La dixième semaine

The week started terribly and ended amazingly. I don't think it could have turned around more!

(Prepare yourself for a very long entry. For Friday I wrote 5 pages in my diary which is 3 more than I have written for any other day!)

Saturday 4 February - I woke up and was feeling a bit sick but thinking it may have been because I hadn't eaten, I got up and had breakfast, all while feeling absolutely rubbish. Food didn't help so I decided to try to sleep it out. That really didn't help because I woke up about an hour later, figured I might try going to the bathroom and promptly threw up. Lovely, I know. The rest of the day was spent sleeping and just resting. In the evening. In the evening Matthieu and I watched the England vs. France rugby game which didn't really have good results for France...after that we went out to an 18th birthday party for a cousin of the family. I didn't feel very good but we thought that if I went and didn't feel good I could come home. However something interesting happened at the party. One of the ladies has a gift to draw evil from the body and so I let her try to do it with my sickness. Well, pretty much straight afterwards I started to eat and no longer had the feeling that I needed to throw up. It was incredible! However I was still really tired and had a headache from tiredness so I came home early and fell straight asleep.

Sunday - This was a very unproductive day of recovery but considering I could eat and it almost felt like I hadn't been sick, I was stoked.

Monday - I went for a bike ride today which was a bit hard because my body still hadn't fully recovered from the fatigue but it was nice to go out and see the country. The ride was about 10.3 km and we biked around a lake which is only for fishing in - no swimming. Well the reflection of the scenery and sky on the lake was outstanding. It was so calm because there was no wind and the colours were beautiful. Even if my body was hurting, this definitely made up for it. Plus the ride was actually pretty fun.

Tuesday - The morning was pretty standard - get up, eat, chill, but the afternoon was amazing. Matthieu, Lise and I went to Provins, a medieval village that has been around since the 9th century - pretty impressive right? We parked and then began to walk around the town.

Our first stop was a very old church called the Saint Quiriace Collegiate Church. Many French Kings have visited here and it is a magnificent church. As soon as I walked into the church I felt overcome. The whole time I was n the church I could feel the presence of something big and feel the history in the walls. I couldn't speak because it was so powerful. It felt quite surreal and I don't think I can explain the feeling in words apart from "Wow". One thing I do remember thinking was "I can see why people believe in God". And not because of the massive building or anything like that but because it just felt like it inspired hope and the change for good. Like I said, a strange feeling within the church but quite an amazing one.

Next we went to the Caesar Tower which was haunting, eerie. As we were walking up to it we crossed an old dirt and stone cobbled path. Nothing too exceptional except for something to climb up. Except this particular path was one that prisoners would walk up knowing their fate and when the entered the tower, they would be executed. Quite a strange feeling knowing you just walked happily along a path where frightened, staunch or crazy people had walked along knowing it was their last walk. Inside of this tower you noticed how old it was and it seemed like the history and stories were seeping through the walls (that sounds pretty stupid but it's true!). Everything was stone and there was a certain chill in the air. The cells that they held people in were tiny and enough to drive people insane however the main rooms on both of the levels had very high ceilings and all of the noise echoed between the walls. The view was also amazing, you could see all of the fields and the rest of the town and more.

Our final history stop was a wall called "The Ramparts" that acted as a barricade for the town during the 12-13th centuries I believe (well it protected the border of Provins anyway). That had been broken down a fair bit due to attacks and partly due to time.

On the way back to the car we passed an old bookstore that I just had to look inside because it was located in the cellar of a home. The stairs were stone, the walls were stone and it was all so old! Probably the best looking bookstore I will go to. On the way home I also remember thinking that this is how artists are inspired to draw, to write. Quite an eye opening experience without anything extreme really happening at all.

Wednesday - I had a much more chilled day than yesterday although I did get to see an awesome lizard that was black with yellow stripes down each side of it. This night was an interesting one though. Recently I found out that my Great Aunty Heather isn't really doing as well as she had been so it has been a bit of a shock to everyone. I don't really know what else to write here except that when I cried that night it wasn't really a sad cry it was more of a remembering all the awesome things cry and I swear that she was in my room when I talked to her. Which is strange considering she is in Aussie but strange things do happen I guess. Luckily she is surrounded by an awesome bunch of people who support each other no matter what.

Thursday - Did a bit of reading today and just chilled I guess!

Friday - This was an special end to a spectacular week - a day in Paris! Our first visit was to the Panthéon (it started as a church but now it is a mausoleum for distinguished french citizens (such as Victor Hugo - writer of many stories but most people probably know him for Les Miserables, Marie Curie and the architect for the Panthéon + many more from the war and revolution). It is a massive building with a very high ceiling and the inside is covered with paintings and statues. On every wall there is a painting and a plaque describing the painting. The statues certainly aren't tiny either and they also had a story or meaning behind them. Once we had looked around the ground floor we entered the crypt. It was quite eerie but pretty cool. It's also quite strange to think that people have lived and done amazing things are inside the coffins for the public to look at constantly. Some of the coffins were gorgeous with intricate designs carved into them and words written on them. The crypt in the Panthéon was full of corridors and different pathways and each one had rooms done the sides of them holding the coffins. Each room could hold around 4-8 bodies however some only had two or three.

After that we went for a short walk to an arena (like what Julius Caesar used in Rome) however there was no killing happening in this one, just people playing football and going for a nice walk.

Next was a place that you may or may not have heard about...The Eiffel Tower. Ring a bell? If not, I certainly took enough photos!! We parked not too far from it and walked the rest of the way - obviously. It is much bigger and impressive up close. After a few photos and going through security we were underneath the tower. We went to line up in the queue for the elevator however it was crazy long. So I suggested (to the dismay of some I believe) that we should just walk up because it would be quicker. The line for the stairs was about 5 people long at the most so we didn't wait for long at all until we were on the way up. Let me just say that the trip up was incredible, a bit tiring and a little bit scary. By the first stage it was nice to have a break from stairs so we stopped, took some photos and continued up the the second stage. On the way up the staircase I saw a thin ladder with very thin rungs and immediately thought that I would not have been brave enough to work at this height on a little ladder like that. As we reached the second stage, it had begun to snow which made the whole experience seem like magic. Again, I think the proper word to describe the view and the feeling is "Wow". Even though a lot of Paris was covered by cloud because of the snow and my hands were red and frozen, nothing was distracting me from the view. You could still see pretty much everything. The walking and the freezing was certainly worth it. We took some more photos, headed back down to the first stage, took some more photos on the glass platform (like the one on the Skytower in Auckland) and finally went back down onto the ground. We walked around to one side of the tower and took another photo then went back to the car to eat. Once we had eaten, we drove around to the other side of the tower and walked to a big building that I can't remember the name of...the view was incredible here too! I don't think it can be bad. By this time, my hands couldn't really move properly and it was snowing a bit more but the moment was no less magical, just a bit colder.

After this stop there was just one place left - the Arc de Triomphe. We walked underneath the famous roundabout in an underpass and went to the Arc de Triomphe. This monument is extremely tall too and everyone was dwarfed in comparison. We climbed up some more stairs in a turret style and past the first and second floors and onto the very top. This was no less cold than the other places however there was a bit less wind which was nice. We couldn't quite see the ends of the Champs-Élysées due to the cloud but again, this didn't really affect the view in a negative way, it just changed it a bit. The lights of the cars along the Champs-Élysées were mesmerizing as the stood out so much. Each road leading of the roundabout disappeared into nothing, leading to a mystery. Of course, there were more photos more appreciating the view however by this stage I think we were all a bit cold so we hopped in the car for one last stop - the Chinese part of Paris for Lise.

That night I also surprised Mum by Skyping her and Gabby (who knew about it) to wish her a Happy Birthday which is on Sunday. We talked for about an hour and it was nice to catch up and talk about our experiences and tell them what I have learnt and done and they told me what's happening in life there. Dad did a 100km run (which is crazy), Mum is still cycling and training hard and so is Gabby (but with swimming).

I only have three weeks left here and it doesn't seem like quite enough. However, I really believe I have made the most of my experiences and now I can understand that my language understanding is not even near where I started. It is really exciting and I cannot wait to live and experience the rest of my trip in France.