So it turns out I didn't miss out on much with the Jude Law thing, Vanessa went but they'd missed Jude by like five minutes, they were on like a red carpet thing and they just tried to get as many questions to the other people there as possible.

As for non work stuff it's been fun, at the weekends I've been going around the city and finding nice places, the other week I walked along the canal St Martin which is basically at the top of our road and is really pretty, a lot of people just sit by the side and hang out and have lunch and stuff and there's a little park nearby which is nice too. I also went and saw Tamara Drewe which was actually really funny and the two teenage girls in it are just hilarious.

I also went to the Jardin de luxembourg south of the river which is lovely as well, there was a jazz band playing and there's a little pond with toy sailboats and stuff so I chilled out there and had a read of my book in the sunshine :) I went to the Pere Lachaise cemetery the other day as well as there's a lot of famous people buried there (but most of them are French politicians, writers etc that I don't know) and I forgot to get a map so couldn't find any of the good people like Edith Piaf, Jim Morrison and Oscar Wilde and was just wandering around for ages, it's huge! a lot bigger than I expected but I think Sarah wants to go so next time i'll remember to check the map!

Speaking of Sarah... SHE'S MOVING IN TOMORROW :D thank god! cant wait! It's been lovely but after a while doing things on your own does get boring so I'm very much looking forward to her getting here. Her mum's staying till Friday as well which will be nice. Typical also though, i'm going to a press screening of a French film Les Petits Mouchoirs tomorrow and the director Guillaume Canet will be there (Marion Cotillard's boyfriend-love her!) which will be cool but i'm annoyed I wont back till late in Sarah's first night here as I didnt know that was the day she was arriving :(

but still there'll be plenty of other opportunities for going out with her! :D this weekends going to be funn! :D:D

Anyways thats all for now folks, thanks for reading!

x

Hi everyone!

Sorry about the delay I forgot my password! Well Paris is amazing :D I absolutely love my job and can't believe how quickly seven hours of work can go! There's a good mixture of things to do as well so it doesn't get boring. First we do the news stories every morning which are fun and I always try and swoop in quickly and do the most interesting ones, then I have to upload the newspaper reviews for all the new week's releases so thats fun as I just get to read about all the new films. Then we have pages to update where we have to write synopses for films that don't have them or put up posters,check release dates and add certificates and links to websites and stuff.

I've also been able to do two features so far which are interesting to do, one was for the must see films of Claude Chabrol who is a french director who died recently and the other one was for a comedyish feature about how to get promoted where I had to think of examples of promotions in films and provide a mock how-to guide about how to do the same. It's pretty hard trying to be funny in writing!

Here's the link anyways:

http://www.screenrush.co.uk/article/fichearticle_gen_carticle=18501049.html

And also it was typical that on my fifth day of work I had to call in sick due to food poisoning! I was still ill the next day so had to go and find a doctors because I needed a note. They were all booked up so I had to trudge across town to a walk in clinic and wait for ages to be seen and get the note, all of which took much more effort that just going into work! and it wasn't quite the good impression I had been hoping to make...

Hopefully I made up for it by finishing all my work for the week.

To make matters worse when I was away Vanessa got offered an interview with Jude Law! cant believe I was ill!

Arriving in Paris Pt. 2

then on the Sunday Mum came to visit which was really great cause I'd missed her loads (and everyone else at home) and going around Paris is much more fun when someone's with you.

We went to the Sacré Couer and Montmartre which was lovely and had great views of Paris, went for a crepe :), Opened my French bank account and went to a really cool bar in Nation (la cannon de la Nation- I highly recommend it!)

The next day we planned to go to the Musée D'orsay, mainly to go in the cool café bit at the end but the queue was really big so we just milled around and then went to check out this really cool Japanese pagoda-styled cinema which looks amazing! will definitely have to go and see a film there sometime :)

Then we walked up to the Latin quarter and had an delicious 3 course meal (and unbelievably I actually finished the courses! thought I was going to die afterwards!) we came back to the apartment and watched Jeux D'enfants, such a wierd/cute film :)

This morning Mum headed back to Jolly old England and I had my first day of work at Screenrush! I was really nervous but everyone was really nice and my boss is really cool. there was another stagiere who started too and she was really nice. We got started on work pretty much straight away and started writing up news stories. then we earned how to upload to them to the site and I got my first one uploaded :D here it is below if anyone wants a read:

http://www.screenrush.co.uk/article/fichearticle_gen_carticle=18500672.html

Our boss also treated us to lunch which was really nice, we ate in this really nice restaurant opposite Cartier. Thank god we get restaurant vouchers cause loads of the places around the Champs Elysées are really expensive!

...and that pretty much brings us up to date really, hope you're enjoying reading this! i'll try and update again soon

-And on a side not well done to my cousins Becky and Matt, Becky for getting into uni and Matt for his excellent GCSE results :D well done guys!

Arriving in Paris pt 1.

Bonjour!

Well as Im actually in Paris now so the blogs should be getting more frequent. Even though I still dont have the internet properly (i'm stealing off of somene else's wifi in the building) I'll try and update as much as I can.

well a lots been going on! first me and Sarah, got the Eurostar over here, collected the keys, met crazy jaqueline (the landlady's assistant) and heaved our extremely heavy bags up what seemed like the never ending 4 flights of stairs to the apartment. Then got a call from a random woman, had no idea it was actually Jaqueline who was waiting outside to take us on a wired road trip to get a sofa bed from Ikea! It was really nice of her to take up but it took us a while to figure out where we were even going!

So we picked up a bed, and headed back with Jaqueline rambling about squirrels and healthy food and playing opera really loudly and by the time we got hope we were too tired to go out (we'd had to get up at 4am to get the train) so just hung out in the apartment the first night.

Second day- so the next day we headed out, did a bit of food shopping and bought an internet box but couldn't get it set up properly (and still havent sorted it!) and in the evening we went out for a really lovely meal near Notre Dame and there was this cute jazz band playing on one of the bridges with a legend of an old woman who had been dancing to the music for like 3 hours- what a trooper!

Sarah went home the next morning so I explored the are around the apartment, bought a french mobile and went to open my new bank account only to get all the way there and be told that the director was on holiday so they couldn't open it for another few days even thought I booked the appointment a month in advance.

They managed to book me in at another branch though so its all sorted now.

The rest of the time I just did some more exploring and surprised myself by managing to set up the gas and electricity bills. The gas man cane come for another two weeks though so I cant cook anything on the hob so have just been having bread and cheese a lot lol.

So haven't posted in a while and as im moving to Paris in 5 DAYS I thought I should revive my blog a bit!

So me and Sarah managed to find an apartment at long last! its a nice little place in the 11th arrondissement and near republique which is good for all the metro lines and stuff.

I will have to start packing soon but havent got round to it yet as my aunty, uncle and two cousins are down at the moment. Its been really great to see them and we've been to london and parks and stuff and had a really lovely meal last night at this place called the cowper arms- i'd definitely recommend it!

And I had my last shift at Sportsworld for probably a year now, it feels so good to know I wont be back there for a while! Some of the people are nice but I just get so bored!

I'm also having a leaving party on saturday with my everyone and some friends of the family and stuff which should be really good, and I dont have to worry about money when we're out because my student loan came in yesterday- Wahoo!

I know this blog is sounding incredibly BORING at the moment but i'm sure it will liven up once I actually GET to France and I can tell you all about my Parisian escapades :D

Well thats about it for now, will check in again soon, thanks for reading!

Bad times!

So unfortunately literally the day before me and Sarah were about to sign our housing contract it turns out it was a scam! At least we found out in time and didn't loose out on any money but it's just so disappointing, the house was perfect and we're back to square one!

A lot of people we've spoken to say its probably best to just go to Paris and look around, apparently there's a church that puts up new apartment listings every morning and lots of people have found a house that way. Mum has been looking at Eurostar deals to see if we could go in a few weeks.

And unrelated to my year abroad but it's only a week before I go to Sweden! I'm so excited to see the kids again and fingers crossed we can go camping. It feels like ages since I last went but I think its only about a year but all the kids are growing up so fast and I don't know if i'll get a chance to go over next summer, with any luck i'll be working.

That's about it for now, i'll keep you all posted

So this is my first post on my blog, a tad early I know but I thought I should make a start before I forget again. Now it will be quicker and easier to update you all on what i'm up to. The current situation is:

- me and Sarah are in the process of signing the contract for our house or Rue Du Cygne Paris, there has been a bit of a delay whilst we were checking to see if it was in a dodgy area but it all seems fine, thank god!

-Planning to move out to Paris around the 7th August and will hopefully be starting at Screenrush.co.uk about the 16th so I have a week to get used to everything.

Well that's about it so far, will update with details in the near future, watch this space!