The come back (to France)

This is my last post on this blog. I am back in France for a month now and as far as I was extremely happy to get back home. Sometimes in my down days I wish I could go back to my British home. 

I often have dreams in English, I can see my roomies and people I miss and could not pay any visit before leaving. I am living the home sick story again!! 

Well, no worries as they say, you never know when you'll be back to the UK. Once you've been there, you've got to go back all the time in a lifetime! I might even be living there in 15/20 years, who knows!

Till the next time I go back to the UK, mind the gap and enjoy the country if you are in there! 

Lots of love xxxx

"Maybe" final post

Been a while I did not write on this blog. I will be leaving soon and I would like to confide myself. I will give you a couple of example of things I am really going to miss once back to France.

• ·         Cool music in the shops: British music is definitely the best in the world and nothing will ever be able to replace it!! I will be missing singing along my favourite songs in the supermarket while doing the groceries. Back to France and lovely “Matt Pokora&co”

• ·         Lovely cupcakes from the Hummingbird backery. There are in my opinion no better cupcakes in the world than those coming from the Hummingbird. Ever tried the carrot cake cupcake with cinnamon icing on the top? Now you’ve heard of it go and get one! It will change your life forever!

• ·         Clean and calm London transports. London transports are really good, I also very much like the fact that British keep their right on escalators and do not prevent you from going up if you ever run late to the office. Not like messy France!

• ·         The ice cream man and his lorry before 6pm. This is something we do not have in France I find it actually really sad that we don’t, children would be so happy to get ice cream in summer directly from the lorry in their street. It always comes with this little music which I must admit sounds like a horror movie one and does not make you feel quite comfortable but well, it’s great!

• ·         Any pastry and cake sweet or savoury, scones, hot cross buns, Toffee pie, cheesecake, chicken pies, Cornish pasty… You will all be very much missed!

• ·         Being called darling. I used to hate it months ago when people called me that at the post office or at supermarkets but now I think I like it, it’s actually very friendly and warm to be called once in your day “have a lovely day darling”.

• ·         English. This will forever be my favourite language. German and Italian won’t ever make it. I will miss speaking this language every day and listen to it as well.

• ·         Being in London for its cultural aspects and parks. But not so much as I am not with my half, tip: never travel “alone”.

I love the UK and I feel sorry for myself that sometimes it was not as fantastic and amazing as I wished it could have been. I sincerely hope that one day I can live in this country for more than 6 months. Next time I will travel, I want my one to be part of it, I want a better job and I want to enjoy every corner of this beautiful country!

Long live the UK, the Queen, the Rain and all its People!

Goodbye and remember mind the gap, anywhere you go in this country!

London - third month -

This is about time to sum up the last past months spent in the Queen’s kingdom. A long time has passed since I last wrote and many things happened, either personal or just public.

I spent most of January, February and March looking for a job, posting or handing CV’s by thousands. And after a long and tiring investigation, I finally got something. An internship in a movie distribution company as a Manager assistant. This is interesting and at least I can just enjoy living in London, I go out three days a week all day long and do something of my life instead of just staying at home all day and just procrastinate.

Work is in central London, quite ideal if you love this city and God knows I do. I can make my way through Soho, from Picadilly Circus to Hyde Park and so many other ways. The cool thing about being in London that often is that you are not a tourist anymore, you are on the other side of London’s world and somehow you feel like you are a part of it, that you belong to it! Pretty exciting!

Now, after almost three months in the British capital. I feel that time to go home is getting closer and closer, I rejoice to the idea of going back home, I feel slightly homesick since some important people came to visit me in London. Though I feel sad too, sad that I could not enjoy it the way I wish I could have. Some parts of this trip are really tough and I wish I were home for so many reasons.

I will certainly write posts before I leave this great country, till the next post, Keep calm and do mind the gap (because falling in between hurts)!

Marmite

Love it or hate it but most of all TRY IT!!

Some of you may frown at the idea of even trying this brown-ish paste.

But let's see what it really is!

What is it really?

It is a made from yeast extract, this kind of thing they use for beer.

What does it taste like?

Closest taste would be Knor stock cubes, much stronger and really salty.

How do you eat it?

NOMNOM!

Toast some bread, put loads of butter on it and spread just a little amount of the strange mixture on the top. Have a bite, two and three because as a foreign you are likely not “to love it at the first bite”… Best is to have it for breakfast or if it is just too much for you, as afternoon snack with a nice “cuppa” tea.

This is a very traditional product in Great-Britain. Some are so fond of it they can eat it out of the jar with their finger, which is crazy I think!

Who had this crazy idea to invent this?

A German dude: Justus von Liebig, he thought that instead of throwing the beer yeast away, he could actually keep it in a jar and eat it. This was in the 19^th century

Why is it called “Marmite”?

It is called “Marmite” thanks to the French recipient used to cook huge quantity of food and that you can cover. It used to be contained in tiny “marmite” called earthenware, but took its almost unchanged shape in the 20s

Quite a nice mix of nationalities in this produce, German idea, English production and French name, who said it could not make some hated or loved food? It is actually the proof that those three countries are working really well when they want to! English should not forget they are part of this continent, part of Europe, get my hint? 

Oh! And by the way, you can get the smallest jar at the supermarket, at least if you do not like it, it is actually a good trick to play to your friends or family once you are back to your country... Make them believe it is delicious and watch their face ;)

Keep up and mind the Marmite!

London - Week 2 -

Ten days have passed since I last posted something on this page. A lot and not a lot has been on and this is the reason why I did not keep my promise to write something every day, but I am back!

In the last past ten days I have been looking through pretty much everything to find a job. I came to the conclusion that now I will have to apply to second choice jobs… Stiff upper lip as they say. It became pretty urgent to find something in order to just be able to concentrate on other rather more important things like writing my essay for university.

Other than that, nothing really stroked my mind. I just need to seriously talk about supermarket in the UK. I go to one of the biggest food provider in the country, Tesco, and I have been to others as well but it is always quite fun to see the difference between the French ones… Bread: being French surely will bias my opinion on British bread. Can we really call it bread? I mean; this is the equivalent of soft bread for sandwich in France… They have a thousand brands and pretty much the same amount of bread in the whole bread area… I was going to be mean concerning their cheese area, but then I found Camembert and other kind of French cheeses. It made my day to find Reblochon in the middle of a thousand Cheddars!

I also have to talk about the dodgy “cleanness” of London. When walking around it often stinks like bin, you can see garbage pretty much everywhere on the street and no one cleans. No wonder there are foxes in London, it’s like a giant free food area for foxes…

We had snow this week. London under the snow: even though I did not really put the tip of my nose outside because I did not want to be cold. I saw enough to say it is pretty, but everything under snow looks pretty! I was quite amazed to see that British do not remove the snow from the sidewalk, so they leave it, it gets worse, icy and it is extremely complicated to walk. You really need to be careful not to fall because every step is sport and risky… so British and snow is definitely not a good mix!

On a more funny note. I noticed for a while already, that in England people are not too keen on dogs, or pets in general. They almost run away from them and go crazy and shout. Funny... My room mate had to put this at the entrance door so people don't freak out too much when seeing Fry!

They are... of anything! :)

When I said they are scared ...

That was my weekly report of my second week. Nothing really fancy and crunchy so to say for the moment but I hope things will move a little more this week! I hope I did not hurt any feelings in this report, if so keep calm and mind the gap, the cultural gap… Write to you next week!

Keep up.

London - week 2 -

Did not forget about you! 

Next report to be commung up soon! 

till then, yeah you know...

London - day 4 -

As you can imagine and because it has not really been a week I am there, my life is not as busy as I would like it to be. It is busy in its own way, I am waiting for answers, trying to build up my life here and take some habbits…

On my day 4, I went out to give some CVs in the area I am living in. It will hopefully be successful. People are nice; they always have a kind word to keep you up. I have been kind of optimistic about all of this; I gave one of my CV to a café called Horizon, just like my blog. That got me thinking that maybe it was life’s hint to say, go on, don’t give up and just go on because what you are doing is worth it! So I am now basically just waiting for answers, and if answers do not come then I will go and pick them. Sometimes life needs a good push in its back so that it goes on.

As you can guess, it is all quite stressful and I must admit I am happy I have been living this kind of situation in the past. Germany was a really good exercise. I remember how last year was difficult because of the language. I made it through and being in Great-Britain is not as hard as it has been back then when I was 19. Getting old is definitely something positive somehow. I must also talk about those people supporting me in my country. God bless them for what they bring me, I know those five months will be easier thanks to all those people who love me and I am grateful they are in my life. It is definitely the best feeling in the world, to be abroad and know that you are loved; it gives you little wings in your back. It also pushes you on bad days, and makes you move forward and hope for better days.

Note to myself though, I had forgotten how spicy food is actually NOT my favourite, I need to remember I like it mild. I almost chocked on my tomato sauce pasta, seriously, never again!

And it’s on that rather useless word that I will leave you and as usual, keep up and mind the bloody gap!