So what's next?

The next part of my trip is Spain. Before I left Australia I found out about an agency who places Australian's with European's as a kind of home stay/au pair/English tutor program. I have gone with the English tutor part, as I am still a child myself so the likelyhood of me being able to look after someone elses child is pretty faint, just ask my Mother.

I have never been to Spain and don't speak the language, but I am sure that it won't be too much of a problem right? The parent's don't speak much English and the child that I am looking after has been learning English for the last two years, which is not too bad because he is five years old, and his school is run in English, so he is at about a conversational level, so atleast I am not entirely starting from scratch.

I am staying in L'Alfas Del Pi, which is about 45 kilometres from Alicante in the Costa Blanca region of Spain. In a nutshell this area is one of the sunnier spots of the country and is surrounded by the Mediterrian Sea. The local beach is one block from my house, but it isn't like an Australian beach filled with sand, rather white rocks, I prefere the sand. It is a tourist mecca even in Winter, the majority of tourists are British and Norwegian. No idea why the Norweigans want to live in Spain but I am not too surprised that the British do, it is fairly close and there are so many of them here that getting on with life isn't too hard, plus if you had the choice of living in Essex or Spain which would you choose?

The area survives because of this year long tourism, which is surpising to me as my first impression is that Spanish people seem to be a bit over the tourists and wish they would all go away. Strange if you ask me. Cultural differences aside it is a beautiful place to live.

It is also an area where rich Europeans like to do their holidaying and have grand holiday houses. There is a lot of money here and boats. Even though the townships are fairly small they all have their own marinas filled with million dollar boats. Cafes and restaurants line the beach promanade and they are always full. Isn't Europe meant to be going through an ecconomic crisis I hear you ask, don't worry I asked myself the same question, in Spain things don't need to make sense.

Batobus Living

I fought and fought with myself to not go on the batobus because it was the most touristy thing you could do in Paris, but it ended up being the last thing that I did on my last day. It was actually pretty good and if you have just arrived in the city it is a good way to get your barings and findout where all the things you need to visit are.

The most amazing thing for me was seeing a group of three amazing buildings. An explination of how they came into being or information on their design was overlooked by my tour guide, as a result I didn't tip the bish.

These are the things I saw.

Changing lives at Le Centre du Pompidou

When I studied French in Year 12 I had a 60 year old Swiss woman who used to be a journalist. She was a bit unorthodox with her teaching but I didn't seem to mind her, by the end of the year I could follow her instructions in French, so she must be good.

One of the activites that we did in her class was a culural assignement which made us answer 20 questions about France in a kind of investigative journalism way, which is important. Anyway one of the questions was to describe what Le Centre du Pompidou was (a modern art gallery) and what the furore was about it when it opened. Turns out that the bishes who designed the building opted to maximise the inside space but putting all the service elvators etc on the outside of the building, which makes the facade of the building look scarier than what Cher and Joan Rivers would look like today sans plastic surgery.

Ofcourse this lead the poor beautiful and fashion conscious Parisians up in arms and wanting th building to be torn down or rectified so that it would be in keeping with the rest of the cities landscape. Anywho I had never been there but on my last visit had seen the outside of the building. The museum is actually really cute and has great art inside, especially some amazing instillation pieces, well worth a visit if you like f**ked up art that makes no sense and will probably leave you wanting to see a psychatrist by the end.

I have to say that one of my favorite parts of the galleries was actually going up the service elevators. They are super fun and showcase some of the best views of Paris, which I was not expecting. After checking out the art I went to the cafe for lunch, which is actually on a mezanine level and overlooks the entrance, so you get to do a bit of people watching too.

The girl sitting behind me was Dutch and had just recently moved to Paris. Anyway she was talking to her friend about how she was doing adjusting to the city and life in general; here are some amended quotes (she was the highlight of my visit to the Pompidou) -

"I just felt that I had to escape Holland because my art was being repressed and I had to be with people who really understood me and my art, this is why I am in Paris"

"I met a guy who is from Holland and it is nice to be able to speak to him in my own language but when I speak to him he reminds me of home and how my art suffered"

"I am going to met a guy today for a coffee that will last for half an hour but will take me an hour and a half to get to his office on the metro, but that's ok, I am in Paris to met new people"

"I feel that Paris is giving me everything I was looking for when I deicded I needed to start over again."

FARK ME - SHE COMPLETED ME!!!!

 

The Pantheon

Athens is not the only one with a Partheon, Paris too has one, although its purpose is a little bizare to me.

Firstly the building itself is amazing. It stands out from the many buildings around it and is a fabulous piece of architecture. I was there just after Christmas so there where still like a thousand Christmas trees with ribbions in them on the outside of the entrance. Inside the huge walls are home to frescos which tell stories important to the hearts of Parisians and all French people really.

As with many of the other buildings in Paris (and France) it has its history in the roots of Christianity, which is unsurprising really as it started its life out as a church in honour of the Saint of Paris St Genevieve and still retains some of her relics. Her story is one that is told as part of the frescos. Today the building has been declassified as a church and handed to the French people to be used as a mausoleum where some of the most important people in French history lay.

So basically there is two levels. The ground level where the frescos are, and to walk around this area is amazing as it realies solely on natural light and in winter is quite cold I can assure. Then there is downstairs where all the dead people are. It is so freaky! Iwalked around there a little bit but was kind of put off by the fact that I was seeing dead people and not in a sixth sense way, which to think about it would have also been bizare. Some of the people of note "resting" here include Emile Zole, Marie Curie and Victor Hugo.

The buildings surrownding the Pantheon are used by the University of Paris. So there is this great youthful vibe with the streets and buildings spewing out hot mess twenty something Parisian students who all have complex and messy lives and continously dress in black, I practically self identified as all of them.

La Premiere

This time around in Paris I got to know the first quite well. I think it is amazing that the city of Paris got it's start in a suburb that is actually in the middle of the river. I also think it is amazing that this occurs naturally.

The most famous monument here is Notre Dame. The place is amazing inside and out. On the inside it is like almost a whole bunch of mini churches all under one roof. I could not imagine what it would be like to go there while there is a service on, or even if this was your local Chruch, how off tap would that be? Well alot for me considering I am a heathen non believer, but you get my point.

Another highlight was that I saw a girl who actually looked like Snooki. I had to do a double take to make sure it wasn't her and when I found out that there was more than one Snooki roaming the earth I pretty much ran into the church to confess all my sins, because surely this is the first sign of our impending doom, much like Snooki making it onto the New York Times best sellers list was.

Anyway I could only manage to take a photo of Snooki 2.0 from behind, but in a way it is a good thing, because no one needs to see that much tandoori coloured skin with whorish mardi gras make up seeping through.