With the Doctor regenerating and throwing me into a whirlpool of confused emotions at Christmas, BBC gave me another festive blow to the heart with the debut of Sherlock season 3 on New Year’s day, It’s like they don’t want us to have a happy and quiet holiday. I’m not going to talk about the episode itself as not everyone watches that show and it’s going to be massively long (seriously, a week and another episode later, my friend and I are still churning details and discussions about the show), but I’ll just say that it was definitely not peaceful and quiet. Hours were spent over mulling over the storyline and obsessing over scenes before the friends and I remembered that we had to get up before the crack of dawn the next day to catch the Eurostar for Paris. 

I don’t know what state of crazy we were in when we were booking tickets for our Paris trip because our train left at 5:40. IN THE MORNING. And again, I don’t know what stupid part of me thought that we didn’t need to arrive early for the train, but Annie called me and my friend at 5:05, saying that we had to sprint to the station because they were doing final call in 10. So what happened was me and my friend were running to the station when it was pitch dark with luggage in tow and not being able to catch our breath till we were on the train. It was definitely way too early in the morning for the exercise.

Paris was absolutely beautiful but there were definitely a couple of funny bumps along the road. The four of us headed for the Notre Dame right after we dropped our things off at the hostel and the first thing we saw was a queue. Thinking it was the one leading to the inside of the cathedral, we got into queue without questioning. Two hours later and one foot on the steps, did we realize we were standing in the queue that went up to the top. So about a billion spiral steps later, we were standing on the ledge with the gargoyles and seeing the whole of Paris under our feet. It was absolutely breathtaking and you could see all the historical markers shoulder to shoulder with the modern skyscrapers. The climb down was shakingly scary with the narrow steps and tight spiral, as if retracing the steps of those from hundreds of years back wasn’t daunting enough. The queue to the interior of the Notre Dame was significantly shorter and the inside was absolutely breathtaking. I’ve strayed away from religion the past several years, but inside the Notre Dame, I couldn’t help but feel spiritual again. 

Another of my traveling companions, Emily, and I having happy moment after desert. 
(You can find more snapshots of my trip to Paris on my instagram under subgenreofadream)
For people that are completely Paris-obsessed, look away now. I must confess, I went to Paris with the thought that it was completely overhyped. And five days later, I still hold to that statement. It's not that it's a bad city, don't get me wrong. It's still gorgeous and I still marveled at how beautiful the Eiffel tower and the Notre Dame was, but in all, I don't think there was a huge wow factor. Nor will I have the urge and desire to go back again any time soon. But on the other hand, the food is something that has been wanting me to go back. Especially the bread. I didn't even know that I could love bread until I had french bread. Oh the french bread! And surprisingly, the people. I was always under the stereotypical impression that the French people on the streets would be well, cold. But every experience I've had at Paris has proven the opposite. On more than one occasion when my friends and I were standing on a street corner turning a map and pointing at possible directions, people would come up to us and ask if we needed help. They were all smiling and warm, definitely not cold at all.   

Another exciting thing happened over the past week, Annie, who has been mentioned in my blog more than a couple of times has finally entered the blogging world with the debut of her blog, Sharing Is Believing. It’s still in it’s infancy and she’s still tweaking a couple things, but it’s going to be focused on skincare, probably my weakest link. So remember to pop over to her blog and say hi if you’re as keen as I am to see her second post.