Arriving in Paris!

Okay I can't believe that it has been nearly 2 years since I last blogged! I wish I would have kept up with blogging better, for nothing other than so I can look back at it one day. But never mind, I am here now blogging, and although a lot has happened in the past 2 years, I am just going to blog about Paris, as I have now been here for 4 days and I spent the last 3 days grocery shopping and more importantly, sight seeing! Why did I mention grocery shopping? Well, it is one of my favourite things to do, and well, it is always a different experience in different places.

So first thing first, I am in Paris for 2,5 months for work, hence the grocery shopping. So I arrived on Friday 7th June, and to be honest, I was a bit overwhelmed. I think it was because I was quite tired (yes I know it is only 1 hour-ish flight from the UK) and it was getting to me that I was in a new place with language I am not too familiar with (I speak very little French), by myself. The journey from CDG airport to my accommodation was 2 hours by taxi, a lot of traffic as it was Friday afternoon. I actually fell asleep in the journey as well, typical me. When I arrived, I went grocery shopping and the products ingredients were written in French, Dutch, German, etc but no English. There was no vegetarian sign either. I used Google Translate with its camera feature, but it gets annoying to do that alllll the time. I bought broccoli that costed 2,53 Euros (!!!). Five times the price I usually pay in the UK. After consulting with my husband's friend (yes, I got married last year! Told you many things have happened in the past 2 years) it turned out that I bought the bio type (I think it's the equivalent to organic) rather than normal ones, although in my local supermarket there isn't any other ones than bio ones. Bear in mind I don't think organic broccoli costs that much in the UK, although I can be wrong, I've never bought or properly look at organic ones (gotta save those £££).

After a sort of early night, I woke up feeling better on Saturday, with my headaches gone as well. So I was determined to explore Paris, starting with all the popular tourist spots. I live outside of the main Paris area, which I actually don't mind. I feel that I get to see a bit more, for example the vast variety of houses (I love looking at pretty houses) which you don't get to see in central Paris as the places to live there are usually apartments in big buildings (don't get me wrong, they are beautiful European buildings, but I like to see houses also). The downside is, it does take a while to get to central Paris. When it is a nice day without rain, I really don't mind though, the journey isn't bad, there are many public transport; buses, RER (train), metro, tram.I bought the monthly Navigo pass, since I will be travelling by public transport to work every day. So on Saturday I just did more food shopping, cos I had to fill up the empty cupboard and fridge (priorities!). I went to the 'china town' of Paris but I was a little disappointed because even though there were a few big shops, there were not much Indonesian staple products such as ABC sweet soy sauce and ABC saos sambal. One shop sold ABC sweet soy sauce but it was in a big glass bottle so I didn't buy it.But at least from the trip I get to buy tofu, Indomie, peanut sauce, oyster sauce, and a couple of other things. Afterwards, I went to Auchan supermarket because apparently it is the cheapest out of all the supermarket chain in France, and lucky me, there was a halal butcher in front of the supermarket so I was able to buy some chicken breast!

I will make a post on my day out in Paris next, as this one seems to be a bit long already. Here is a little snippet of, of course, the Eiffel Tower!