Trains, Towers and TOO MUCH FOOD

Sorry, it has been far too long since we last spoke. I have been gallivating over the country and sleeping in far too late to even consider blog posts. But all that changes right now! So I am currently in my second week of Toussaint holiday. In order to make the most of our hard earned wages (not hard earned) and our hard earned holiday (not hard earned) Louise, Kathleen and I decided to go on a trip to gay Paris! We took the overnight train there, which, with a Carte Jeune railcard, cost 48 euros for approximately 11 hours of travelling! I have a family friend that lives in Paris and very kindly offered to take us strays in for a couple of days. Then we got to become the one thing that everyone loves- TOURISTS! Oh yes, we went to all the spots, took all the cheesy photos and Louise even bought merchandise from a 'tack shack'. 24 Carat, I <3 Paris wristband wearing, stretch your arm to get the tower in, jumping on a bout tour tourists. And it was spiffing.

The classic pre-voyage photo.

We were very annoyed that this car was there but to be honest I quite like it because it looks like we are in a chic advert.

Ahh yes. Who says you can't take photos in the metro? This was after Louise's instruction of 'act natural'. I feel we achieved that quite well. Another highlight of the day was meeting a new British friend near the Eiffel Tower...

I can not explain his outfit. Perhaps he had just returned from a holiday in Dubai? Anyhoo we did actually do other things in Paris besides sightsee. The main reason we went was because I had seen the line up for Pitchfork Festival and the Thursday night looked amazing with my highlight being JAMES BLAKE. So off we trotted after a full day of being tourists and feeling pretty shattered. To the point where we thought maybe it would be rubbish...WRONG. The night was brilliant! The music was great and the atmosphere was so fun. We bumped into out friend Jimmy, another assistant, and spent the night hanging out with him and his French friend, Florian. I took it upon myself to actively try to stroke the man in front of me's knitted hat (it was so soft), we had a role reversal of nationalities and I even managed to make a joke in French (HE LAUGHED AND EVERYTHING!).

This is the proof of the nationality reversal. Here you can see Jimmy (from Washington) mimicking a 'British boy stance', which apparently is having all of your buttons done up, looking awkward and portraying a melancholy expression. To his left you may also see myself (definitely English) doing my best to illustrate a steretypical American girl pose. This involves simply having the hand on the hip and a smile bigger than any other human. However, my impression is perhaps flawed because on Jimmy's right we can see Kathleen, a genuiiiine American filly, and she looks normal compared to me. Needless to say, American cheerleading movies sometimes lie about American posing. So after 3 jam packed days in Paris, Kathleen went to meet her family to go on holiday and Louise and I went on to Lyon to stay with my friend Alex. Soooo good to see a friendly face from uni here! We had such a good time together too. Mainly involving drinking cosmos, white wine and cooking food. We did actually go out into Lyon one day but still this day revolved around food and drink. Namely, a salad larger than my head and a nutella crepe...mmmmm. Lyon was beautiful and I will definitely be going back there! Especially for the Festival of Lights which I have high hopes for. I'm imagining snow and carols and mulled wine and penguins and reindeer. Fingers crossed.