost blocked out the fading afternoon sun

And I could hide here forever...

No one would ever find me!

and flying solo is pretty damn good

Fin.

More stories soon.

But I thought these places were pretty.

And, even though I can't/won't share all of my stories and thoughts with you,

I will share little moments of these places with you.

And I think these places are pretty.

:)

The story of how Lisa got what she asked for and realised how that's not always the best thing for her

"...but there's a part of me that is getting restless to go somewhere alone. It's exhausting trying to speak French all the time and plus I think there's a different experience to absorbing the essence of somewhere beautiful with a group of people and on your own. And part of me just wants to go spend the day walking around the town with my own thoughts without worrying about being an imposition or rude to anyone I'm with." [Exert from previous post]

The very next day I got what I had asked for: Alone in Marseille. Worst plan ever.

The day started off brilliantly *cough cough* with my alarm not working and a knock on my door at 7:30am. 
"Liiiizzaaa! :) (in french) Are you ready to go?" 
"Ughghhhh um, yes! Five minutes?" 
*arrrrghpullonclothesrunbrushthroughhairmakeupteethshovecrapinpockets-RUNOUTSIDEBOOTSONINCAR!PHEW* with no time for a coffee and having had a late night the night before I was half alseep in the freezing car with pale sunlight blurring my tired eyes as Chantal drove me into Marseille where she works. 8am-12pm to kill in Marseille, sounded good to me. All I really wanted was a coffee, to admire the little French buildings and find somewhere nice to sit and read my book and enjoy being alone somewhere pretty...instead Marseille before it's properly light is terrifying. I couldn't even bring myself to pull out my ipod to sneak a photo of the place to show you guys because I was too scared, it felt like a bad neighbourhood in New York or somewhere. All shops closed, spray paint, steam that seemed to originate from nowhere, creepy people that walk around coughing and dim cold early morning sunlight. I didn't stop walking for 2 hours just because I was too scared to stop. The one place I did step into, considering fumbling through some French to order a much desired coffee, was clearly host to a very impatient French woman who clicked impatiently at me "Mademoseille???" I gushed an apology and said I didn't need anything then went back out into the noisy cold street and kept walking. 


At one point I actually just stepped into a calm quiet pharmacy and stood pretending to look at a line of cold and flu medicine while I took a breath a just enjoyed the calming soft christmas music and warmth. But I couldn't stay there, and eventually I drew a breath and stepped back out into the noisy street and kept going (by now I was faaaairly certain I was walking the correct way). After 10 minutes tramping along the busy street, with the frequent creepy stares from a lot of strangers (Trust me, the word "Bonjour" can be said very creepily when men say it and look at you like a panting dog *shudder*) I started getting a slightly eerie sensation I was being followed. So I decided to stop for no apparent reason and look inside yet ANOTHER pharmacy (I don't know why, but over here there are Pastry shops and Pharmacies EVERYWHERE. I'm not sure why. Maybe everyone guzzels down the pastries over here then need to be heavily medicated to save their struggling hearts, who knows) And, sure enough, as I suddenly stopped walking the guy next to me hesitated and stopped as well, finding it hard to make this look natural. 
Him: "Uh excuse me, but do you speak English?"
*Me cautiously*: "...Oui"
Him: "Oh good! Could I walk with you for a minute?"
Me <thinking, it's a busy street, I'm not carrying a bag, maybe he just needs directions in English>: "I guess. But I'm meeting a friend here in a minute (total lie), did you need help with something?"
Him: "No. I just saw you walking by earlier and thought maybe I could walk with you."
Me: "Oh. ...(awesome O.o)"
Ugh...dammit... we kept walking and he asked about uni etc. Recognising this as a dangerous and stupid situation I had gotten myself into, I was giving the vaguest most unhelpful replies wondering how to shake him and eventually just said I had to go meet my friend and I kind of wanted to go alone (smooth) so he left without an argument (thank god), just an awkward moment of "So you want me to leave?" "Um, yes, sorry, I don't mean to be rude, I just kind of want to get a coffee alone before I meet my friend here." "So I should leave?" "...I'm sorry, yeah." "Now?" "...Uh...yeah...again...sorry"


Anyway so I did find a cute market and saw a lovely church but still I was too nervous to order a coffee anywhere and everywhere was too busy and scary for me to feel like I could relax and just enjoy looking at everything. I'm not exaggerating when I say everyone here stares at you, it's creepy as all hell and really unsettling. I kept walking. Non-stop. I was starting to get blisters and my legs were tired and all I wanted was a coffee. I eventually ducked into a big shopping complex and wandered around in there, out of the noise, glad it had opened. I found a quiet little cafe in there and breathily flustered my way through an order for a coffee and a crepe. I have no idea where I was or who the man was who worked there but I will never ever forget him. His patience with my nervous French and warm smile at a time when I was feeling tired, scared and alien-like, having a bad morning, was a life-line and meant more to me than he probably realised. He smiled and nodded at my order, speaking slowly for me, gave a wink and let me sit and recouperate in the little cafe. I spent the rest of the morning sitting there with a coffee and nutella waffle reading my book. I left feeling a lot more happy and settled :) Here's what I wrote while I sat there...

How to get your soul back in two easy steps

"Marseille is freaking scary. I've been walking for two hours just because I'm too scared to stop. I've had three men try to walk and talk with me. Everything looks closed, vandelised and/or dangerous. I've been dying for a coffee four hours but have been too nervous to try to get one anywhere. The only place I went into the woman was cranky and impatient. I took refuge in a random pharmacy just to step out of the cold and fear and now, after walking nonstop, I've hidden in a shopping center and finally found a sweet cafe. The guy here is extremely kind. :) I'm so relieved. I'm hiding here as long as a I can. I can finally have a coffee too!"

I then found a gorgeous set of Christmas markets, it seems that once the city wakes up, it's quite pretty and less terrifying. I found a stall with sweet little paintings of Marseille and bought one and a stall with the most amazing organic tea filled with stunning aromas. I spent a good 20 minutes or so just standing there smelling them all chattering in French with the happy woman who was selling them and another man who was also trying to pick which tea he wanted. The lady ended up gifting me a free bag because she was so happy I liked her tea so much and gave me a cup to carry around with me while I looked at the markets. I have to say, even though the city was kind of terrifying, it really makes those little moments stand out and mean a lot to you when people show random acts of kindness.


I then promptly got lost and late on my way back to meet Chantal and was relieved when I finally got home to our little town and collapsed on the bed. A long kind of scary day that I don't particularly want to repeat in a hurry. But still, it's nice to know that even in a scary cold bustling foreign city I can look after myself and, just like when you go through something trialling with other people you get closer, going through all this crap solo is   making me closer to myself. And the company of myself is pretty damn awesome.

Also I was given a free hot chocolate from Starbucks (where the hell was Starbucks earlier!?)
on my walk home. That was also pretty awesome.

The girl in the French Film

~Enjoy the song reference if you happen to be awesome. If not, enjoy... not being awesome? Or just enjoy the movie :) Yep, do that instead.

Aix, Marseille and Marseille number 2 smushed into one glorious mess that I have decided to call a movie.

Starring:

French People (Everyone else)

Non French person (Me)

French Stories that would be really bad bedtime stories; Part Two

Story Two: The tale of two cities. Or more like one city. Actually just a provence. Aix en Provence.


Sometimes I catch myself realising I'm in France. It's like I can visualise myself turning to look straight down and popping out the top of my head surging upwards in an ariel view of this house, of this little down, of this provence, of all of France, Europe and so far out that I can see the world spin round to show Australia purely to emphasise to me how far from everything I know I am. These times are slightly surreal because it doesn't feel as different as I would have thought it would be since it seems no matter where I go it's not like I outrun who I am (not that I particularly want to, I'm loads of fun). And then, other times, I've scarcely the time to say to myself "My God this place is beautiful. I'm. In. France." before the next amazing site is before my eyes. Aix on Provence is one such town that inspires these moments :)

They don't suspect a thing... now I can sneak up on them and be all Australian mwahaha

 Commence the arbitrary dumping of photos...

They say it is the face of a woman who was waiting for her man to return home for so long that she turned to stone as she waited and waited...but he never returned

Turns out he never returned because he forgot to buy milk and he knew she'd be pissed so he didn't want to face her. He also forgot his legs somewhere or potentially traded them for that lovely loincloth full of fruit
(Yeah...mayyyy have made up that story...possibly...but it's probably true)

Actually the more I think about it the more I wonder why this lovely house was decorated with such tortured looking men...

This photo doesn't do it justice, but it's a stunning garden

I could easily die happy if I did nothing but traverse little streets like this for the rest of my life

Actually I would probably die quickly, hungry and confused why I was doomed to carrying through on a flippant remark I made in a blog... but still... it'd be pretty awesome for the first day or two

So now that I've dumped some photos on you, I'll admit that these photos in no way do this little quaint town justice. It's otherwise known as the "village of water" and has 70 fountains in it (because 71 would just have been crazy, but 70 is a totally acceptable way to spend the city's money) and is just utterly gorgeous. It's also home to one of the main uni's down here. I am seething with jealousy (how extremely negative does that sound!) Okay, I'm more like...hmmm... the kid outside in the cold with his nose pressed up against the window of the warm bakery, looking inside longingly (why did I make myself a boy in the metaphor? Well, why not). anyway so to capture the experience more aptly I stuck to the pattern and made you a movie. But, since it only goes for a minute or so, sticking with the time travelling nature of my stories, I combined it with the film of our trip around Marseille's Notre Dame a few days later.


Interlude between Story Two and Three; The story of Lisa's exhaustion


I've been really enjoying seeing all of these old buildings and the style of these towns where everything is this typical provincial look, and I'm so grateful to the various people who have taken me there and around but there's a part of me that is getting restless to go somewhere alone. It's exhausting trying to speak French all the time and plus I think there's a different experience to absorbing the essence of somewhere beautiful with a group of people and on your own. And part of me just wants to go spend the day walking around the town with my own thoughts without worrying about being an imposition or rude to anyone I'm with. It's a weird desire since I'm constantly forced to be in my own head here anyway since the language barrier frequently isolates me from a lot of conversations. For once in my life I'm genuinely forced to shut up and just sit there. It's a pretty bizarre experience to feel like you can't express yourself at all to the people around you. Even the people I have here who can speak a little English and give me a break now and again and let me speak English, don't understand all that much and I know as I try to talk, they aren't reeeeally understand what I'm trying to say. They understand most/some of it, but I know I can't really talk naturally and they just don't quite really get it. It's a little bit draining really to be honest, especially since anyone who knows me knows I love having discussions about things and delving into thoughts about complicated interesting things, I like talking to people and generally like making people laugh by making jokes. I like being expressive and engaging and it's ridiculously challenging over here. It's not so bad if anyone directly engages me one on one in a discussion or a few people chat with me and forgive some of my mistakes. Then I can keep an upbeat conversation with laughter and chatter going in French. We've had some good nights like that at cafe's or the pub with a group of Celine's friends I really like. But when I keep meeting new people with Celine I feel really rude having to just sit there like a weird 3rd-silent-Australian-wheel for ages while they talk at a speed that just blurs into white noise for me. Those are the times I either just want to hide somewhere, close the doors, take a deep breath and blow it out slowly and just be on my own for a while (I haven't rubbed my face and sighed this many times in my life) or I wish I could speak French (obviously this option is the more appealing...but the less realistic in that moment). Some nights I'm able to keep it going and keep in good spirits and other nights I'm just too drained and want to recharge on my own. Funnily enough it's taken me two nights to get this post together. Last night when I started this I was pretty drained and didn't really feel like sitting for ages in the midst of French chatter I couldn't understand when I could be reading or something instead, tonight however, I'm in a good mood haha, it's a nice reminder that it always rolls back around to me being re-energised again. I know this may sound ridiculous since it's only been one week (IT'S ONLY BEEN ONE WEEK!?!?) But I've been so busy and done so much, I could swear it's been 2-3 weeks or so. I don't want to end this section seeming to come off as saying I'm not having a good time or I'm exhausted, but I'm also not about to lie and say I'm constantly cheery and full of energy. I am having an amazing time, but amazing times are exhausting. And the truth is, some days I'm getting exhausted... But I'm happy. I really am. :) (Look at that, I couldn't help it anyway!)


The DVD version of the book; Remember that video I mentioned?
Yeah so it turns out I got carried away making that "short" video, as I always tend to do when I start making videos, and it is now epic. The next post will soley be France, brought to you in VHS form...

French Stories that would be really bad bedtime stories; Part One

I have a bad habit of taking photos completely arbitrarily or not at all and thinking I'll post a blog of the day at the end of each day then ending up being busy being French and shiz, ergo I now have a mess of stories to tell and I was debating if I should lay them out in a few neat, orderly posts or just dump them on you with blatant disregard for order or narrative time flow like armfuls of random clothing thrown on the bed when I do my washing... which is rarely anyway. I have hereby decided this is a lovely idea (seriously...it's because it's lovely...not because I'm lazy) and have complied a series of eclectic stories from France for you to enjoy. I pay zero reverence to balance of time flowing in a sensical manner. Without further ado, I present to you:

French Stories that would be really bad bedtime stories

~A series of short stories and musings by a woman sitting in a French bedroom pretending to be French and sane and stuff like that

Story One: The tale of how Lisa became immensely fat

So I'm sure I've established by now that I'm basically being starved over here. I rarely get food to eat, and when I do it's only stale bread and vegetables. Hah. Seriously, if I haven't stressed enough yet how delicious this country is, allow me to regale you with my travels in food form. The update being the following highlights:

The other night we sat around having drinks and chatter before dinner and Patrick (my fake French Papa) heard me say I like scotch and we were talking about how in France it's only called whisky, so he opened a 15 year old bottle of scotch before I could work out how to say "No no really that's far too kind" in French. Freaking awesome sensation sitting inside sipping that when you've just come in from the cold and you can smell dinner about to be served.

All good stories should start with the main character getting slightly drunk before dinner

The story then progresses to some strange woman being allowed into a French university for the day to go with her French friend to her classes. The English class in the morning was interesting but a bit weird. They seemed to focus on learning things that didn't really seem insanely crucial to know when the students didn't really have a full grasp on some of the simpler concepts. What sort of language class teaches what it means to "clock in and clock out" or "knock off" and "enforce strategic planning" before they teach the difference between "he, she, his, her, my, yours, you, ours" :S Well anyway, for lunch we  went to a nearby bakery (I swear I've used the phrase "ca sents bon!" "It smells good!" so ridiculously many times). The bakery had an upstairs area, a little like an old European pub, very cosy. I had an awesome slice of pizza and a chocolate pie :D The afternoon lecture was surreal. Sitting in a dusty warm room with something like 5 students and one old professor who resembled something like a cross between Santa and David Attenborough who spoke the most rapid animated French and loved saying "Cuckoo!" when his students weren't paying attention.

Yes, hello, I would like...everything

We now flash forward through time, because it's my story and I can do stuff like that. I can also do stuff like this! Hello Renee and confuse many of you and please one of you :) Anyway, so back to our time machine story... we're now in the middle of our day exploring Aix en Provence at lunch in a little restaurant with Patrick and Chantal (neither of whom speak English just ps). The lunch was pretty nice but mainly I just loved the decore of the place. Plus there was this adorable little dog who I think belonged to one of the waiters. The little pup really wanted to be with his owner and kept finding a way inside and running over all happy then having to get taken back outside over and over haha poor little guy...

Have eaten snails. Am basically French now.

O hai guys I think you accidentally put me outside...guys...hello?

RETURN TO THE TIME MACHINE! Suddenly we're in yesterday's evening in the middle of eating a Chichi with Nutella (Nutella is everywhere over here! Which is just fine by me, I would hook that stuff up to my veins if I could...and if that didn't just totally defy the point since my veins don't have tastebuds...and if that didn't kill me) We had these after our walk up to Notre Dame in Marseille, sitting on a wall overlooking the port as the sunset with a group of awesome French friends. I seriously don't think life would get much better moments than this...

I can get away with this because the next photo is really pretty

So many classical little French houses overlooking the sea...ahhh :)

I think I live here now

Is your heart sighing its heart out? Yes, take a moment to enjoy the weird image of your heart having a heart as well as an ability to sigh, then come with me into the time machine again which now resembles the Willy Wonka boat (the old school film of course) with images flashing by you as we travel onto the next story. Except instead of unexplainably weird, horrible and totally irrelevant-to-the-plot-line-of-willy-wonka images (SERIOUSLY did we EVER get an explanation as to why that tunnel had to appear in Willy Wonka?!?) the images are of awesome things I've consumed here.

Ignore the girl.
It was essential for the story line.

So turns out I don't actually want to take you through a rape tunnel though. My tunnel would involve flashing images of French wine and cheese, a lot of petite coffees, more cheese and bread, more crepes, soup, avocado boats filled with a shrimp paste (sounds so so weird I know but it was DELICIOUS!), chocolate, fig jam and more things all of which I ate. The moral of this story is, if you don't want to get fat, don't go to France. But it's worth it...so go to France.

Story Two: The tale of two cities. Or more like one city. Actually just a provence. Aix en Provence. ... Coming next...when it isn't 1am here :) Bon nuit tout le monde!