La Rentrée

The beginning of September marks La Rentrée here in France, where everybody goes back to school and work and when the streets of Paris are once again filled with Parisians. To be honest, it does feel pretty weird getting on a metro and actually hearing French voices as opposed to American ones!

Unfortunately my laptop broke last week so I was unable to put a post up for ages, however my amazing parents came over this weekend and treated me to a new one, complete with an AZERTY keyboard. Although the AZERTY keyboard is absolutely ridiculous, I’ve been using one for over 2 months now at work and I’m just about getting used to it.

I’ve had a pretty packed start to my Rentrée, my main pal Ellie came to spend a few days with me last weekend, which was a great laugh and I’d like to think Ellie was super impressed at how cool I am now I am living la vie parisienne. On Thursday night, Lucy, Fayida and I popped up to Montmartre for some afterwork drinks which was great, Montmartre is one of my favourite places at night time.

Ellie came on the Friday and the weekend was spent at Wanderlust, Showcase and exploring the Marché aux Puces at Montreuil and Le Marais. Whilst Wanderlust and Showcase were a great laugh, unfortunately going to the Marché in Montreuil was awful, with creepy men everywhere we turned and a McDonalds that genuinely looked like a crack den. Getting on the metro to Le Marais was like going to a different planet, although I’ve been before we had a falafel, sat in Place des Vosges and wandered around the crazily cheap vintage shops.

Shout out to any La Haine fans

On the Monday, Ellie and I wandered around Opera until we found a cute little restaurant that was adequately organic/vegetarian/middle class/overpriced for Ellie's tastes. Whilst the principle was nice, you chose your little glass pot of food and then waited for it to be, ahem, microwaved, and it had great décor, was a lovely and cosy escape from the rain outside the food wasn't amazing.

I was then fortunate enough to be taken out for a drink to the restaurant which Angelina Jolie is in in the first scenes of The Tourist, when I realised where I was I may have got slightly excited about the fact that I was sat where Angelina had sat!

This weekend my parents came to stay which was soooo lovely, especially because my mum had essentially brought half of the M&S food hall with her along with loads of new clothes. We had a great time looking around the Jardin du Luxembourg and visiting the Senat, as this weekend was France's turn for the European open days, where they open the doors to buildings which are usually kept closed to the public.

I then showed my parents the amazing Chartiers, for the second time this weekend, as we spent Lucy and Fayida's birthday there the night before.

Today we took a trip to La Défense, after a rather nice breakfast at McDonalds, where my papa bought me this new laptop which I'm just about getting used to (but am very grateful for!). 

pretty fancy photo taken by my dad of the Grande Arche de la Défense

Waving goodbye to my parents in their gooorgeous new car which was just made for la vie Parisienne!

I also realised today that as of tomorrow I will have been living in Paris for 13 weeks, which is just crazy! This is also the week that Fayida leaves Paris for Mexico, and I know I'm going to miss her greatly :( On a lighter note, I also found out that Tiffany's will be opening on the Champs Elysées, which is great news!

As this weekend comes to a close, with the dustbin men outside making a racket at half 11 at night (C'est la France!) it's bonne soirée from the most beautiful city in the world!

Sophie