Lyon

We spent the last weekend in Lyon J It was so much better than expected J Arriving there we got a bit lost in finding the hotel, but luckily didn’t wander too far away with our luggage and quickly managed to get on the right path. Then we wanted food and decided to go to a buffet-style dinner to another hotel that offered us discount for staying at our hotel. We lost an hour though because I had looked at the time in Mr. Special’s laptop without realising it was in the UK time... so we just sat there like a couple of divvies waiting for the right time to go for food – it started serving at 7.

I must say I was expecting a bit more... Don’t get me wrong it was good but I kind of expected more choice... we had to choose from salmon, chorizo and ham – that the chef cut specially for us – with plain pasta or some fried-boiled vegetables... so I got salmon and ham, the ham was soooo good though!!!! Then we also opted for the dessert buffet ;) yummy, got to try everything on it :D pannacotta, chocolate mousse etc etc (I just can’t remember anymore :D) and then we decided to take a walk to the old town, not to go and see anything particularly but just walk there as we had a good couple of hours before the night and the old town was an hours walk away and it’s always nice and different to see the town by night – all the lights come out to play ;) And it did get dark just as we got to the bridge that led to the old town and we were just about to turn around to start going back when we saw the awesome view around the corner of the cathedral halfway up the mountain. Just wow!!! Well worth the walk J

The next day we had a plan! Go up to the cathedral. It’s a bit of a long walk uphill (especially as you’ve already walked an hour to the old town) but the views to town and a surprise free admission to the huge cathedral was worth it. On our way to town we managed to get lost though :/ Don’t know how because we walked straight but somehow we managed to turn left... and get ourselves lost, so an extra half an hour spent on just walking, and not even in the nicest part of the city L

 Ooooooh and since it was a special weekend there was a market in the old town, we got the most awesome fluffiest, moist heavenly macaroons that I’ve ever tasted in my life!!!! OMG OMG OMG they were out of this world – To be fair I’ve never actually understood the craze of macaroons – yeah they’re good but... I wouldn’t pay 3 euros for a small tiny one, not  a chance! But these (bigger than your average may I add) made me absolutely loooooooooooooooove with them. Although now I’m scared to buy any other ones because most probably they wont be as good, what a let down :D

Anyway back down in the old town I noticed a sign on a house door saying that that house doesn’t not have any traboules so please respect the habitants’ privacy by not entering the building.... hmm.... I’ve read before that the traboules are a must see when in Lyon but didn’t quite understand what they were, about two steps later though a random house door opened and touristy-looking people came out – so we went in to have a look and guess what traboules are! They are like little streets in houses and buildings, secret alleyways J I loved them, you could see flat doors and balconies with bikes.... oooh how I’d love to live there.

Ttyl ;)
Jazzz...

Toulon - Paris

Getting from Toulon to Lyon was harder than expected, all because of the stupid 4 day weekend the Frenchies had! Argh, the trains were ridiculously expensive and freaking sold out!!!! At the hotel checked that our train would go at 12 and get to Lyon by 3, perfect, got the whole day to spend in Lyon yet... Got to the train station and what do you know, all the tickets (except 1st class - 200 euros) were sold out!!!!! After a think, some frustration we decided to take the 2 o'clock train, that still had some seats in 2nd class. Nice train though. Now the next big issue was get all our heavy bags on the train in a short period of time. Luckily there are signs that say where on the platform you have to stand for your carriage (assigned seats) and we were one of the firsts to get on... A guy kindly helped to put our luggage in the rack (which was a lot bigger than I'd expected to be honest) while other people behind us frantically tried to get on board - I just rudely stood in their way :D Hey me first :D Then we realised our seats were at the very end of the carriage -.- Mid-way Mr. Special hauled all our luggage to the racks closer to us. Everyone was giving him a sympathetic look :D

We got to Lyon about 5 and first went to the hire car desks. One lady gave us hope - there might be something available but the system has crashed so come back first thing tomorrow morning! (Hope!!!! mind you at this point the train and car would've been roughly the same price). There were a couple of smart cars left but no use to us :( So Mr. Special went the next morning only to come back empty handed again and a frantic search for train tickets began - ones for the 2,5h TGV went straight under our noses! Dangit. We were forced to take the 5 hour regional train -.- 5 hours instead of 2,5!!!!! Torture! And it was a 7AM train... this time we were the first stop so had plenty of time to sort out our luggage and much to my surprise it was a really nice train, I'd been expecting an old train with no room to move at all (kind of like Arriva in Wales) but it was really nice and the time flew by - I slept through half of the journey.

12.22 at Paris Bercy. Goal is to find the metro station and our way to or flat. The metro is about a hundred meters from the train station so nothing impossible :) Bought our tickets - 10 in one go - works out cheaper like that :) Now how are we going to get through the gates with our luggage - there was no gate for wheelchair users etc. So after a little freak out we made it, big suitcase in front of us ran through the gate pulling the little suitcase behind me as quickly as possible :D Now the next mission: stairs -.- why no escalators???? The metro wasn't too busy luckily so getting on and off the trains wasn't too bad - had to change once.

Now a 13-minute (according to google maps) awaited us... In other words death because it was uphill!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It took us about 40 minutes I think or a bit longer. Never again! :D But the flat is soooo worth it!!! It's even nicer in real life than it was on the photos. I'm lovin´ it :) Got my stuff packed and excited to go to work tomorrow - decided I'll take the metro and the tram because that should be a 40-minute journey as opposed to the 1 hour walk. Maybe walk back :)

Ps! The landlady was so nice that she had bought us pasta, eggs, croissants, a baguette and juice since the supermarket closed at 12.30 already :) I was a bit worried to be honest because they'd had a bad experience before - don't know the details - but someone had sent them a false passport and she was asking so many questions on why we want to come here (didn't really answer them :D) and asked to contact the uni to make sure I am a legit student. Luckily for me I am :D and no problems, I will stay here as long as promised, pay my rent and not break anything - PS! this is a completely new and fancy flat with some computerized heating system and god knows what else - I have a huge touchscreen on my wall :S I'd rather not touch it - then I won't make a mess of anything ;)

I'll write about Lyon soon :) 

Ttyl ;)

Jazzz...

Toulon

We got to Toulon at 7AM in the morning, way tooo early for me!!! And started making our way to our hotel, which was fairly easy - walk along the sea until the main road turns left and then continue on left until you're at the hotel, not too hard right, and shouldn't take long (normally 5-10 minutes). Have a guess how long we struggled on it? How many times Mr. Special thought we were lost and turned his mobile data on to have a look (payed for it + the stupid map showed that we were in a different street than we actually were so what's the use of that?). We need a car, no question about that anymore.

So about an hours after disembarking the ferry we were at the hotel... Left all our bags there and went to town, so relieved to be rid of our bags for a day :D Found tourism information at the station and decided we must take the cable car up on the mountain where there is a reproduction centre (zoo) for big cats. A perfect place for me since I love kitties. Now had to wait for about half an hour because the cable car started running at 10 AM and it wouldn't operate at all on windy days so we decided to wait til then to make sure it is running before making our way there. We could've gotten a pass that'll give us access to the cable car and public transport, or a pass for the cable car + zoo. Since we would've had to walk to the other tourism information near the port and alltogether pay about 18 euros each for everything we decided to walk up to the cable car ourselves (15-20 mins) and get a pass from there for the zoo too for 14 euros. The cable car is quite scary when it's rocking back and forth... not the perfect place for people who have a fear of heights.

Up on mont Faron we had ham and cheese crepes to fill us up and made our way to the zoo, which was 800m walk away. On the way there we noticed loads of old vintage cars coming up the hill and parking there. An added bonus :) Never have I ever taken that many photos of cars in my life :P The zoo was my favourite part of the day because the animals were so close to you! It felt like if I just stretch my hand a bit I could pet the tiger sleeping in front of me! Wow. It was a small zoo and on the internet people were breaking their hearts about the sizes of the cages etc. but you have to be real about this... you can't build a proper jungle for every animal as much as they do need and deserve one. The fact is a lot of these animals would be or soon will be extinct without zoos because it isn't safe for them in the wild. Here they could interact with each other at least. (Read somewhere that they take in abandoned and abused animals - big cats that is - so it's the last hope the animal has). Apart from jaguars, panthers, lions, tigers, smaller wild cats etc they had wolves, raccoons and monkeys as well. Mostly a pair of animals together.

On our way back we took a leisurely stroll around the car park where all the owners of the vintage cars had set up their picnic tables and were enjoying themselves while other people took pictures of their cars :D

Back at the hotel we napped for a couple of hours and then went for a walk to town, it's a nice town, a bit shabby and full of graffity but the vibe is good in my opinion. Tomorrow we'll do some shopping :D Ha, add even more weight for us to carry. I need to get some proper looking shirts for work.... :D 

The promenade with luxury yachts parked there is a sight to see :) and the air was so nice and warm :) What more could you ask for? :)

Jazzz...

Ttyl ;)

Bye Bye Corsica

Leaving you was one of the hardest things I've ever done (physically :D).

Got almost everything packed so you can only imagine the weight of the suitcases + keep in mind that Mr. Special's suitcase handle was broke (things like this always happen to him) so he couldn't walk with it like a normal person but had to crouch down to wheel it behind him.... not fun...

As you can guess no car for us, because it's a special weekend and all the cars are rented out... even in Toulon, where we're headed... Of course Mr. Special was a bit happy that we'll be train'ing it to Paris and he wouldn't have to worry about driving in France. That mood changed quickly because for some reason he thought that getting to Paris with all my stuff would be like a walk in the park... Far from it....

So my plans to see the south of Corsica flew right out of the window :( A bit disappointed I must say... because there is no stupid train or bus to make a daytrip... god sort it out - you're supposed to be a tourist island! So went to L'ile Rousse instead, which is a little (emphasize that word) town up north. Lovely beach but the sea was still too cold and the wind blew the sand everywhere. Didn't stay there long :D Literally three streets of that old town vibe for tourists to see and that's it :D So just basically sat there to catch the train back (~2.5h journey -.-). Not impressed... Although it would be a nice couple hour (only!!!!) visit :).

We were gonna take the 9PM ferry and decided to leave my room at 4PM. Got everything cleaned and packed and dumped all the pots and pans and cleaning products someone might use in the corrisor (you're not supposed to do that technically...) and went down to see if I can hand in my key to anyone... The office was closed!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! I told you I want to leave at 4 and I have my train 10 to 5???? What the??? Luckily the repairman was there and he went for a search of someone who could say that my room is fine and I can leave in peace. After about 15 of searching gave up and came to look at it himself. Then of course out of nowhere the lady with the paper to tick storms in, finally!!!!!!!!!! Both of them asked me if the stuff in the corridor is mine - no......................... :D ;) Signed the paper, gave her my keys and took the laundry down. Off we were to a gruelling journey to the train station (normally about 5 minutes away).

When we finally got there everyone was there waiting for the stupid train!!! Literally everyone! I knew straight away we didn't have a chance to get a place to sit so instructed Mr. Special to dump the suitcases next to the door, where are foldable seats and plenty of room for suitcases and as I predicted, Mr. Special had to stand up for the whole entire (~2h) journey from Corte to Ajaccio. At the first stop he had a little freakout because he smelt his aftershave quite strongly and felt something wet on his thigh for a minute, so frantically went through the rucksack that had our laptops in... not the easiest job in a train full of people. Luckily nothing was broken or spilt.

After the train a worse journey to the terminal station took place... (again, normally 5 minutes) We spent about 30 minutes walking that route I think :D But we made it :) :) then a little breather and we got on the ferry :) Yay finally some rest :) :) :) 

Needless to say Mr. Special now agreed with me that renting a car isn't that bad of an idea after all ;) The only problem now is are we going to get one, because tomorrow is a stupid bank holiday in France and everythings closed, but we'll be spending the night in Toulon so there's a chance that maybe the next morning we'll get one, or in Lyon the day after, or in Dijon the day after.... :D Or not at all then... Who knows... :D

Ttyl ;)

Jazzz...

Change of plans

Yesterday when the landlady from the first ridiculously expensive and small studio e-mailed me the contract and what insurance documents and proof of address and god knows what else she wants I was a bit like omg, why why why. I understand that she wants to be sure that we'll actually pay her but still, french bureaucracy is killing me. Read through the contract that said that it's basically a basement room in her house... sounds charming right... So we'd be living in the basement, in someone elses house, would be sharing the front door and corridor with them, we wouldn't be allowed to have friends over without asking first and the kitchen corner was just a fridge with a little hotplate on it + a sink and a tiny worktop... sounds charming right? Dream come true... well that was all we had because no one else had answered the e-mails we sent.

Then a miracle happened :D!!!!!! First someone in really broken french said that their studio would be available and it was a lot cheaper and looked a bit nicer though we only could see a picture of the bed :D but already that looked better :D Yay a ray of hope. Then an even better thing happened!! Remember in the last post I whined about a better studio that we didn't get? She wrote to me apologizing for not having the internet for a while and said we could have it!!!!!! Hallelujah!!!! It's so much better and bigger, omg I love it and I'm now so glad we had that trouble with airbnb in paying for the first stupid studio, because otherwise we probably wouldn't get our money back... I'm so happy right now :) :):):):):):):) Now I just have to write to the first landlady soz, suck it :D lol no, because she seemed really nice, and I kinda feel bad cancelling but hey, the other one has the same rent and is closer - an hour walk away from my work, so a win for us :)

PS! all my clothes and shoes are now packed so it doesn't look as gloomy as it did thinking about it earlier :D we might look like two mountains of luggage but at least we'll get to Paris by Sunday with most of my stuff :)

Happy days :)

Ttyl ;)

Jazzz...

Catching up

So I thought yesterday that I should probably post something, but bad blogger as I am, I couldn't even remember the password to log in. So firstly massive word search from me and Jazz's conversations to find the password. Well, took me a long time, since it did not come up with the words I thought it would and some searches got like 180 results :D. Anyway, finally got the password, logged myself in, opened the blog and can't find the place to click on to create a new post. Like whaaat? In the end, I had other things to do and I finally figured it out today.

My real reason for posting was however finishing uni. Like everything is done. So nice, although I don't have any idea what to do with my life now. My dissertation writing was kinda living on the edge, as I started later than I should. But it was done on time, but then Liz suggested that she could read it through for me. Ok, sent it to her, while being in the comp room, ready to print it off and take to binding. An hour passes by, she is still reading, the printer in the comp room had broken by the time she had finished. Can't really remember exactly, but I think it took her 2-3 hours in the end to read it. But then I had to look through her comments and read my own work again, but the time was ticking. I comforted myself with the fact that, I can always take it to binding first thing in the morning and it will be ready. Around 4.30 gave up, as I thought that the binding places closes 5 or so. And I still needed to print it out somewhere. But Liz reminded me about the self binding in the library. Was hesitating at first, because wasn't sure if it is as good as the binding service, but in the end, when I had read my diss through and it was 7 or so I walked up the hill. Printed the stuff out, printers never work, so half the time was looking for a working printer, unbelievable. Then went to this binding machine, measured my pages, then bought the spine and covers, and guess what, it was 70p altogether. Haha, people paid like close to 5 pounds in that binding place for cheapest option. Took me like 10 minutes and it was done. No nerve-wracking waiting and I did all myself, so proud. Shame really that uni makes people panic about the binding, if it can be done so easily by yourself and it's much cheaper.

Then I had 2 exams in a row, after 3 days of working. Could have gone better, but one can always do better, right? I'm still happy they are done. After those went out with Liz, sad times, that she left yesterday. But weird thing with going out in this small town is that, at least for me, as I haven't been out for ages, people are used to seeing me in my work uniform. And when you make an effort and go out then they look you like you are someone else, not the same person, who serves them at work.

Had something else to write about, but can't remember anymore :D next time then.


Ems

A bump on the road

Why can't everything just be easy and go according to plan? argh I'm so stressed out.

According to the initial plan Mr. Special should be here already with his car and holiday should've started already. Instead he's still back at aber waiting for the DVLA to send back his car registration papers. Because you can't drive without them in France... But as always in the UK everything has made uncomfortable for people :D In december they closed all the local offices that provided you with a temporary registration for 3 pounds. Now you can't even go to the main office to pick up your OWN papers. It has to come by post! WHY? What if it gets lost in post???????????????????? What is it with UK and the post? I'd understand if it was a top-notch reliable service but it isn't!!!!! And the best thing about it is that it could come any day now, or not... god only knows. So we are waiting til tomorrow and if they haven't come, he'll fly to nice and hire a car from there... Hopefully it won't be the case...

The second thing that went haywire yesterday was the attempt to book a stupid ridiculously expensive tiny studio far away from my work place... Sounds charming right. But we don't have another option really. The time is ticking. I asked some of my friends in Paris and got offered a room, but it was further away and the same price so... We'll take the stupid studio... Not so easy as you'd think. We'd tried to go through the airbnb page. Should be easy and straightforward but something went wrong... who knows what. Did one reservation, the landlady said I'd picked the more expensive offer (atleast she's nice and isn't trying to get all the money she can from us) ok, she declined that. But the stupid page already took the money out of the bank for safe-keeping!!!! OMG what a stupid system how can I make another booking now? I don't have any money left in my bank! They should take the money out of the bank when the host has accepted the reservation... would make more sense right? Mr. Special is still waiting for his money back for the far more prettier and bigger studio, but what was declined as well :( and it was closer. I really thought we'd had it! Still wanting it :D But someone else has booked it already :( But where the hell is the Money?????? Give it back!!!!!!!!!!! NOW!!!!!!

Not looking forward to packing either -.-

Not so happy days...

A little after writing this post I decided I'll have a look how to get from our studio (it should be ours now :D) to my workplace. I wish I hadn't. First of all, every website, there are about three, show different routes. How, why, how and I have to go through Paris, so checked if I could get the train that goes to Paris and just get out before, so I could walk (about half an hour) to my work, but oh no no no. The train only goes 6AM or after that 9AM. I'm pretty sure I have to be at work by 9 and I don't fancy taking the 6 o'clock either... there goes my brilliant idea. Why am I stressed out? It takes at least an hour to get to work and that's not the worst part... If it would be an easy bus or train or metro journey it would be fine no problems. But it's all that!!!!!! In one go!!!! First take the bus, then train, then metro, then the bus again.... Paris do you want to kill me????? Finally on the third website found a fairly simple route, two metro trains, one to Paris and the other one back out from Paris. At least it's easy and I don't have to run around looking for the right stop or god knows what... According to the website the cost for this is 5.60 full fare. That makes freaking 12 euros a day to get to work and back!!!!!!! Jesus christ... why oh why couldn't we get the first room we wanted that was sooooo much closer???? I probably could've walked from there!!!! So yeah, I'll try looking into if I can get a student discount card or something...

Ttyl :(
Jazzz...