France please let me love you – part 2

Today is going to be about the Pont de Bir Hakeim, a bridge crossing the Seine between the metro stations Bir Hakeim and Passy.
I cross this bridge at least twice a day on my way to work and back home and i fall in love with it again and again.


When leaving the metro station Bir Hakeim, most of the tourists will turn to the right, going straight to the eiffel tower..



Its not just the bridge, the whole area around is absolutely lovely.







chinese couples seem to be head over heels for taking their wedding pictures in paris.. and I must say I can really relate to that..



Please my dear fiance, let's take pictures like that.. not neccessarily in paris.
But I really really really want to take totaly crazy, over the top cheesy, princesslike "fantasy" weddingpictures to turn our bedroom in a museum of huge and absolutely fabulous weddingpictures... dreaming...


















Well, and thats my favorite place in that area... lovely tree..










love to sit here at the Passy station watching the metros come and go.

Ramadan kareem

France please let me love you – part 1

In the beginning of my internship here in Paris i used to be quite early and to enjoy those extra minutes i used to sit on a bench in a small little parc/place. One day as i was sitting there a some people with bikes came to occupy this place, it was a group of tourists making a biketour and they all seemed to speak english… needless to say that i was instantly attracted.

After i had seen them a second time i googled the name that was written on their bikes « fat tire bike tours ». it’s an american company that organizes all kinds of biketours in paris, berlin, barcelona and london.

So, last Saturday was the day of the days and i found myself on my first paris bike tour and hopefully many tours will follow.

We went to Versailles..

Our bikes were so easy and comfortable, people were so nice and happy and i twas just an amazing day !

We cruised through the huge gardens, had a picnic next to the water..

The chateau de Versailles itself was actually the thing i enjoyed the least, somehow i have the feeling those buildings and the art in it look somehow all similar!

There was one room in which all the family members of Louis XIV were portrayed and somehow they looked all the same, like they were all adjusted to respond to the same ideal of beauty. And somehow I also feel that there is no diversity inside the single eras of art, like tell me renaissance and i’ll know what the picture is going to look like…

I don’t mean to be critical or negative just had a slight feeling of „been there, done that“ alltough the paintings on the ceiling were so wonderful!

So, make a big note to myself:

I love the gardens and the forest of the chateau de Versailles!

(teeny tiny sidenote: being with non-frenchs makes me happy)

France, please let me love you..

I’ve been in France since more than one year now and i must admitt that i didn’t fell in love with it yet. My mom said that maybe when moving to paris and working with french people i will start to like france but unfortunately that hasn’t happened so far.

It is not that france is an ugly country or that all french people are bad people, it’s just that i don’t like it… well, maybe I could even love it if there were no french people in france but i guess than it wouldn’t be called france anymore..

Since i have another 5 months to go i figured that i don’t want to stay in this situation, i don’t want to come back home and having to tell people that i stayed one year and a half in a country i don’t like and in which 90% of ist inhabitants are simply not loveable (i tried really hard to find a nice word).

So instead of sinking into my state of dislike i want to try to find the nice sides of france. I tried to do that already with french people but since I wasn’t so successful with that, thi stime I will only focus on the country itself.

I plan to make a post about every nice place i come across in France in the hope that highlighting the good will turn the bad less obvious.

Im in France.. again...

Tuesday I arrived in Paris... I arrived at 10:00 and thought I could just go to my new appartment and take a rest from my journey... but allthough I should know better, I had forgotten that in france everything is so much more slowly than everywere else.. so when I looked at my two watches in the first quiet moment, it was already 14:00..
You must think that these 4 hours were filled with intensive quality time, but in france things tend to be different!
I had spend half of that time waiting for my makler and half of the time listening to her colleague who was explaining me how to clean my new found appartment..
But didn't we should always try to see the good side of things?
so I spend this wonderful hours with sun bathing, getting a tan and a free workshop on professional appartment cleaning! how great is that?!

After I unpacked my luggage and tried to stuff it in my spacious 9m² room which somhow includes also a kitchen, a shower and a toilett (i always wanted to be able to watch tv while sitting on the toilett.. but unfortunately i don't have a tv) I finally got my well earned rest...

The day after was my first working day...
I will be replacing a trainee... so im the trainee after the trainee..
She showed me what to do and what not and so on..
We will see how things will turn out there...

Now im just trying to get things done and i have the feeling i am constantly spending lots of money on things i need but dont want to spend on...
i get my internet installed (well, it will be done in two weeks i hope), I need to buy a metro ticket for about 60€ per month and I will invest almost 100€ in a ticket back to La Rochelle only because i really need to go there to pick my things up...
frustrating... thats the word that comes to my mind in those moments, moments i am having all the time even if im here only since three days!!!

Do i sound negative?
well thats not my intention, it just happens to be the truth...

anyways, I will leave my Mc Donalds seat now to make it free for the hungry people that come here to eat and not like me to use the internet only...

And inshallah I will be back feeling much more positive!