Updates from France

Its been a while since I've given any updates on life in France, so I thought I would try to cover everything that has been happening in Lille...

Life after the Paris Attacks

By now, everyone will know about the horrific events that took place in Paris. I was at a friends when I heard and hurried back to my flat to watch the BBC news coverage, it was so scary because nobody knew when or where it would end.

The next day, we (British Council assistants) received an email to give us general information and advice on how to stay safe, as the terror threat was, and still is, very very high. Especially in Lille, as you must travel through Lille to get to Paris from Brussels (which shortly after the Paris attacks went into lock down) and vice versa. The general advice was to stay indoors, avoid public transport and the city centre, be aware of everything around you and make sure your school knew where you were.

I stayed indoors for the whole weekend, apart from one trip to the shop to stock up on food. I had expected to see people looking sad or scared but instead I saw a group of young men out jogging and laughing, one of them was just in swim shorts and it was raining. Very strange.

The schools were open on the Monday but the gates had to be closed at all times, usually they were wide open throughout the day, and we were told that if the students wanted to talk about the attacks, then they could and should. Most of my classes that week were discussing how they all felt and what they thought of it all.

 I was very surprised at how open minded they all were, because there had been some awful messages all over the internet about muslims and not letting refugees into Britain, Whereas here were 15 year old students who live near Calais, where the refugees are, and very close to Paris, saying 'we must stay strong', 'it is nothing to do with religion' and 'the refugees are running from terror, why should we deny them safety? what did they do?'.

We had a minutes silence at school and then I just happened to be passing Republique Beaux-Arts on my lunch break when I saw a huge crowd of people standing around a memorial for the Paris victims and I joined them in a minute of applause. 

In the weeks following the attacks, the security around Lille city centre has definitely increased. You now have to have your bags checked in a lot of shops, sometimes with a metal detector, especially in the shopping centre Euralille, which was (falsely) rumoured to be a target. There are also a lot more armed police on the streets and in train stations, which actually makes me feel worse.

The Lead up to Christmas

The Christmas decorations in Lille were put up in mid-November, which was so exciting and they are so pretty! Most main streets have their own welcome signs and set of lights.

The Christmas market is very cute and the food and drink isn't expensive at all like I had expected. The stalls are full of home made things such as Christmas decorations, wines, foods and clothes. There is also the big wheel which gives a great view of Lille city centre.

There is also a snow machine next to the Christmas tree sometimes

 I've also visited Arras Christmas market, it takes about half an hour on the train from Lille and the market is lovely. It is bigger than Lille's and has an ice rink which is great. I also tried maroilles cheese on chips which was very strange, it tasted like a very odd garlic sauce. Apparently it is very smelly (delicious).

Vin Chaud

Other than these things, I've just been working, eating and drinking- its a hard life.

 Thankyou for reading :)

Paris: Day 2- Disneyland

Today I'm going to blog about my second day in Paris, we went to Disneyland! I'd never been to Euro-Disney before, only Florida and we had such an amazing day!

Getting tickets

About a month and a half before we went to Paris, my boyfriend and I had been looking at tickets online, so that we could try to get them cheaper than at the gate. Eventually my boyfriend found some tickets for £44 each, just after searching 'Disneyland Paris tickets 2 parks 1 day' a few times on Google.

 We decided that this was a great price for both parks and booked them. They arrived about a week later so that was fab.

Getting there

To get to Disneyland, we had to use the RER A train in the direction: Marne-la-Valée- Chessy.

There are several stations in Paris where you can get the RER A including: Charles de Gaulle Étoile, Chatelet-les Halles, Auber, Gare de Lyon and Nation. These are all accessible by metro.

Whatever you do, no matter how tired you are... ARRIVE EARLY!!!! 

We arrived at about 10:45 and then spent the next 45 minutes queuing to just get our bags checked before we went in, which was incredibly irritating because it was very hot, but this was all our fault for being lazy.

During the day

We knew from experience that food and drink would be very expensive inside Disneyland, so we made some sandwiches before we went and brought our own water. However, since it was a very hot day, we had to buy bottles of water throughout the day to stay hydrated.

I will post some photos but I don't want to go on and on because the day really was great...

Excuse how pale I am.. I chose to wear a vest (Dorothy Perkins) and some white trousers (Sainsburys TU) to keep cool, I also wore an over the shoulder bag (Dorothy Perkins) as I had heard (and kinda knew) that wearing a 'bumbag' literally screams 'TOURISTS' and this bag fit on all the rides anyway.

The Buzz Lightyear ride was so fun!! They have this in Florida too, you get a photo taken which is always hilarious.

Star Wars Simulator ride

Walt Disney Studios Park

The Best Rides*

Obviously this won't apply to everyone as my boyfriend and I like the big rides like rollercoasters and big thrills, but we also enjoyed the smaller rides too!

• Buzz Lightyear 
• Star Tours
• Pinocchio - we genuinely enjoyed this even though its really for little kids
• Aerosmith - my boyfriend said this was the best ride he's ever been on (This is also in Florida, but I found the one in Paris was much crazier)
• Armageddon
• Studio Backlot tour
• The Phantom Manor

*A lot of the rides had insanely long queues with it being a busy day but also because the 'Fast Pass' machines were off, so we couldn't go on everything that we wanted to.

So that was our day 2! We really did have a great day, despite the long queues and baking hot weather.

 As I said, if you ever go its important to get down early to avoid queuing and make the most of your day, but realistically it didn't spoil our time too much!

If anyone has any questions, do not hesitate to ask! I will post later about the evening of our day 2, where we ate and drank etc.

Thankyou for reading :)

Paris! (Day 1- travelling)

Bonjour !

I haven't blogged in soooo long because I have just got back from Paris! I went with my boyfriend and we stayed with his sister for 6 nights, it's been great and I am gutted to be back!

My next holiday will be Florida which is in about 3 weeks... but I am going to do a few posts about Paris over the next few days and also giving some advice for anyone who is looking to go.

Day One

So to get to Paris, we used the Eurostar. This was both of our first times on the Eurostar train, although I have been through the tunnel in the car before.

We got 2 return tickets from Durham to Paris (obviously stopping at London) for £99 each, which is very good.

I would definitely recommend going via Eurostar as I have flown before but can barely remember and my boyfriend has been to Paris a few times and says he much preferred going by train. The security is very quick and easy and with there being a stop at London along the way, it splits up the journey (around 5/6 hours) and seems to go a lot faster. Also, the Eurostar stops directly in in centre of Paris at Gare du Nord, so we just had to hop on a metro to Place d'Italie when we got there and didn't need to get transfers or anything like that.

All in all, using the Eurostar turned out to be quicker than flying because going to the airport you have to be there early anyway, go through security, hang around in the departure lounge, board the plane, wait for take-off and then finally after 1.5 hours flying, land, go through to get bags, then eventually transfer to Paris.

Anyway, as I said we had to go to Place d'Italie, which is where my boyfriend's sister lives. This was a great area as it was very handy for the metro and close to lots of popular places, but also not touristy whatsoever, which was great.

It did have a few bars which were small and nice too, but we didn't really spend much time around there.

We went to a bar and a Vietnamese restaurant close by called Song Huong and all of us had this:

(Beef with tomato rice, an egg and salad)

It was amazing!!

We basically just went to bed after this, we were so tired and were going to have a big day the next day (I will post about that later today or tomorrow..)

I hope that this post has been helpful, I will be posting more exciting Paris related things very soon!

If anyone has any questions, don't hesitate to ask :)

Catching up...

I haven't been on my blog this weekend but thankyou for the comments and to anyone who came to view it :)

Although I haven't  really been anywhere lately (I'm having to sacrifice a social life for holiday money at the moment), I have FINALLY moved my stuff out of my flat in Newcastle and am officially at home!! BUT on top of that, Gizmo was spayed on Friday and has needed lots of attention. 

We have always had male dogs, and Casper was neutered earlier in the year, but Gizmo was already in season so we had to wait. Anyway... long story short she was eventually done on Friday and was in a lot of pain, although we were told by the vet she would be fine, and we had to go back and demanded pain killers for her.

She's a lot better now, as you can see from her gremlin-like face on this picture!

She is like a baby bat

In other news... my boyfriend brought me back some lovely gifts from New York a few weeks ago and despite the fact I have been to Harry Potter world in Florida a few years ago AND been to the Harry Potter studios in London.. I had never tried any of the Harry Potter sweets!! 

He bought me a little box of the Bertie Bott's every flavour beans, which were....interesting...

Unfortunately I mostly got the gross flavours like bogey, black pepper, vomit, rotten egg, ear wax...you get the idea.

But they were really fun and I'm glad that I can finally say that I have tried them!!

Also.. our Disneyland Paris tickets have finally arrived!! We are going to Paris in 9 days and will be going to 'EuroDisney', I have never been before so I am really really excited :)

If anyone has any suggestions of good places to go in Paris or any good rides/ attractions in Disneyland, please do let me know!!

Thanks for reading :)