Food

So cooking without an oven or a grill has been an experience. You either microwave, fry or boil. Our pride and joy has been our fajita dinners. Our attempts at making chips are ongoing but improving. The main difficulty I find with French grocery shopping is the lack of fruit sold. They will only sell the fruit that is in season so at the moment it's kiwis, apples, bananas and oranges. We cook a lot of chicken as it is the cheapest meat here. Baguettes go stale after two to three days so they do for a lunch or too. Cooking dinner together is great fun and costs a lot less!!
 They're tricky the French but we're getting the hang of them!!

Paris in the Snow

Our planned trip to Paris didn't go quite as planned. Our train was delayed and we saw first hand the power of French persuasion or perhaps just their ability to get their own way. Within a few minutes we had a new train to Paris boarded thanks to our fellow passengers. A lovely French student Charlotte took us by the hand and brought us to the train and also onto our connection train. Being the cheeky young Irish women that we are we rode first class to Paris and arrived several minutes earlier than our original train would have.
     Once in the capital we ate some of our packed lunch (no fancy Parisian dinner for us ERASMUS women). We then started our explorations... in the slushy snow. I quickly realized cheap tennis shoes are not the best choice for this foreign weather. Shona soon realized Uggs don't like the slushy snow either. The result being two pairs of wet feet trudging around Paris.
      Making our way to Champs de Mars and the Eiffel Tower the excitement was building. Through the fog Shona screamed with delight when see spotted it in the distance. We decided not to look again until we rounded the corner at the military school.

  Paris really is the city of love. You will notice it instantly by the many couples holding hands and the occasional romp in the snow. Once we had taken our many photographs and watched the several snowball fights under the tower we made our way across the river to the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs-Elysees. By then it was extremely cold along the Seine so we stopped in a small cafe called Bert's and had the most delicious hot chocolate we ever tasted. After that brief stop it was a short walk to l'Arc de Triomphe and the famous Champs-Elysees.
     

 Making our way down the beautiful and very long shopping street we eventually reached the Louvre. It costs eleven euro once you get in to see the museum. Most people go to see one painting... The Mona Lisa or in french La Joconde. While queuing for our tickets a very nice Englishman heard us speaking and offered us two tickets and replied that he was finished seeing the museum. It was a lovely gesture and a great surprise. We really met nice people that day. The Mona Lisa is quite a small painting but it has such a presence in the room it occupies along with the crowds it draws. On our way back to the station we popped into some shops. If you are ever making a trip to Paris in January be sure to have a little money for the sales. Finally after walking twelve kilometers in total around Paris that day we boarded our train home to Tours tired and a little snow-damaged. I had never been too enticed by Paris and its sights beforehand but after that day I fell in love with it. A Summer trip will most definitely be on the cards. 

(All photographs are my own)

Ma voisine

After three days of the mysterious pounding noise beside my room we discovered it's my extremely sexually active next door neighbour. I had to knock and ask "tu écoutes le bruit?" to which she replied "non" half dressed and hiding behind the door. Oh well maybe she'll be quiet in future.

The Bus

Our first solo bus trip was meant to take ten minutes but turned into two hours. Right bus route, wrong direction!!

First Night Out

So a Saturday night seems like a busy one in Tours. Seven of us Irish girls headed out at 10pm. The buses run until 1am which is a useful and cheap way to get to town. Irish Garda Age cards are accepted straight away to our delight. The drink in the clubs is expensive as I found out when paying six euro for a vodka and coke in order to gain entry to the dance floor. However bars can be more reasonable.
     Dress code: heels are a no. Short dresses are more than likely a no. Tights or pants are the norm. Fake tan is a never.
     The men, as you would expect, are very flirty but most are good craic also. We experienced a few scary moments on our walk home at 5am (yes the clubs stay open until then, 6am in fact!). Shona and I were followed by a car full of guys we had met in one of the bars. They were very persistent and we had to alter our route home a few times. Luckily we met a group of lovely locals our age and they walked us some of the way home. The French are not so standoffish after all!!
     We will have more nights out to come for sure especially with the price of alcohol in shops being far more reasonable than in Ireland. One last thing to note is that you definitely consume more drink on nights out here and I certainly paid for it the next day! A bientot mes amies!!

Arrival

As first time travelers to France my classmate Shona and I thought we had planned our journey from Cork Airport to the large town of Tours quite well. Upon arrival to Charles de Gaulle Airport we could not have been more wrong. All the usual things such as collecting our luggage had gone swimmingly yet the moment we reached the exit we were approached by a staff member informing us of a taxi strike. We then proceeded to ask where we could get the AirFrance bus as we needed to get to the centre of Paris to board our TGV train. The man's directions led us on a wild goose chase involving trips to all three terminals several times. Eventually after much pulling and dragging of our luggage up and down one of the largest airports in the world we boarded our bus to Montparnasse station. Two hours later tired and somewhat emotional we finally boarded our TGV to find very little space to place our heavy suitcases. People stopped and stared in the cabin as the two small Irish girls attempted to lug 30 kg each down the narrow walkway. Eventually an elderly woman directed us where to place them. It took us twelve hours to reach our penultimate destination that was our hotel. 

      It was our first taste of both French transportation and French society. I'm sure we'll encounter more of these along with many other cultural differences in the months to come. Stay tuned!