The night they invented champagne.....

Hi all, thank you once again to those who sent cards, emails, comments and Facebook messages to me on my birthday yesterday, it was so fantastic!!

My day yesterday was overall really great but the first half of the day definitely was sent to test me. It was as if the world was saying 'So you want to be 19.. hey well take that... and that!'
I spent the first half of the day trying not to cry but failing miserably. I got your lovely letters and emails and they were so beautiful and I was thinking about and missing you all..... but those tears were ok.
I had decided to go to Versailles for my birthday - it is a great chateau outside Paris where Marie Antoinette and other French royalty have lived over the centuries. It was huge!! Just soooooooooo big...the grounds went on for miles. The lake in the middle of the gardens was 7km all the way around.
But anyway I had decided to go and because I had to be back in Paris to go to the Moulin Rouge that night I had to leave around 10am so that we could spend the whole day and have a picnic. 'We' is Robert and I. We've been having a wonderful time together in Paris and have been traveling together for the last five weeks. So Rob was going to meet me at my hostel just before ten (because he was staying in a hostel down the road about half an hours walk away.) So 9:45 came round with no sign of Rob... 10am and still no sign.... it was 10:30 when I decided that I just had to go otherwise I would never make it.
So leaving Rob a message I got on the Metro and off I went to Versailles. I was a little upset about leaving Rob and that my birthday not going 'to plan' and then I started reading letters from Dad and Oma (thank you all very much by the way , they were beautiful , and thank you for the photos!!) and that set me off crying again so there I was on the Metro in Paris with tears in my eyes. I got to the next station where i had to change trains when I got a call from my Mum, Dad and sister (and Erin Sasha's friend) to wish me a happy birthday, which was lovely... so we had a good chat.
I got to Versailles and there was the biggest queue that I have ever seen in my life! Huge! Nearly as big as the ones I have seen for the Eifel tower! So I had to stand in the line for one hour. I read more letters from family.
So I waited , took one step forward , waited and waited.... and guess what?!?
I got to the end of the line and access to the gardens was free!!!!
Which is all I really wanted to do!!!!!!!!!!!
So I had to go into the house now just so I could feel that I hadn't wasted my time in that huge line! But sadly I didn't enjoy myself very much. I would have
times when I was ok and looking around going oh that's the bed where
Marie Antoinette slept, and that's the portrait of Napoleon's coronation by
Jacques Louis David, and at those times it was great but it was always unfortunately shadowed by a feeling of being upset which I just couldn't shake. I could try and describe it to you but it would be too complicated a feeling. There were other times when I would just be looking through tears and being completely unimpressed and feeling even more miserable because I felt I should be enjoying what I was seeing. When Hannah rang the signal was really bad and then I got told off for
talking on my phone!!!!
However there was a really nice guard whose job is to walk around Versailles making sure that everything is going ok. He was telling me about the best things to see and how to rent a bike to ride around the park on. You are allowed to ride around the park but not around the gardens.

Just a note... I would have been in tears quite a lot during the day but in all my time only one person ever asked me if I was alright. She was a French lady but she couldn't speak any English and yet it was nice of her to ask. Another point...I felt quite flattered because lots of people I have met presume I'm French and start chatting away to me quite nicely then at some stage I have to point out to them that I don't understand anything they're saying :)

When I finally got out into the gardens it was better. Just to walk and to try
to get way from the crowds was great. I like being out in nature. I hired a
bike and rode around the big lake which made me feel much better. I found
a big field that no one went into and spun around in it until I fell
over. Then picked myself up and got on with it. I took pictures of flowers and walked around the amazing gardens.


On my little bike riding adventure I managed to fall off my bike; get the chain to fall off - and then got filthy getting it back on; then got stuck in a boggy bit when I decided to go off road! :)
I was also feeling rebellious so I picked a flower and put it on my lapel;
went through into a garden that I wasn't meant to go into; and then sat on
the grass and had lunch where you're not allowed to sit.
I also got myself a little lost and had to run to get the train back. It was pure fluke that I bumped into Rob who had followed me out to Versailles and was
going back to Paris as well. We got the train just in time.
(I'll try to get Rob to write his part of this epic and post it up.)

So anyway, we got the train to the Moulin Rouge where I had to get changed out of my grimy clothes(remember I had fallen off the bike, changed a greasy bike chain and ridden through a marsh). After reappearing from a disgusting toilet looking half-way decent again, we rushed off to the Moulin Rouge with me putting on makeup while walking and with the rain now pissing down. HAHAHAH.... so we get to the queue (there was no dodging queues by mentioning names for us...I did mention the 'name'.. but it just didn't do anything magical. :) ). I said aurevoir to Rob and then entered the Moulin Rouge.
(Rob spent the next four hours hanging about Montmartre...once again I might get him to fill you in.)


The whole Moulin Rouge experince was great!! Being ushered to you table ("ush, ush")and having 'proper food' for a change. The show was great and I loved the dinner. I had foie gras (duck's liver pate I think) and venison. (By the way I am obviously not a vegetarian any more - sorry erik :)- and haven't been for a while).
I sat opposite this really interesting woman from Russia who now lives in Boston and we talked through dinner. It was so lovely - the live jazz music and couples dancing the night away. Brilliant!

At nine o'clock the show started (dinner started at 7ish). It was great. Absolutely hilarious. I had to stop myself from bursting out laughing! It was the sight of the male dancers in their sparkling clothes taking it all so seriously that I thought was hysterical!!

Some of the show was completely over the top - like when the men were wearing totally pink costumes and dancing around. At one point they burst into singing "I will survive" !!!! Shocking. Hahaha.... just remembering makes me laugh. It was totally hilarious and it was totally great at the same time - the costumes, the music, the dancing, everything. At the end of each dance sequence they had other performers like acrobats (who were just amazing) as well as a juggler and a ventriloquist (which I have never seen before and which was great!).
I could tell you so much more but my bus leaves in ten minutes so I'll have to be quick!!


After the show Rob met me and we went back to the hostel. On the way Rob got me
a birthday cake and we got a lighter from some guy and made it into a
'candle' so that I could blow out a birthday candle. We sat by the canal and talked
until we were nearly freezing and then moved inside to defrost. We had a
great night talking. He gave me a film script for my birthday which is all about two people that meet randomly whilst traveling. He got it from a lovely book shop which is now officially my favourite book shop in the world. I found it the last time I was here and just fell in love with it.

So as you can see my day was full of all sorts of emotions and adventures. It doesn't feel too bad now looking back on it but at the time parts of it were awful.... but not really that many.
I have to send a big thank you to my Oma and Opa who funded my trip to Versailles and a round of applause to my Aunty, Uncle and cousins. Thank you so much... I had a ball.... such a great night out in Paris!!!! I can't thank you enough.

I have to go my bus leaves in five minutes!!!!
Gros bisue -big kisses
all my love
Acushlaa xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox<