Please Don't Leave

I have two full days left in Paris. Two full days of being a Parisian resident. Two full days to make the most of the city and the people. Two full days to eat my weight in lovely food (which I have been doing). As this reality sets in, so does a feeling of distraught. I don't want to leave. I didn't want to leave when I booked my ticket home, less so when it was a month to go, then two weeks and then a week. And now even less so now that my bedroom is just a room full of suitcases.

Even Paris doesn't want me to leave; check out the weather forcast for the week that I leave:

But seriously, I have never wanted to stay somewhere so much in my life. I even managed to come to terms with leaving my second year student house which still holds some of my best memories. But that was different; then I was actually embarking upon a new exciting adventure. Now I'm going back to Birmingham. Of course I'm excited to be living with two of my friends and I'm looking forward to being in the same country as the others. I know I'll visit Paris again (I'm already looking at flights for October/November) and see the friends I have here, but I won't live here. I'll just be a visitor.

For most people the magic of Paris is climbing the Eiffel Tower, seeing the Mona Lisa and strolling down the Champs Elysées. But for me it's wandering down side streets and coming across quirky shops or restaurants, discovering new hipster bars and just laying in the park near my flat, hoping that the greased-up, tan guy doesn't spot me on my own and come over to make conversation. It's all the amazing food that I can't eat back at home; the unparalleled fresh bread, the crepes and the variety of food from all over the world. It's speaking French. It's being angry at the French system but secretly loving the excuse to complain. It has been living in one of the worst areas Paris has to offer and having the best year of my life.

Who knows, maybe I won't feel this way in a few months time but right now I can't think of anything I want to do less than leave. Is it wrong to secretly hope that Kate and Sally's threats of stealing my passport and shoes are serious?

Eurockéennes Festival 2011

Imagine my delight when Kate receives an email telling her she can have two free tickets to a music festival. Imagine my rising level of excitement when we check out the line up and it's pretty damn good. Imagine my hysteria when I receive an email asking me to register on the 'press' section of the festival's website. Things just seemed to get better and better after we found train tickets that weren't too extortionate and a friend who's au pair family would lend us a tent and sleeping bags.

Even the small glitch when we arrived at the campsite didn't deter us. We showed up without tickets, thinking there would be a list of press people. Turns out that said list was at the festival site, available from 4pm. It was midday. So, faced with the prospect of lugging all our baggage to the festival site, to wait for three hours to collect our wristband, come all the way back to the campsite to set up the tent and then leave straight away, we explained the situation to two more people and were finally just let in.

Feeling quite pleased with ourselves, the smugness soon wore off when we began to set up the tent. Kate's first impression was: "Oh no...some of the tent is missing." Her second impression: "Oh no, even worse, none of it is missing...this is it!" Then we found the instructions and realised that it wasn't in fact a tent, but a beach shelter. Cue two nights squished together amongst all our luggage, freezing to death as the condensation from the sides seeped in to my very old sleeping bag, as it was impossible to not touch the side.

Beach Shelter

However, the press experience and the music made up for our sleeping woes. We got to skip the queue, go to the press tent and bar, go into the VIP section, eat nice food, and, perhaps the best part, avoid the festival toilets. The bands were excellent, highlights being The Ting Tings, Arctic Monkeys, Queens of the Stone Age, Arcade Fire, jumping around to 'Jump Around' by House of Pain, rocking out with your kebab out (not a euphemism) to Motorhead and raving to Crystal Castles, despite the sound problems.

Press Bar

Festival

In hindsight, had I known that I'd be sleeping in the oldest sleeping bag ever, in a beach shelter, with another person, in what must have been a temperature of 1 or 2 degrees at night, would I do it again? Of course!