Bonjour, Paris. Hej, Ikea.

So I haven't written a post in a long, long time, but I have my excuses- I MOVED TO PARIS!

The city of lights welcomed me at the end of August and since then a lot has happened that I can't wait to share with you all. BUT FIRST, some practicalities.

Whenever I move, the first place I try and locate is an Ikea. I've come to realise that for some people, Ikea is like Marmite, you either love it or you hate it. But if I could, I would move in to one of their little show-homes and live happily ever after. Time and time again, they have saved me from spending a tonne of money on furnishing 'home', which is fantastic when I know I will only be in a certain place for a short-ish amount of time. 

Besides, after living in Sweden back in 2012, I feel a little nostalgic and heaps of excitement when there- especially for the meatballs!! 

Full on nostalga!!

When I first arrived in Paris, I asked a few people how best to get to Ikea, to which they all replied something along the lines of: "It's impossible without a car". Luckily for us, the Ikea at Thiais Village has caught onto this little problem, and now provides a free, yes, gratuite, service from the metro Denfert-Rochereau straight to the store in only 16 minutes!

 All you need to do is take this bus:

From this location:

At these times:

I wasn't sure if I believed that the bus would be as quick as it said, but it really was. And very popular. I've been a couple of times now and the bus has nearly always been full- so I recommend that you get there 10 minutes before the bus is due to leave. 

Now you can eat all the meatballs, crayfish and princess cake (my absolute favourite) that you like!

Sadly, only fries and no mash with the meatballs.

Chandelier.

So at the moment i'm obsessing over Sia, specifically her new song 'Chandelier' and the video. Check this out:




Just wow.

I've stumbled accross Sia before without even really realising it. A few years ago she released a song called 'Breath Me' which was on repeat on my ipod for months. 

And now she's back with her new album, '1000 Forms of Fear', which was released only 2 days ago. 

For me, the video is just beautiful. In a rare interview that Sia gave to Dazed, she said that her "fantasy basically at the beginning of this process was to marry reality television with Nordic arthouse cinema". The reality television aspect comes from the dancer in the video, 11-year old Maddie Ziegler, who is also featured on the reality TV show 'Dance Moms'. And whilst the piece can definitely be described as artistic work, it is clearly not aimed at a niche market, considering the video already has over 51 mission views on Youtube alone.

"I said I wanted her to be like on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I thought it would be really fucking cool to have this little child imparting this adult experience".

Interestingly, Sia plans to continue dressing people in blonde bobs (her trademark look) to create her visual art for the new album, as she says that she doesn't want to be famous. 

Whether she wants to be famous or not, with the combination of her beautiful voice, gift for songwriting and the creativity she has shown when directing, I don't think that she's going to be an unknown face for long!

7 Day Juice Diet.

A few weeks ago I decided to try a 7 day juice diet. These have become very popular recently as a form of detox, and somewhat of a craze amongst image and health conscious celebrities. 

Detoxing, amongst other things helps you to:

- Remove toxins from the body
- Enhance immune system function
- Lose weight
- Slow premature aging
- Improve skin quality
- Increase energy

Foremost though, the popularity of juice diets revolves around their proven ability to help shift weight rather rapidly.

I was sold!

After initial reading into the diets, I found plans for 5, 7 and 14 days. 14 days without food seemed wayyyy too long for me to realistically withstand, as you will realise as this blog progresses, I. love. Food. 

7 days would have to do.

Breakfasts looked a little like this:

(carrot, apple, ginger)

Whilst lunch and dinner looked a little like this:

(kale, spinach, cucumber, celery, apples, lemon, ginger)

Not bad looking hey? Juices were coloured yellow, orange, red, green and purple. The vibrant colours even look healthy!!

At the end of the week (yes, I did endure) my skin definitely looked a little brighter and healthier, as promised. And despite not having eaten solids for 7 days, I was alert and didn't feel lethargic at all.

I didn't lose any weight though, not even a KG. After some more research, I've learnt that if your body is at its natural functioning weight, then you won't necessarily lose anything when juicing. This is something to take into account when deciding if juicing is for you, if your ultimate goal is weight-loss. My step-mum though, managed to lose 6 pounds, which is impressive in only 7 days compared to other diets I think!?

Over the next few posts, I'll share some of my favorite recipes and a little more information about juicing.

Results day.

I went through it all, pretending it wasn't going to happen, counting days until the dreaded email arrived, complete avoidance of the subject, but today was the day, I finally got my third year results from uni.

To be honest, I did try and take my mind off of the fact that at some point today THAT email would drop into my inbox by going shopping. Sadly I didn't find anything that took my mind off of results for too long; is it just me that thinks shops have just stocked up on junk this summer?

But after all the hard work, late nights, frantic phone calls, nerves and worry I got exactly what I wanted.

There were screams, tears, full on shock (for real, I was shaky and everything) and then I thought i'd reward myself by eating a box of chocolates and drinking a large, large glass of Pimms & lemonade. 

I hope that everyone else got exactly what they wanted, nothing beats the feeling of being rewarded like that after you've worked so hard, so congratulations. And now...PARTY! (or at least for a little while until we have to find jobs or make real life adult decisions)

That end of uni feeling.

So, the whole 'leaving-university-and-venturing-into-the-big-wide-world' feeling finally hit me.

I was sitting with two of my friends on the steps facing Marrakech Menara airport after a wonderful week away together (post to follow soon!). The last heat of the day was slowly fading, but people were still buzzing in and out of the airport doors. Families just starting their holidays together, couples with hand luggage visiting for a weekend getaway, business men and women being picked up and dropped off by unfazed locals in battered taxis. All of them with a purpose and somewhere to be.

Dis-similarly, I for the first time in what felt like forever, had nowhere to be or nothing to do. After years of plans and knowing what I was going to do, where I wanted or needed to be, I had nothing. I was completely free!

At first this was overwhelmingly scary; what was I actually going to do when I got home? What was I going to do over the next few months, let alone the next few years!? But as I thought about it more, it all became a lot more exciting. Yes, it was true that I had no idea what I wanted to do with my degree, what I wanted to achieve in my life, or even where I wanted to live, but my life from this point on was sure to be an adventure whilst I tried to discover the answer to these questions!

So for me, the creation of this blog has come at the perfect time. Up until now, although I would class myself as spontaneous and adventurous, I kind of always had a solid plan in place to back-up my travels and decisions. Now however, it's all a mystery, a huge, exciting mystery!

I invite you to join me whilst I make my journey, wherever it will take me.