The Happiest Place on Earth.

Q. How could the magic land of Disney be anything other than all your dreams coming true?

A. It couldn't!

Setting off early in the morning, catching the 40 minute train to Marne La Valle, we were a bundle of nervous, excited energy! Despite the fact that the temperature was practically below zero and felt like snow was on its way, we bundled up in as many layers of clothes as we could and kept our mind on the rides that awaited us.

Queuing up for tickets was almost unbearable, despite wearing gloves, scarves, merino's and polyprop's, we could barely feel our fingers and toes. But after purchasing our tickets (with a small discount, thanks SP) we made it through!

The first thing you see is the giant castle that is the symbol of Disneyland! We definitely weren't in Kansas anymore. The whole place is absolutely amazing, with every small detail looked into to provide the most amazing experience ever. Walking through the small village area with elaborate houses lining the streets, the shops and cafes interior bristling with people escaping the cold, the warmth and smell of fresh baking wafting out into the streets. We quickly grabbed a hot cocoa to try and bring our fingers back to life and walked down the main street to a performance taking place, with every character you can think of represented in a play type performance. There were costumes galore and even fireworks (with silent fireworks used at night, a Disneyland specialty so the neighbours can sleep). The performance was cool and definitely seemed to entertain the little ones, but I honestly had no idea what was going on. I'm not sure how Mickey Mouse, Snow White, Peter Pan and Cinderella can all be together, but hey, its Disneyland, you can do anything.

We went through the gates to all the rides and were overwhelmed, so many rides!! As truly flabbergasted and excited tourists, we did what any sensible person would do, went on the first ride we came across. It just so happened to be a Snow White ride and after waiting in the queue for only about 15 minutes and getting more and more amped as time passed, we soon realised it was a ride for toddlers and despite being in a cart with a group of under 5's, we had fun. Ride #1: check!

After out first ride experience completed we decided to consult the map and headed straight for the 'not to be missed' rides. Big mistake. The second ride was called Indiana Jones and after waiting in line for about 30 minutes, it was only until the last 5 minutes that you are able to see the actual ride. Not good. With only a couple of people in front of us and no opportunity to back out (if not simply for the embarrassment of walking back along the line past everyone, which I would soon find out would become a common problem) the ride's path became visible. Mid-excitement for a nice ride, the ride hurtled past on the little track and went down a ginormous drop followed by a gravity defying 360 loop. My only thoughts: oh shit.

With no way of backing out, I was forced to put my life in my hands and say goodbye. Well at least that's how it felt. It was pretty scary, I'm not gonna lie. I have never been on a ride that goes upside down before and so to feel that pressure on your shoulders and knowing your upside down (even though I had my eyes closed..) was just the strangest feeling. I'm so glad I went on it but little did I know that things were only going to get worse...

Other rides we went on made Indiana Jones look like a carousel ride.

The Finding Nemo ride has a name that does not signify the terror it causes. Lining up with lots of kids, despite the ride being labelled in the scary section on the map, we were lulled into a false sense of security. Not being able to see the ride is never a good thing, an judging the ride by the people's faces who get off is not accurate. It began by sweeping round a huge bend and then going up a step hill. It pauses at the top of the hill (for those going backwards ie. me, you are faced with a steep drop down and while waiting for about one minute, you assume you are going back down it) but all of a sudden the ride takes off at an unbelievable speed and hurtles through the most confusing maze of tracks ever (I noticed for the split second I forced my eyes were open). The cart you're in spins as you go through the track and so you're never really sure where you're actually headed. This makes for a particularly scary ride but incredibly fun. No loops but plenty of terror.

We went on dozens of rides and managed to get to all the 'not to be missed' ones that were open (Thunder Mountain was unfortunately closed). I think I nearly wet myself on every ride. And no, I'm not joking. One ride called 'Rock'n'Roller Coaster' sounded harmless enough, a rollercoaster to the beat of Aerosmith. Until you wait in the queue and all you can hear is screaming and all you can see is the rollercoaster take off and what seems faster than the speed of light. It was terrifying but so much fun at the same time. When I was brave enough to open my eyes all I could see was light formations that make you think you're in outer space or some kind of inter-galactic world. It was pretty amazing.

We ended the night at Space Mountain which was my favourite ride. It was incredibly scary (so much so, I couldn't even find my voice to scream) but it was really well done with all the lights. It was so fast and so crazy that I had no idea when I was upside down, sideways, doing corkscrews or what. It felt like your body was being pulled in every direction all at once and was simply the coolest feeling. After doing so many rollercoasters you come to love the feeling!

While waiting for Space Mountain, one of our group, W, saw a guy he knew working there and after they got talking he told us to follow him and he would sneak us in the back entrance of a ride! It was cool. I felt pretty special. Special, because we went through the disabled entrance and down a long corridor and opened the door to find ourselves at the front of the queue and we were able to walk past the long queue of people waiting and seat ourselves nicely at the front of the ride! Merci!

We decided to try and rush to one last ride as the park was beginning to close but got completely lost. Instead we decided to try and find a place selling waffles but stumbled on the Peter Pan ride we were looking for!

After the ride, we walked back through the park in the dark, the park lit up by magical lights everywhere, making it seem like a Fantasyland (incidentally, one of the names of the parks). The castle and all the buildings were lit up with millions of lights and it was amazing to walk back through what looked like a completely different place!

We caught the train home, starving and exhausted, but unbelievably happy after what has got to be one of the best days in my life.

Walt Disney, je t'adore.

Pride.

What an emotional day here in the land of 'les bleus'!

Woke up early this morning after a tumultuous night sleeping, for both me and my bed partner (yes, thats weird) thanks to the continued feeling that I was on a rollercoaster. When it wasn't me waking myself up from feeling like I was spinning and turning, it was N waking me up from doing the same thing!

Anyway, we woke up, dazed and disorientated from a bizarre night and headed just down the road from our appartment to meet up with friends at Oz bar. We arrived at about 9.40am and it was PACKED. We couldn't even get in at first but ending up using a bit of Kiwi ingenuity and going in the back way and clearing the tables so that we could stand on them. We assumed we'd get told off and made to get down but we held our flags proud and they didn't dare to tell us off. Anyway, there were more important things to worry about for the nervous French.

The bar was packed and surprisingly (given that it was an Australian bar) it had barely any All Blacks supporters. We were definitely outnumbered and were constantly aware that should we lose, we needed an emergency escape route.

Watching the All Blacks do the haka was probably the best part. I was pretty close to shedding a tear watching the boys do their thing. France seemed to get pretty amped over the fact that their team could get themselves into a pre-planned, much recited V formation. There's just something about watching your nation's hero's strut their stuff in New Zealand, infront of the world, and watching it from the home of the enemy that is special! Probably a moment I will never forget.

But once the game started, all emotional moments were completely out the window. This was war.

I was tense the whole game, our Kiwi contingent watching the game (which included three American's, a Canadian, an Australian, an Irish and five New Zealander's) practically swallowed their fists with nerves. We cheered hard for anything remotely good, trying to bolster each other and ourselves that we could pull through (and consequently doing the exact opposite).

When the French scored their goal it was like the world was ending. The whole bar erupted, another round of 'allez les bleus' began (this happened frequently) and we were given the stare down. I had no idea the French were quite so rowdy at 10am on a Sunday morning, even when their national rugby team is playing. I think I can still hear their shouting in my eardrums.

But when the time hit 80 minutes we made the most of our glory and waved our flags avidly, making sure everyone knew WE were the champions. Even walking down the street afterwards, in our post-match glow, we had our flags out, walking past others who had their red, white and blue drapeau's rolled up and tucked under their arms, angrily eyeing our's; black and white, draped across our shoulders, pride sealed on our faces.

Four more years? Who cares.

Rugby World Champions 2011.

Oh. Em. Gee.

Currently in a state of hyper tension. Still feel like I'm dropping into nothingness, hurtling sideways, doing endless 360 loops, vertical drops and corkscrews. My head is spinning, my muscles are strained from tensing and my neck feels like it's experienced severe whiplash.

And I have to try and get to sleep for the rugby tomorrow morning.

Disneyland Paris, you rocked my world.

Disneyland Paris.

Me. Here. Tomorrow.

E.X.C.I.T.E.D.

Security.

Halloween is just around the corner and you don't need to ask me twice when it comes to dressing up (not in the Mean Girls type of way). So we set off to buy our party tickets from La Peniche (an area of the school, named because of the large, barge like seat that takes up most of the space of the hallway. It is famous because everyone gets a photo sitting on it before you leave. This includes all the previous Presidents of France that have studied at SP. But you have to graduate, sorry Sarkozy...)

We wandered around trying to find the sign up table (and trying to avoid the swarms of people kissing each other. French greeting, not anything dodgy) but couldn't find the desk anywhere. Soon after, big, burly security men began to storm through, evacuating everyone from the outside garden, clearing out the cafe in the basement and then telling everyone in the main area we had to leave. They all looked very official and were speaking sternly in incredibly fast french. I managed to run into my french buddy and after doing the obligatory french kiss greeting (no matter how many times I do it it will never be normal) I asked her what he had said and what was going on.

As we were talking more security guards came in and started roping off large areas of the hallway, and she was just starting to tell me that he had said there was going to be a conference by some foreign minister about Gaza before the crowd of confused students started to make a mass procession for the exit, separating us from each other amidst stern orders from the tight lipped security.

As we left (serious case of claustrophobia starting to take effect), there were police cars and police motorcycles outside the entrance and various men in suits talking stealthily into their hidden walkie talkies.

I have no idea who was coming to give the talk but something tells me he's kind of important.

Boredom.

Currently in my Politics and Ethics lecture. One hour in. Fair enough to say I'm not cut out for this kind of philosophical study. Instead I've spent the lecture writing a to do list for our mid semester trip around the south of France. And getting amped for our visit to Disneyland on Friday.

And taking sneaky photos of my unknowing neighbors.

Best end to the day.

Cup a tea in hand and contemplating how best to pass a 2 hour lecture that would put even Gandhi to sleep.

The strong influence of peer pressure.

Me: "I feel like doing some kind of exercise."
N: "We should walk to McDonalds."

Embarrassing food diary.

Pita bread falafel
Tuna salad
Whole block of Milka chocolate, super size block.

Gained 10kg say what?

Belleville.

While staring out the window of our glorious appartment on a beautiful Friday night, we decided to get out and explore an arrondisement by night. A friend suggested Belleville, what used to be a working class suburb and is situated in the not-so-safe 19th arrondisement, and so we set off into the night for a drink (or two) on the edges of Paris.

Belleville has undergone gentrification and is not only home to one of Paris' two Chinatowns but also has a large multi cultural community. This was definitely obvious.

Its a bit of a hot spot for night life and by the time we arrived its main street was bustling with people. We managed to find a table at a busy bar and spent the rest of the night completely transfixed by the activities of this interesting area. There were lots of homeless people (more so than normal) and a lot of street art which was actually really cool.

By the time we had our fair share of 'kir' from the menu (it is wine with a sweet fruity syrup added making for a very sweet taste) and began to head back to the metro, we realized it was probably not the safest place to be at night but definitely worth the dodgy looks to experience.

Midnight madness.

N playing in our fairy lights. 12.30am. About to LEAVE to go out. They start late here. N clearly wanted to get the party started.

La Belle Fontainebleau.

Saturday afternoon we decided to make the most of the beautiful Parisian autumn weather and headed 40 minutes out of Paris to the famed Fontainebleau.

We managed to arrive at Gare de Lyon minutes after the train had departed and instead spent the next 30 minutes till the next train eating as many 'Millie's Cookies' as we could. I am now the expert on Chocolat Orange, Chocolat Lait et Oatmeal et Raisin. YUM.

After buying a train ticket and contemplating whether we should buy two seats each after consuming so much butter in such a small space of time, we headed to Platform J (we felt so Harry Potter, but alas, no running through brick walls. Maybe next time). and went through a screening process by one of the train conductors who asked us if we "aime le sucre avec vos the?" (like sugar with our tea?) We're still not sure if this guy was super friendly or hitting on us considering a.) he was about 50 and balding and b.) that pick up line SUCKS.

We boarded the train, adamant we were sitting in first class and were about to get kicked off (it wasn't and we didn't, turns out we just caught a very nice train) and we spent the next 40 minutes watching the buildings become more sparse (sparser?), enjoying the release of leaving the big city and talking about baby names and twin syndrome (...don't ask).

We arrived at Fontainebleau Avon station and figured out how to get a bus to the chateau (clue: eavesdrop others and follow them). Arriving at the chateau was breath taking as it is magnificent! If I was to call anything magnificent, this chateau definitely fits the description. The chateau once belonged to the kings of France and is one of the largest french royal chateaux. It also includes a forest which was home to the royal hunting park (what chateau is complete without a hunting park, really).

We bought a ticket (kind of, once again we just showed our SciencesPo student card and the lady just handed us a ticket, no charge and with a smile, the latter almost more rare in french customer service. It pays to have people think you're on your way to becoming the next President of France). With only 1 hour till the chateau closed (as we were frequently told by the staff, it was like information tourettes), we thought we would have to sped through the palace but only a small part was open to the public. The rooms were elaborate, in every sense of the word (not sure how many senses there actually are to that word, but it was extremely lavish). Some of the furniture was actually the original stuff (it was obvious which stuff it was considering it was covered in gladwrap) and every inch of the rooms were coated in over the top designs. It was incredible to think about royalty actually walking the same halls centuries ago and amazing to think the large rooms and overwhelming interior was actually daily life for them. I now appreciate more the phrase 'fit for a King'.

After walking through the chateau in complete awe of our surroundings, we headed outside and admired the equally astonishing gardens. Between the chairs that you're not allowed to sit on and the grass you're not allowed to touch, it was easy to get the feeling that you were walking with the who's who of France's history.

With the sun streaming down from the cloudless sky and the autumn leaves floating down from the trees, a brisk breeze in the air, I would easily say that we went at the best time of the year, the hoards of tourists from the summer season having left, allowing the 'locals' to experience it uninhibited. (Locals has now come to include New Zealander's in my imagination).

Unfortunately we arrived too late to rent a wee boat but we have vowed to go back again sometime soon to rent a boat and trawl the town.

Instead we left the chateau and headed back to the centre ville. (We had a minor detour of, say, 1 hour. Translation: we got competely lost after seeing a sign for 'centre ville' in the wrong direction, walking for miles and ended up asking various old lady's what the heck direction to head in to get back to the town and the bus station. Turns out we don't have the best sense of direction between us and instead spent the time encouraging ourselves by saying, we're either going in the right direction or the wrong direction, but at least we're moving. If we're going the right way, thats good, and if we're going the wrong way, we're actually going the right way in a backwards kinda way. No, this doesn't make sense, and yes, we were saying this while walking in the complete wrong direction.)

Nevertheless, we eventually made it back to the town thanks to some friendly 80+'s, grabbed some much needed food and caught the bus back to the station. We waited for the train for a long time (wondering why we hadn't checked what time if left when we arrived) and eventually boarded it as the sun was setting, the purple hues casting a beautiful light across one of my favourite ville's so far.

We arrived back in Paris significantly late for our dinner date, but having continued our baby names topic from the trip there, established that none of us should have kids yet because all of us, bar one, would be sure to damage all our children's hope with our fondness for perculiar names. (Side note: the bar one was not me).

Black out.

You can take the girl out of Kiwi-land but you can't take the Kiwi out of the girl!

Got up early this morning (after a smalll amount of sleep) and strolled along to Cafe Oz (something extremely paradoxical about that) to support the yet-to-be 2011 Rugby World Champions.

The bar was filled with people and needless to say we didn't make many friends by walking in with All Blacks flags draped over our shoulders and loud cheers for anything remotely ressembling Kiwi success.

Although a nerve wrecking game, coming out on top felt amazing, if not only so we would not have to walk off in shame as blatant black supporters. We were warned by numerous french men that next week they wouldn't be so nice to us.

Can't wait for next Sunday, never thought I'd be IN France for an All Black vs France final du cup de monde! Its going to be a party either way!

Night time strolling.

Going for a night time wander led to the conclusion that we officially live in the coolest area. Small, winding cobblestone streets, small cafes and bars at every turn, huge lit up fountains and churches and groups of people littering the streets. Imitation Edith Piaf's at every corner and the moon lighting up the magic of the city.

And rainbow flags. Lots of them. We do live right next to Le Marais after all.

Closer to the Moon. Part Two.

Waking up super early was somehow more bearable even after a minute amount of sleep when a day at Oktoberfest awaits. Joining the unbelievable masses all heading in the same direction and majority dressed in costume (which looked ridiculous. Something about laderhosen and 6.30am screams hilarity). While definitely chillier than France, walking across the bridge in Munich with the rising sun streaming across the city was beyond amazing. We walked under the historic Oktoberfest signs and arrived while almost everything was still shut.

It looked bizarre to see everything shut but thousands of people lined up outside the beer tents waiting for their 7am, 1L jug. We joined the queue which was extremely orderly and efficient as we were constabtly shuffled into a better line formation (Germans are officially the most organised people on the planet, how is France so close yet so different?)

They finally put the army and police personnel to use as they opened the gates and let us through in groups. The beer tent is really an extremely gigantic hall (like NZ halls on steroids) with a band playing music in the centre and women in traditional dress stomping round with 5 jugs of 1L beer in each hand (I'm assuming there was 6 month training involved before you can become one of these people. Training involving day-long push ups).

We all ordered an oktoberfestbier jug (the women waitresses come to you, you never have to leave your seat, both brilliant but also dangerous when you're sitting for extended periods of time drinking copious amounts of beer). We also got some pretzels, bratwursts and numerous other traditional types of German food, some of which I have no idea what was in them (either that or I forgot..)

We sat next to some friendly Italians who offered to share what they went to great efforts to smuggle in... cheese, and also learnt that language barriers become significantly less of a problem when beer is involved.

After a couple of hours (or so, time flies, or rather disappears) of chanting, singing, stamping on the table and cheering on people who were skulling full jugs of beer (really. It actually happened) we got kicked out of our seats and kindly asked to leave.

Despite it being crazily hot outside we managed to stay awake (and upright) and went on some rides (which I am proud to announce involved ZERO vomit, though one unmentioned person chose to sit it out...) as well as ice creams, waffles and bratwurst burgers.

The crowds were insane, the heat was intense and the beer was big. After what felt like days inside the festival we headed home, past a garden full of coma'd people (and hoards who didn't make it there lining the footpath) and made it back to our hostel just in time to collapse on our beds and fall asleep. We woke up hours later, dazed and confused (but not like the movie) and with grumbling stomachs headed out for dinner at a traditional German restaurant which we later found out was Croatian. But hey, we tried.

The following day was spent exploring the beautiful city of Munich, eating lots of McDonalds (who's McFlurries are significantly cheaper than Paris' dammit), loaded up on lollies from a funky German store with an overly friendly man on the checkout.

We boarded the bus and after hours of drunken Sciences-Po leaders trying to count how many people were on two buses so as to not leave anyone behind, we were off. (Only one person got left behind, not a bad acheivement apparently.) Scoring some half decent seats (unlike on the way there where we were at the very back and couldn't even move, hence my ankles swelling to an inhuman size, bigger than I have ever experienced, even on 30 hour plane journey's. They actually didn't fit in my shoes and it hurt to walk. I think its a condition.) However we managed to have a reasonable sleep back and only stopped once unexpectantly (unfortunately, when one guy on our bus had a seizure. We were woken at around 3am when a SP leader shouted for someone who knew first aid, to which someone, presumably tired and cranky, yelled "we're Sciences-Po students!", insinuating that no one knows anything remotely related to first aid as Sciences-Po is only for political science. This response was not met welcomingly by a tired, still-drunk and stressed leader.)

Arriving back at 6am in Paris, the streets as empty as I've ever seen them, it felt good to be home.

Free unlimited entrance to the Louvre.

Benefits of being a SciencesPo student. Flash them your student card and they hand over a ticket, no questions asked. Little do they know we're only 'international' students and not in the small number of extremely intelligent 'real' students yet to become the future leaders of France.

Tant pis.

Closer to the moon. Part One.

A 12 hour bus ride, leaving at 11pm at night is definitely in the category of 'firsts' for me, as is the idea of actually being in Germany! 150 students cramming into two double decker buses with a huge supply of beer was a brilliant beginning to a brilliant (and outrageous) weekend.

The 12 hours on a bus which I thought would slowly kill me, flew by with the help of a party bus atmosphere complete with raging beats (read: YMCA) and some seriously amped up students ready to get their beer on. We had numerous toilet stops in which it got progressively cooler and cleaner (an overwhelming German trait, I quickly found out) and my already shifty language skills became nil, other than 'dunke' and 'bitte' which turns out aren't that helpful when you want to ask where the toilets are or how to pay for the toilets (which in itself is an outrageous concept).

We arrived in Munich at about 10am and were able to spend the day getting acquainted with the pastures of German-land. First impression: Munich was nothing like I thought it would be. I expected traditional German style houses and rich architecture so was surprised to find a very modern city with wide streets, extremely flash cars (either everyone is rich or these people sleep in their vehicles) and an interesting dress sense. Everyone was wearing Bavarian style costumes, but instead of heading to Oktoberfest they were actually just going about their normal daily activities, going to work, buying groceries etc. However it was refreshingly clean without the putrid smells of Paris (which I actually missed, say what?) and the lack of homeless people.

We admired the sights, checked out their massive fountain, stared at the amazing gothic town hall and were in general awe at how clean and orderly everything was.

That night we headed off to a group organised drink at a biergarten (albeit with weary eyes) and after much deliberation in finding it (the wrong place had been circled on the map, how french), we arrived to a beautifully lit up garden area with wooden slate tables perched on cobblestone terraces. We ordered peculiar beers and a dinner of traditional German sausages (lets just say I chose to ignore thinking about what was actually in them and tried to focus solely on the taste. To this day I have no idea what animal, or animal parts, I ate).

We sat next to a group of older men who were just the entertainment we needed. Between doing shots together, skulling beer jugs, sniffing a mysterious white substance in plain view, flirting with the Bavarian dressed waitresses or throwing knives at each other across the garden, it made for brilliant comedy. We stayed awhile before leaving for bar hopping (after we had been abused by a German waitress who spoke no English and instead proceeded to yell 'reservated' at us when we sat down at a reserved table. We would have argued and told her we knew it was reserved, we were the people it was reserved for but something about the combination of her lack of English and the fact that she was closer to the size of Hagrid than a slight German woman meant we scampered pretty fast.)

We managed to navigate the shifty map directions and spend the night checking out a few bars before making the long trek home and collapsing into bed, utterly exhausted, and falling asleep in seconds (but not before noticing that the moon in Munich seems unusually close and mere metres from land.)

Our heads hit the pillows beneath the close, bright orange moon, a day of havoc awaiting us.