See Paris And Die

As is evidenced by the huge shit-eating grin on my face, I'm having the time of my life.

Before I even left, while I was waiting for my connecting flight from Heathrow, I started chatting with a French guy, just mindless gist, whiling away the time till our flight was called, until Bros asked what hotel I'd be staying at in Paris. Alarm bells just clanged in my head, I saw Taken as well as everybody else, I can't fight, My dad isn't Liam Neeson, if my trip get k-leg e don be for me.

Na so TWP go take lost because of vacation.

I just hanlele'd away from that area sharply.

Anyhoozle, got into Paris Saturday night with Nwabugo who flew in from Birmingham, no activity that night we just went straight to bed. Unlike a trip I took last year, where I went clubbing the day I arrived and didn't come up for air till I left, a week later.

So for this trip I decided to be the ultimate tourist, no shopping, no club hopping, just taking in the sights, visiting all the historic areas and all that good stuff.

The next day was Sunday and as rabid Roman Catholics, I and Nwabugo met up with our friend and blogger Stella of Stella's Addiction to attend Mass at the Cathedrale Notre Dame de Paris. We were all in the same class at Queen's College till we graduated, its awesome that we've remained friends for so long.

CATHEDRALE NOTRE DAME DE PARIS
Wearing a beaded caftan I got at LPM, can't remember who the vendor was now and I finally perfected putting my hair up in a bun after numerous attempts. Yay me!

Stella and Nwabugo

Still tres excited

Weird thing about the Notre Dame was that even while Mass was going on, tourists were still allowed to walk through the cathedral and take pictures, I could barely concentrate on the service. Added to the fact that every thing was in French, I was lost. The Latin Order of Mass is a piece of cake cos I've heard that practically my whole life but the French one was a new experience.

I don't know if I've said this before but I'm a HUGE history buff and I have a ridiculous ability to retain immense amounts of trivia, so there's a lot of useless and not so useless information jostling for space in my head. So seeing places and things I'd only read about or seen pictures of, literally sent me into a tizzy. I kept going "OhmyGod the gargoyles"! or "OhmyGod the porculis"! I swear I was in heaven.

After Mass we went to go get lunch and decided to be safe and stick to cuisine we were already used to.

Good old American fries, ribs, club sandwhiches etc, you can never go wrong

CHAMPS ELYSEES

Visited Paris' own Oxford Street/Rodeo Drive/Fifth Avenue etc, the Champs Elysees, not much to see there, expensive stores and tourists.

Immense LV store though, gaddamn. I was in awe.

ARC DE TRIOMPHE
I'd always wanted to stand in the middle of Champs Elysees and take a photo in front of the Arc de Triomphe. I did it!

Doing my happy dance

Went to the Haagen Dazs cafe to get ice creams after all our waka. I really need to live in a civilised town, all we have in Abz is a poxy Baskin Robbins cafe and its not even that bunz, oh well.

My kingdom for Haggen Dazs Strawberry Cheesecake ice-cream, no really. I'll give anything for a life time supply.

THE LOUVRE

Even if you knew nothing about history and art, if you live in a post The DaVinci Code world, you'll def show a little interest at the thought of going to the Louvre. As all of the above plus a bibliophile, I literally almost wept when I saw the pyramids. I can be classified as a bit of a drama queen so don't shake your head when I'm recounting my antics. I get seriously excited by the things I'm passionate about and the Louvre was one of the things on my Tourist List. I can't even describe it adequately, its just mind blowing. Took so many pictures that I decided for the first time in over a year I have to post an album on Facebook. Since I couldn't put everything on here, these are just the things I was really excited about.

The pyramid, but of course

Shades of Robert Langdon. Even though I've devoured all his books, I'm snooty enough about my creative writing prowess to recognize that Dan Brown is not a very good writer. His books read like a dissertation, like he researched a particular subject and is just regurgitating the results. Very interesting, very informative but not very good writing. You can disagree with me, my own two francs sha.

Wore a Babushka dress for this particular sojourn, as I tweeted, I had to wear a work of art to go see other works of art. One of my favourite dresses for real.

The back....pow!

Forgive the visible bra, I'm no longer a perky teenager, can't be roaming around sans mammary support.

Venus de Milo!

The Long Gallery

Aunty Mona Lisa. Obviously the Louvre's most prized possession, the whole area was cordoned off, you couldn't even come close to the painting. We all had to stand behind barricades to take pictures. All the other paintings had no protection except the Mona Lisa.

One of my favourite paintings ever, The Wedding feast at Cana by Paolo Veronese. The detail in it is amazing, everybody in the painting has their own distinct features, undertaking their own separate activity. You can literally look at this painting for hours and see something new everytime. Fun fact about this painting is that none of the figures in it are depicted as "visibly speaking", this is because "it was commissioned for a Benedictine monastery where silence was strictly observed", so Veronese had to paint a wedding feast at which everybody was silent.

Inneresting no?

Veronese also painted himself into it.

THE EIFFEL TOWER

Obviously no visit to Paris is complete without seeing Le Tour Eiffel, scorned by Parisiennes as "a scar on the face of Paris" and loved by tourists.

We were going to go all the way to the top but the queue was ridiculous so we fashied and decided to lie down on the grass instead till night when the lights came on.

French policeman are unbelievably hot, my dear friend Nwabugo was practically salivating when we spotted them. I'm telling you, male model type hot.

An awesome time so far, the next day we went to one of my birthday presents to myself, Euro Disney, truly, my excitement knew no bounds. Pictures from The Happiest Place On The Earth coming up.

L'amour et La Lumiere xx

i just had to do that, lol

Quick Catch-Up

Haven't posted in a bizzle, between moving, finishing my dissertation and personal ish, I've just had way too much on my plate. Plus I don't get internet in my new flat till the 31st (which sucks elephant cojones btw) so I've been resorting to schlepping everywhere with my iPad in a bid to steal some wireless service. I'm only spending 6 months in this flat so I've been trying to resist the compulsion to do it up, seeing as it will just be more load for me to get rid of when I'm leaving.

This is what it looks like so far, made up of stuff I had in my old flat.

My only concession to any sort of decorating will be to get thermal curtains. I live in a building that's been standing since the 18th century, maybe even older, built with the granite that Aberdeen is famous for. Unfortunately that means it was built without insulation in the walls like modern apartments, therefore it will be a bitch to heat in the winter. Plus peep those huge windows, glorious in the summer but criminal from like October or so. I already have the radiators in the room, a fan heater, electric blankets, hot water bottle and after I get the thermal curtains I should be ready for whatever Scotland decides to throw at me.

I'm sure by now you've gathered that I don't like the cold at all.

Its still a bit bare but by the time I've spread my Daks-ness around a bit it will start to feel more like me than some random house I'm visiting.

So this is mi casa till January, maybe longer, I don't plan on staying on in Aberdeen but if that is His plan (God that is)......I have no choice but to fall back and let Him take the wheel. No hoping on it though, I reeeaally want to go back to Nigeria.

On a brighter note though, I'm off to Paris tomorrow, yay me! Going with my friend Nwabugo and meeting up with our friend and blogger, Stella, of Stella's Addiction. I'm super excited and I've already lined up all the places I want to visit, if you guys have any suggestions too please let me know, I intend to have the full experience.

Oh yeah, and if any of you fab profashionals live in Paris, get at me, I'd love to meet up.

Fun! Fun Fun!

Love and light xx

When MissJayla Turned 18

So on Monday my friend Ugo aka MissJayla aka Ulo-Money aka Jayla Peperempe I (yes, those are all her names, there are more sef, can't remember all of them now) turned 18. She's Aberdeen's resident Benjamin Button, next year she'll be 17.

She had a house party and it was mental.

I don't know why people are so willing to let their freak flags fly (alliteration, woop!) at house parties, like people do stuff they normally wouldn't. Even though there are strangers in the mix, somehow at the end of the night everyone's all buddies and would have committed five kinds of debauchery that night.

House parties when I was in uni were the business, we were all young, hormones raging, nobody gave a toss about their bride price........ *sigh*, the good ol' days for real. What went down then was the stuff of legends but now we're all grown up, umu agboho na cho di, ndi nwoke na cho ego, nobody knows how to have fun anymore :(

Oh well, anyhoozle, Jayla's birthday took me back to Daks circa 2005/2006, crazy as a mofo. I'm so respectable now, I barely even recognize myself anymore. The libations flowed freely, morals were loose, pictures were damaging. It took a while to pick the safest pictures because everything else could damage people's future political careers.

Fun.com

Reason #455532 why I love house parties, you can dress as casual as you want. Not sweatpants and flip-flops casual, but pretty close.

There were loads of photos where I was shining my 31 (lost one tooth through a root canal, therefore I have 31 teeth). I'm special.

Stole this montage from Ugo's Facebook album, been meaning to ask how she did this even.

Love and light...or according to StephanieIj "hate and darkness". I LOL'd so hard at that phrase.

xxx

Londres et Fela

I have to confess to being the biggest dark-haired blonde ever, I only found out a few weeks ago that "Londres" was French for London. I just always thought that it was some people's funkified way of referring to the city, sort of like "Gidi" is "Lagos", you get me.

I don't go around pretending like I know stuff when I don't, if I'm not sure about something I ask, questions never fail me. So I was talking to a friend recently and he said he had to go down to Londres and I was like "hang on", I've never understood why people call London that name. After picking himself off the floor from laughter, he told me it was the French name.

I'm renowned for being a professional ITK ("I too know", for people that didn't grow up in Nigeria), so he was seriously shocked that I had no idea. I'm never ashamed by not knowing something, I look at it as an opportunity to learn and build on your knowledge, so I'll ask before I shame myself in public. Unlike the poor child on twitter who once tweeted the infamous words "I'm finna tired", the embarrassment that ensued could easily have been avoided if she just holla'd at someone and asked "guy, what does finna mean abeg?".

Simple.

Aaanyhoozle, had to dash down to Londres (yay, I know what it means) for the weekend and it was pretty tame, didn't really get up to much.

Had plans for Sunday which fell through, so decided to go have lunch with my awesome twin AdaobiJoke.

We went to Busaba, a Thai restaurant near Selfridges that does the most heavenly Chilli Prawn rice and Jasmine smoothie ever. First time I went there a few months ago that was what I ordered and I like to play it safe, if I like something I stick to it, so I ordered the same thing again.

Usually I'm not one to like a smoothie with Jasmine in it, I was recently riled for saying Rose Macaroons taste like pot-pourri (which they do by the way). Anyway its safe to say I have a very unadventurous palate, but I was pleasantly surprised by the smoothie, dee-licious.

On the spur of the moment AJ suggested we go see Fela. I was hella excited, you have no idea how excited I was. The day the show came to Lagos, I was so green-eyed of everybody going that I stayed off twitter so I wouldn't see any references to it. We made some calls, a show was available for that night...and booyah! I was a happy bunny.

Since it was still afternoon and the show wasn't till 7.30pm, I decided to go visit Mia of Miafarradaily, truth be told I was more interested in spotting her neighbours, one or some I'm not sure, somebody around there sha is on the show Made in Chelsea, had to determine if they were all as daft as they're portrayed on the show.

Hermes for the Homeless and Loboutins for the Blind will always be a classic.

To preserve Madame Mia's anonymity, only her feet (and mine) are pictured here. This picture reminds me of Cow & Chicken's parents, we only ever saw their feet and the mammy in Tom & Jerry too. Kartoon konnekshun, curiouser and curiouser.

Mia lives in a gorge Chelsea basement flat, everything is white and cream and bleached wood and she has a captains chest in the middle of the room

*sigh*

You'll be pleased to learn that all is however not peachy, her room is in an Ikea stranglehold, only redeemed by the towering shoeboxes everywhere. We had Bellini's and crisps and gossiped.

Good times

From there it was on to FELA!

Peeped this babe with really cute tribal accessories, I especially liked the necklace, it looked like a Masai design, been hunting for one of those for a minute. Plus she had a massive fro which she styled in a faux-hawk, it didn't come out too well in the picture, but it was inspiring to look at, so big

The cast and crew did a fantastic job. I thought it might be over hyped because every single person I know that had seen it all said it was great, so I was seriously wary going to see it, but I LOVED it. The actor did so well, considering he wasn't even Nigerian and had probably never heard of Fela till he auditioned for the show. He was so into the Fela-ness of it that I told AJ that I sincerely hoped this guy would be normal after the show. I've heard where actors got sp immersed into whoever they were playing that they became unable to break character and revert to normal.

My favourite bit was Funmilayo Ransome Kuti's solo/duet with Femi where they did Palaver, I'm a passive Fela fan, I'll hear Afrobeat and dance but I won't go out of my way to seek out his music but the way she did Palaver that day was so awesome. I need to find out if there's a soundtrack to this show because I have to have it. One freaky moment was when Funmilayo's picture moved, this was because I thought it was a painting, next thing I know someone sung this haunting melody and the face in the picture turned its head, I was seriously spooked. Some Hogwarts type shit.

Then the girl that played Fela's revolutionary American love interest, fabulousness!

All round, I would give it a solid 8, an 8 because there was a part that dragged a bit, when Fela went to the Orisha (sp?) so he could speak to his dead mum. I thought it went on for a bit too long but all in all a great show. If you haven't seen it, its definitely worth a trip to the theatre.

The photo of Funmilayo that moved is in the top right-hand corner, I repeat, some Hogwarts type shit.

The next morning I started heading back to my zones, met up with my boo Erenma at St. Pancras station for breakfast, after which we parted (such sweet sorrow). Her, to catch a train back to Nottingham and me, to Paddington to catch the Heathrow Express to the airport.

This two pictures both portray our skills in picture taking. You see how the photo of Remz is clear and sharp and all that good stuff. Then observe my photo, blurry, out of focus.......

I rest my case

It was nwanne'm MissJayla's birthday on Monday, a lot of the pictures are NSFW, seeing as we were all seriously inebriated but the ones that are a bit respectable will go up tomorrow.

The best of times.

Love and light xxx