Happy Thanksgiving! If I was in Canada I’d be enjoying the holiday Monday and a weekend full of food and family. Alas, I’m on my own here in Paris and I’ll be heating up leftovers for dinner tonight. Merde. I’ve been feeling twinges of homesickness this past week, which I figure is partially due to missing out on a Canadian holiday for the first time ever. Holiday aside, even when I was living 2 hours away from my family I don’t think I went too much longer than 6 or maybe 8 weeks without seeing them. So yeah, right now I’d like to be at home. But all is not lost because I had a really awesome weekend. Read on if you’re interested in the undead and Medieval villages.
QUICK RECAP OF THE WEEK
My week was pretty standard. The girls are now back on the regular schedule of first half of the week with their dad and second half with their mom. I didn’t have to work on the days they were with their dad, so it was a nice break for me.
My dad made a JibJab video of our family as various supernatural creatures singing “I Will Survive”. I showed it to the youngest and she LOVED it. She watched it over and over again until I told her we could make one with her family members, which she was thrilled about. She made one with herself, her sister, her mom and me. Of course then the little narcissist in her took over and she decided to make one using five different pictures of herself. I can’t even tell you how many times she’s watched that video. I finally sent it to her mom so she would stop constantly asking me to get my computer so we could watch it.
One problem with the youngest is that she never knocks. I’ve had the conversation with her several times, but she never seems to remember. This weekend I had just gotten out of the shower and was in my room when she barged in (to ask if she could watch the video). Luckily I was still wearing my towel but it’s pretty clear that I’m going to have to stack furniture against my door if I want any privacy. I don’t think she understands the concept of privacy since she’s not concerned with when it comes to herself. Thursday night I was in my room (door open) on the computer listening to Disclosure when she wanders in with her pants around her ankles holding a half unravelled roll of toilet paper and starts dancing.
I missed my English lesson with the oldest since the family had plans on the Friday night that meant leaving as soon as she got home from school. The English lesson with my other student on Saturday morning went well though. She’s over whatever problem she had with the situation before so she doesn’t give me any attitude or anything. In fact, she doesn’t seem reticent or embarrassed trying to speak English at all. She defaults to French often if she’s trying to explain something, but when I ask her to read in English she’s not shy. So that’s kind of nice. I’m a little perplexed by her English level though. In some areas she’s fine but she’s missing a lot of key, basic grammar and vocabulary. It’s going to be tricky figuring out what we need to work on.
But on to the good stuff…
ZOMBIE WALK PARIS
Did I scare you?
As some of you may know, I have participated in the London (Ontario) Zombie Walk for four years. Unfortunately I missed out on last year’s, but this year I made up for that in a big way by attending the Paris Zombie Walk.
I mentioned the event in an au pair Facebook group that I’m part of and had a few people respond that they’d like to go, but when I tried to make plans everybody flaked out. Figures. But I wasn’t about to miss out so I went by myself. The most awkward part is taking the metro there and back. There was some staring and pointing.
The Paris Zombie Walk was obviously much bigger than London’s. In London you have to obey traffic lights and stick to the sidewalk, which detracts a little bit from the illusion. Here in Paris we had police escorts and they shut down the streets of our route so the group flooded the sidewalks and roads. The one negative things I have to say about Paris Zombie Walk is I feel like people were in general not as committed to the performance aspect. There was a lot of great makeup (and some not so great makeup) but half the fun is having a hoard of people act like zombies. The spirit of this zombie walk seemed more like a street party for the alternative crowd. There was a van that followed the procession blasting electronic music and many zombies were smoking, drinking, chatting, dancing. Don’t get me wrong, that’s a fun idea as well, it’s just not what zombie walk is about to me.
I’ve had a few people ask me what my French family thought of me as a zombie. I had lunch with the mom, her sister, and the girls before I left so I had pretty much all my makeup except for the fake blood done at this point. The oldest originally thought I wasn’t feeling well and was aghast at the bite on my neck, asking me what had happened. The youngest wanted me to do her makeup the same way so when I got back from the walk I did a lighter version of what I’d done on myself. The mom and sister were impressed with my makeup skills. I did everything with my regular makeup.
Ok, I’ll stop now.
PROVINS
When you’re writing a post on WordPress, it suggests other blogs and articles that have mentioned the same subjects as you. Last time when I was writing a post about Nuit Blanche, one of the suggestions was an post about Nuit Blanche written by a Canadian living in Paris! So I checked out the blog, found out the girl was about my age, from about the same area of Canada as me and had also just recently arrived in Paris. Go figure! I contacted her to say that I’d be happy to meet up so we added each other on Facebook and chatted a bit. Fast forward to this weekend where we decided to go to Provins together on Sunday.
Provins is a small medieval town located an hour and a half (by train) to the south-east of Paris. It was a centre of trade and is also known for its roses. We left Paris at 8:45 and arrived in Provins around 10:15. We took a bus from the train station to the tourism office where we got our information and bought our tickets. I was struck by how beautiful the town was and also how fresh the air was! Paris is beautiful but it’s a city, and one with a problem with public urination at that.
Our day in Provins was so packed we barely had time to eat! To start out, we wandered at a leisurely pace through the streets, taking many photos. Our first activity was a guided tour of the subterranean galleries beneath the town where clay was harvested. The tour was entirely in French, so I missed some information, but I believe one space was used as a hospital ward, while another area was used as storage for the goods of merchants. It was incredibly labyrinthine down there and I had a little nagging thought at the back of my head as the guide led us deeper and deeper into the vaults that he would leave us there where we would then be pursued by cannibalistic subterranean dwellers. Fortunately, that was not the case and we emerged unscathed.
18th century graffiti
Our escape!
We then paid a visit to the rose garden, which was so lovely. We started out ambling but had to rush a little bit and didn’t get to see the whole area since we had a show to get to.
The best smelling rose I’ve ever encountered
We grabbed a sausage and fries to eat on our way to the falconry show. It was about 45 minutes and showcased a few types of birds of prey including hawks, owls, eagles and many more. Afterward we visited the aviary, which was a bit sad to be honest. All the birds (as well as a camel and a few dogs/wolves) were kept in fairly small enclosures. I hope they get out often.
Up next was a knight show. It was really great for a family show, but it was pretty much just lighthearted entertainment with no real historical value.
At this point we still had three museums/monuments to visit and only about an hour and a half to see them all. We got through half of the first museum, which had scenes set up depicting various aspects of the trading fair that took place there with a complimentary audio guide to explain. It was a little cheesy, but informative. After touring one of the two levels we decided to rush on to the next location. Unfortunately, by the time we got there it was 10 minutes before closing so we went on to the final monument, which closed a half hour later. This was the Caesar’s Tower, which served as a prison and watchtower. It was between 5:30 and 6 at this point so the sun was starting to lower and the views were spectacular.
We finished up by returning to the rose garden where we perused the gift shop and sat down to enjoy some macarons. It was then time for a real meal so we headed into the downtown area to find a restaurant. The streets were all but deserted and there were not too many places open so we decided on a pizzeria, which had a wood oven visible from the front window. I was thankful to be sitting down inside where it was warm and being able to relax and have a proper meal. We each had a pizza and a glass of wine. It was a nice end to a great day. After dinner we walked to the train station and caught the last train back into Paris.
I took a lot more photos of Provins that I’ll be posting on my Flickr so check that out if you’d like to see more.
À bientôt!
Victoria's Adventures Abroad 