Em and Gav Euro stylin': Parler la française à Paris!

**Bit of a long one this time as we've been here for a while...

For starters, we know there are a few of you who've been firing up a bit of french recently - or not so recently for others - so we've started with un petit peu de français! The first 3 people to email us back an accurate translation will make it onto an honour roll next blog update! No internet translation cheating allowed! Bonne chance!

Paris était super! Nous avons été très occupés parce que nous avons appris beaucoup à l'école française, nous nous sommes faits de nouveaux amis et bien sur nous avons vu tout les spectacles à Paris! Nous essayions de découvrir autant que possible le culture française, bien que, un fois, nous avons mangé au fast food et aussi nous sommes allés au cinéma regarder le film americain, " Quarante ans, toujours puceau!". Nous esperons revenir à Paris bientot, mais surtout nous esperons que nous pourrons avoir un conversation quand nous prendrons le télésiège aux Les Arcs! Nous pratiquerons beaucoup pendant le mois prochain!

We've spent the last 3 weeks in Paris and have loved every minute of it! It's actually felt a little like a home away from home as we've got back into a routine with daily french classes and homework; have spent some time hanging out with new friends; and have been able to communicate much better with the locals than other euro countries! Despite the stereotypes, we have found the Parisians to be the most friendly bunch yet, often striking up conversations and always being patient with our slow, and sometimes weird, responses!

Some highlights have included:

1. Attending a two week intensive french course and meeting a great bunch of people from around the world. While our french is very far from fluent, it has given us a great boost.

2. Meeting up with an Aussie university minister, Daniel Mullins, and his wife Debbie and cooking for 60 christian french uni students on a weekend away camp, run by Daniel and his team, near Versailles. Camp food takes on a new meaning in France with full hot 3 course meals for lunch and dinner and 10 litres of milk that needs to be heated for breakfast! It was hard work but was great to see so many energetic and passionate young french christians meeting together.

3. Meeting Sylvia, a french-egyptian med student, on the camp, then being invited to her place in Paris for dinner.

4. Seeing some of the classic Parisian sights, eg Tour Eiffel at dusk, L'Arc de Triomphe with a spectular french flag flying under it on Remembrance Day, wandering the streets of the Latin Quartier and Montmartre, and taking in all the spectacular architecture and churches.

5. Staying in a studio room for a week and cooking up some cuisine to accompany our recent wine purchases from Burgundy.... although the studio wasn't much more than a bedroom and a bathroom with a stove and barfridge in it! (Dishwashing was done in the bathroom basin!)

6. Attending an english speaking church in the middle of Paris and finding the people so friendly we could barely get out the door! We started chatting to an english guy, Dan, who gave us the classic line "Oh I've got two friends in Sydney... you might know them" and then found out he was talking about Tam and Jake Jonker!!!! It is an extremely small world!

7. Enjoying the local bars, cafes and restaurants and discovering one particularly cool, always packed and most importantly cheap Vietnamese restaurant.

8. Great shopping... we tried to hold back, with our limited budget, but just couldn't go past a pair of great G-star jeans for GP that were half the price than in Aus!! (plus they are actually long enough which is a minor miracle in itself!)

9. Finding out Australia are through to the world cup soccer finals next yr in Germany! makes up a little for all the heckling we've been getting for losing to England in the Rugby and cricket recently. And from GP's memory last time we played the poms in Soccer we won 3-1!!

Next stop is Belgium. Beer, chocolate and moules frittes here we come!!!!