Versailles

Le château de Versailles and its gardens is one of the most beautiful places I have been in a really long time. I totally understand why the French got a bit chop happy and decapitated their King and Queen (Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette) in the late 1700's. Property prices in Paris were getting mental and who wouldn't want to get their hands on this place! I literally spent hours wandering around the gardens much to the protest of my feet, might invest in roller boots next time!

Paris continued

After a while, when your feet hurt and you've been to every museum in a 15 km radius of your Lonely Planet map your photos start to represent a tourist on speed. .
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But to cancel out the pain of your throbbing tourist feet evenings
are always best spent drinking vino with old Canadian lovers!

Paris

Paris, its just Paris. The most popular tourist destination in the world. Well its never just Paris is it mais voila, la première journée d'une anglaise à Paris. October half term rulz :
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Dur, I was hardly going to pass up on a trip to Laudrée.
Blackcurrent is by far my favourite macaroon flavour.
Hanging out with your favouite parisienne is always nice!

Lunch on Ile Saint Louis. You have to try the famous Berthillon ice cream.

Climbing the tower of Cathédrale Notre Dame was the scariest
thing I've done in a while. Apparently vertigo and tiny tiny spiral
staircases don't mix but it's worth it for the views and the gargoyls.

Paris at night is just as beautiful.

Halloween ... the 31th (haha)

Question : What do you get when you mix a cat, Pippy Longstocking, a leopard, Harry Potter at a superhero fancy dress party, three army officers’ and a bunch of Bulgarians wearing wigs made from tinsel?

Answer : A super banging hangover.

Halloween was erm PRODUCTIVE this year. Note to reader, never pre drink chez Alice, make a cocktail for the road (consisting of half a bottle of gin and a quarter of lemonade) and follow it up with (free) banana shooters (yuck yuck) and pints of home brewed beer. Needless to say Sunday was pretty much a write-off. My costume was hardly my most original creation but I found the leotard at a flea market for 1 euro and thought that Halloween was one of the only times it would be socially acceptable for me to wear it au naturel without being considered a total freak. Ahhh, leotard love ♥

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Nat struggled with a slight personality disorder on Saturday, she seemed
to think that when dressed as a cat one must also lick everything in sight!

It's so kickass it deserves an entire post....

WAIT TILL YOU SEE MY HALLOWEEN COSTUME. I really hope that the whole Mean Girls strategy of slutness being acceptable on the 31st applies in France...

A bear went over the mountain ... to see what he could see

We have sucessfully integrated ourselves into the inner circle of Lycee Militaire life, which essentially means that if I need booze at 3pm I know who to ask or what cupboards to raid. My students have copped onto my love (and need) for cheese thus have taken to stealing it from the canteen and bringing it as a bribe for lesser homework (and for the record it totally works). Dudes, cheese is massivley the 21st century apple.

Sooooo, not only have we now taken part in the school x-country (note to readers : seriously hilarious photos to come) but we tagged along to the annual Prepa initiation ceremony whereby the new students (and us language assistants) have to climb the nearby Mont Saint Victoire in lycra at a supersonic speed. Imagine Lord of the Rings crossed with Ants and throw in a little Cool Runnings for the sake of it and you have pretty much got it down.
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Nat, Stephanie and I (the other English and German assistants)

ANTS!

At the summit

Mountain snacks.

Phillipe, one of many (but by far my favourite) militaires at school

Shades

Autumn has hit Aix and the leaves are all amazing shades of oranges, yellows and browns. Autumn in England means RAIN RAIN RAIN, autumn in Aix means 25 degree weather but you wear boots in a faux attempt to pretend its cold. I really don't like the fact I'm starting to dig France so much.
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Grub

Day trip to London to hang out with my old uni roomie Sarah. We spent about 6 hours looking and/or salavating over all the food at Borough Market on the South bank where S was rendered speechless over the size of the mushrooms (IT'S AS BIG AS MY FREAKIN HEAD).