blog d'europe: au pair

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

au revoir paris

inevitably, the day finally rolled around - my last day of living in paris. what, already!? can't believe that these five months are about to come to an end. although, when looking back it's hard to believe how much i've managed to squeeze into this time. trips away to amsterdam, venice, deauville, ibiza, berlin... a brief stint of a french language course (after a month of this i chose sleep ins & extra euros in my wallet - over conditional tenses, past participles & indirect objects...) & five months of looking after two of paris' most gorgeous boys - noah & liam.

my last day saw meg and i wandering down to anvers metro stop. meg arrived back in paris a few days ago, and has come to spend some time in paris before we both head off travelling together.

we had planned to meet up with one of my primary school friends, angeline, but when our metro broke down somewhere near réaumur sébastopol - we then had to walk the remaining few blocks to the square in front of notre dame.

together with meg & angeline, i hiked up the 387-step spiral staircase to the top of notre dame's towers. the view out over paris was breathtaking, being able to see the eiffel tower in one direction, the montmartre hill in another (with the blindingly white sacre coeur perched on its top) & the seine - sparkling in the sunlight - snaking its way through the city. we were also able to get a close up view of notre dame's many gruesome & grizzly gargoyles, as well as the 3,000kg cloche d'emmanuel - sitting in the bell tower. sadly, no hunchbanks in sight...

given the weather was so nice, i decided to get all my incredible parisian friends together for a final picnic of wine, cheese, baguettes, pain au chocolat's, cider & cheap rosé. we sat in the parc de la villette, up in the 19th arrondissement, swapping stories from the past half-year & getting more than a little sunburnt in the afternoon sun...

meg & i headed back to my apartment to get a start on packing my bag. yes, i put it off until the last possible minute...what can i say, i didn't want to face the fact that i would be leaving paris. several hours later, i had a backpack with the zipper just managing to squeeze closed ...& another bag (roughly the same size), full of things that i would leave with frida in paris. typical. oh well, i'll face that problem when i'm back in paris in a few months...

after a million +1 hugs & bisous with liam & noah, my au pair boys (going to miss them both so much) & a very emotional goodbye with the au pair fam, we headed back out the door & down the hill. then it was onto the metro & up to hôtel de ville, where the nuit blanche celebrations were starting up.

la nuit blanche ("white night" in english) is an annual event in paris - where museums, galleries & other public spaces stay open all night, with free exhibitions pouring out into paris' cobbled streets. we walked along to the centre pompidou (where music parades made their way loudly through the streets), then further up into le marais where we saw an incredible neon blue light installation. we ended up back up in montmartre around 1am, where contagious happy spirits were in the air - i couldn't think of a better way to say goodbye to paris. sadly though, meg & i had to take our leave at this point - our goal being to catch the last metro to the airport.

back at the apartment, we grabbed our heavy packs and (with some difficulty) waddled down to the metro. only to find we'd missed the last train. shit, how annoying. we managed to find our way to the bus stop, catch an hour-long bus to charles de gaulle airport & consequently arrive around 3am. then it was just a two hour wait until we were able to check-in, drop our bags and let our travel adventure really begin...

au revoir paris, you will be dearly missed!

S.

dawn over montmartre

noah and his "ga-gateau"

3,000kg bell, la cloche d'emmanuel

Thursday, September 15, 2011

ibiza

summertime in europe, cue a two week holiday to the smallest spanish balearic island with the biggest personality: iiiiibiza!

together with my au pair family, we flew out of stormy paris (after a 3 hour flight delay, ta easyjet) and landed in hot, hot, hot ibiza. we found our way to our gorgeous villa in jesús (so much fun to say...heyzus!), about a 5 minute drive from ibiza town. despite arriving at midnight, no-one could resist the lit-up, turquoise pool....so before we knew it, the 10 of us had all jumped in (even noah, in his little floaties)...bienvenido a ibiza!

but first, to explain why i was there. i'm still au pairing for my gorgeous family in paris, and given it's summertime, they decided to jetset across europe to their country of choice (as you do when you're a european) - to take advantage of the hot sun, golden beaches & crystal clear mediterranean waters. how unfortunate that i was dragged away from paris for two weeks, on a free holiday to a spanish island...what can i say, it's a hard life.

the deal was to get the kids up in the morning, and look after them every other night while the parents of both families (we were two families in our villa) hit the town and pretended that they were a decade & a half younger. in return i had the days free to lounge around on ibiza's stunning beaches, explore ibiza town, visit the island's markets...etc. the cherry on top of all this was that the other family brought their own babysitter/au pair - a gorgeous lil' parisian named sarah. we're the same age, and got along like a house on fire. so there you go, hope you're a little less confused now..!

we decided between us that everyday we would visit a different beach, so that we could see more of the island. from las salinas, the stunning strip of beach next to the salt farms; to platja d'en bossa, a beach lined with bars & clubs open day & night that blast techno no matter what time of day (...or night); to playa san miguel, where you can quench your thirst with beer of the same name in between snorkel sessions to see the colourful fish; to cala xarraca, where you can swim 200m out to sea, climb a rock and jump 5-8m down into the turquoise waters below....plus so many others, each one different to the next.

the temperature hovered between 30º-35º for the two weeks, such incredible weather that i actually managed to get a tan. yesss!

the guilty pleasure of our time in ibiza was the seemingly endless supply of sangria that was everywhere we went - especially at the villa. sarah & i would grill up some veggies mediterranean-style, pour ourselves a sangria (or three), then kick back by the pool. our favourite spot in the villa was up on the flat, white roof - where we could see out to ibiza town & watch the lights in the old city twinkle in the night. every other night there were fireworks leaping around in the sky, and up on the roof was where we got the best view. picture perfect.

adiós,