I can't make soup

Just a little update blog post tonight. I have good news and I have bad news. Let's start with the bad news:

You may recall that goal #7 of 23 Things was to cook dinner at least once a week, using recipes from recipe books. Well, not only have I not been cooking once a week (nowhere near) but last night when I did attempt to cook from a recipe book, I crashed and burned. The thing is, when I actually set aside some time to cook, I'm usually really good at it.

I have a real thing for Jamie Oliver (in an entirely non-crush way, he's not my type at all) so when I saw a copy of his first ever cookery book, The Naked Chef, peeking out at me from a British Heart Foundation window, I had to have it. I was going to cook my way through it! I would become Julie Powell, of Julie and Julia fame! It would be Olivia cooks Oliver or something equally poorly titled!

Julie and Julia - The Original French Chef Theme

I fell at the first hurdle. Minestrone soup became thick mush with too much cabbage. Who puts a whole cabbage in a soup?! Even if it is supposed to be for 6 people. "Isn't it supposed to be red?" said my poor mother, who lovingly sat and ate two bowls of the stuff afterwards. Feast your eyes on the disheartening mess below:

Looks none to appetising, doesn't it? I'll have to try something a bit easier than soup to boost my morale and then return to defeat my gloopy enemy.

Okay, that's enough of culinary disasters. My GOOD news has been something of a secret up until now. In August, I applied for a job. The job was to work at Walt Disney World in Florida for a year, in the United Kingdom pavilion at EPCOT, as part of a programme called the Cultural Representative Program. I would get to go out to America, live there for a year and represent my country at the happiest place on Earth! As a huge Disney fan and one heck of a patriotic Brit, it seemed like the perfect job for me.

I am proud to share with you that my application was well received, enough for Yummy Jobs (the recruitment company in charge of hiring us) to invite me to a Pre-Screen Interview in London on 6th October!!

This would be my first of many forays into living abroad. I will keep you posted with my progress. I have, of course, a back-up plan. If not Disney then I plan to go to Australia for a year, leaving in July after I complete the academic year in my extra-curricular French class and go to Glastonbury with my friends. Ironically, tickets for Glastonbury go on sale the same day as my Pre-Screen interview. At least I know that either way, there's a light at the end of the tunnel and fun is in the not-so-far future. Something to bear in mind while I'm dragging myself to work each day!

PS - Dear readers, if you're out there and enjoying my blog, I'd really love for you to leave me a comment. I'm happy to keep this blog just for me, but I'm always up for conversation and making friends :)

Hometown Glory

I've been home from Paris for almost two weeks now and though I've been missing it and the friends I made like crazy, being in a foreign country surrounded by people of other nationalities did instill in me even more British pride than I already had.

Since it looks like I won't be doing any long-term solo travelling until 2014 due to other commitments and quite frankly lack of funds, I am settling in for the cosy autumn and winter at home and will be spending my remaining time in England appreciating my amazing city - London.

London Town - Laura Marling

I thought it was about time I started working on my list of 23 Things To Do While I'm 23, so I sat down on a rainy afternoon during my annual leave and wrote a letter to my local MP for a Members' Tour of the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. Whilst doing my research I discovered that UK residents can also get free tickets to Prime Minister's Question Time on a Wednesday afternoon, so I asked for a couple of those too.

Since seeing The Iron Lady I've become steadily more interested in politics. It's a difficult topic to avoid in this household as my mother talks about it constantly, my granddad was also very political. I still don't quite know where I stand in terms of which party I support, but I read my first political autobiography this year too, The Path to Power (I've got a thing for Maggie T, okay?)

Hopefully these experiences will leave me better educated about politics and the history of my city, plus with a UNESCO World Heritage Site right on my doorstep, I'd be silly not to go and explore it for free while I'm still here. I think that until I go travelling I'm going to be a London tourist! Watch this space!

Photographic proof will be provided for all 23 tasks

Art, Apple Sauce, Australians, Argentinians, An Amorous American and other A's in Paris

I arrived home after 4 nights in Paris yesterday. What an amazing, eye-opening trip. 

The trip encompassed several firsts; the first time I had travelled abroad alone, the first time I'd ever stayed in a hostel, the first time I'd kissed someone who wasn't English(!)

Although I went to Paris to be alone, take photographs, practise my French and eat rich French food, it's pretty impossible to be alone when you've opted to stay in a room with 11 other people. That's something I never would've considered an option before but it turned out to be the best decision since I met so many amazing people. 

Talking to the Australian girls that I met, Evelina and Dani, I heard all about their travels around Europe, where they had been and where they were heading to next, the friends they had made. It really whet my appetite for more travelling, all I can think about now I'm home is planning another trip somewhere and a longer, proper one this time.

Dani and I were talking about confidence, as we discovered we were both actresses. She said that travel definitely changes you, she felt like she had changed over the past few weeks that she had been away. And that is what I want. Change. I feel like my life is stuck in a rut which I hadn't even noticed until I broke up with my boyfriend. Now I want to get out, quit my job, leave my home (sorry mum), say goodbye to my friends who go to the same pub in Croydon every week. I'm ready for new, exciting experiences. I'm ready for the next chapter in my life.

Being in Paris taught me that there is so much out there to see, so many interesting people to meet from all over the world, adventures and unexpected romances to be had around every corner. I thought I would be spending my first night in Paris resting after my trip on the Eurostar, perhaps unpacking and getting an early night. Instead I was swept off my feet by a handsome boy from New Hampshire, taken to see the Eiffel Tower sparkle and to smoke mint flavoured shisha in Pigalle, ending the night dancing in a club next to the Moulin Rouge. We both agreed it was attraction at first sight ("I could see it on your face. Did you see it on mine?") and though it's ships passing in the night he has said he'll come to London. He's studying in Pau, in the south of France until Christmas.

Whatever comes next, we'll always have Paris.