Au Revoir, Paris!

Well sadly, my days in Paris are quickly coming to an end. My time here has been absolutely amazing and I have fallen in love with this city. The love is not so strong right now as the spring sun is blazing and we have no air conditioning.

What will I miss?

• Greeting the cafe owner downstairs each morning. His name I still don't know.
• Croissants aux amandes from the local patissier and every so often a tarte dijonaisse.
• The rappers, crazies and preachers on the subway.
• Catching a glimpse of the Eiffel Tour, Notre Dame or the domes of Sacre Coeur all too often and still getting excited.
• Being asked for directions and sadly panicking instead of busting out my steadily improving french.
• The moon over the Canal St. Martin..I didn't take a pic b/c it will always be one of my great memories..
• Going to the second story of the Eiffel Tour and getting to kiss a man....relax, it was Ian, no scandals here.
• The many visitors that we shared wine, sampled cheese, laughed until the wee hours of the morning.
• Trying to fall asleep along the Seine.
• Reading my book and hanging my feet over the Seine, realizing that I was slightly starting to nod off and thinking that Patrick would just love for me to fall in.
• Food and wine, lots of it, and dinners that last for hours and somehow the time always escape you.

Paris has been amazing for me and my goal is to never be too far away. It's the conclusion of my studies, and now I move on to my work placement in London. I'll be back in Edinburgh for 10 days and then London awaits me. I'm looking forward to the new adventure, getting slowly back into work and attempting that disseratation, which topic continues to evolve.

Au Revoir Mes Amis....Love Loyalty Friendship...Laura

Spices, Nuts and Olives....Nobody Sneeze!

Ok, so this concludes the photo montage and quips of Morocco. I really enjoyed my trip and would recommend that any adventurous traveller head that direction.

My adventure post Morocco landed me in the hospital for 3/2 night stay. Not exactly what I had expected. I don't know if it was the swim in the Casablanca beach, brushing my teeth or eating the salads, but apparently you're not supposed to do any of those things. Who knew?

So my symptoms quickly progressed on the train ride home. Was poked and prodded the following day at the doctor and the following night encountered yet another adventure with the Parade of Horrible that go to ERs. Now keep in mind, you may be envisioning the local ER in Torrance or St. Jude's....oh no my friends...Friday night ER in Paris. Foreign language skills apparently rest in the short term memory of the brain so it's slightly difficult to convey everything accurately. It appears that only doctors speak a bit of English and the one ER doctor started the following morning. It wasn't cute people. I'll leave the details of scenes out of the blog...children read this. Actually they don't, stinking Parisiens, drunks, druggies, people wailing. Nice.

I just kept believing it was going to get worse before it ever got better. Very true! Taking antibiotics in China didn't help doctors with the diagnosis and then my travels in Morocco. The one African doctor came in and said...."have you heard of Malaria?" Not good! They ran enough tests to discover the cause...simple bacteria infection that wanted to kill me.

That is why I've been so delayed on the Blog. A little bacteria that tried to kill me. Thankfully, Jay was there in the beginning and Ian quickly flew down to help me recover. I missed my last class, which believe it or not I was bummed about. It was one of those things that you gear up for...I'll be done May 26! So May 26 came and went without the celebrations, sans biere, etc. I am feeling much better, still cautious for fear of possible invasion return.

So that's it. You'll quickly see that I'm doing ok. I've been roaming the city in my last days and enjoying every bit of it.

Cheers< L

Children of Morocco
These little ones were outside of our riad each morning as they lived and played in the area. They were too cute and got extremely excited each time that they saw us. I'm thinking that they thought Jay was just a big giant, but a nice giant that bought them all ice cream.

Porte d'eau...
You may have seen them earlier, but this pic is particularly gross because I'm wearing that hat which has probably been passed on from generation to generation. That thing hasn't seen soap, a river or sanitizer in it's eternal lifetime.

Back to Marrakesh

Nights in the Marrakesh Market and the Moroccan sunset. The African sunsets were amazing, I caught a great one on the train from Casablanca to Marrakesh, but unfortunately couldn't capture it.


The night market was filled with hundreds of street vendors and entertainers. Henna artists, snake charmers, drummers keep the square lively until the wee hours of the morning.

Champs Elysees-Scott comes to Paris.
My friend Scott was enticed to leave his student exchange in Copenhagen for a quick trip to Paris to visit me and Jay. We saw the Paris sites and made our way around town. The weather here has changed and we're now trying to escape the summer sun. Late nights are spent drinking wine along the Seine and St. Martin Canal, the canal rests just 200yds from my flat.