Bonjour it´s me again ;)! This time from France. So on Wednesday, January 12th, 2022, Lina and I met again in Frankfurt. To get there, I had decided to take the Flixbus, which was 2 hours late! Luckily I planned to stay in Frankfurt for 4 hours before taking the train to Brussels, so everything went well and Lina and I arrived in Brussels the same evening. In our first few minutes in Belgium’s capital, we were warned by a railway employee not to use our cell phones and wallet in public areas. That was a nice welcome. Shortly before we arrived at the couchsurfers place, with whom we wanted to spend the two nights, he informed us that he had received a positive covid-test a few minutes ago and therefore, unfortunately, cannot take us. Spontaneously he asked a friend if we could stay with him, but since he lived on the other side of the city and neither of us felt like walking around Brussels at ten o’clock in the evening, we decided to stay in the cheapest hotel, we could find on Booking.com at that time, for the first night. I regretted this decision a bit when we arrived at the somewhat run-down hotel. Well, I was glad to have a roof over my head and a reasonably safe place to stay for the night (Lina thinks she would have been better spending the night on the street). After all, everything else was a luxury problem ;).

The next morning we took our stuff to Vincent and his roommates, with whom we would be staying for the night. After that we visited the city. Brussels is a really beautiful city (if you ignore the area where our hotel was). We really enjoyed the architecture and of course we didn’t miss the – in Belgium invented, but for reasons called – french fries and Belgian waffles.

(these pictures were all taken by Lina)

After exploring the city all day, we returned to our accommodation. Vincent lives with his friends in a small house in a large community. Lina and I both loved the concept of six adults with two young children sharing a kitchen and living room. Together we cooked typical French onion soup, which was really delicious. Actually, in the end we were more or less happy with how everything turned out, otherwise we wouldn’t have gotten to know this absolutely cool way of living, which would have been a pity. The saying „Everything happens for a reason“ that we had learned from Jenny was once again confirmed.

Becoming Workawayer #103 and #104 at Donna and Nik

On Friday we went on to our second workaway and the first in France. For a week we stayed with Donna, a New Zealander, and her boyfriend Nik, a Brit with German roots. The two bought a small cottage in Saint Georges, a small village in northern France, about 15 years ago and renovated it themselves. They live there together with two cats, their super cute Jack Russel terrier Icon, and sometimes a couple of Workawayers (we’ve been Workawayer 103 and 104!). I was really impressed by the beautiful interior of their house. Everything is self-made and -designed and simply has an incredible charm. One of the coolest things is the self-made concrete table in the kitchen. Donna and Nik both gave us a really warm welcome and made us feel like being at home.

Lina and I lived in one of the two B&B rooms that Nik and Donna maintain, but mostly stayed in the main house in the kitchen. On the one hand, because it was quite cold in our room, on the other hand, because the two of them are a very pleasant company and, in addition to endless card games with Donna, we talked a lot about different topics with them. They also tried to help us with our choice of study by asking us about our interests and we discussed several ideas, unfortunately my idea of what I want to do with my life still changes daily. In addition to many interesting conversations, we helped and watched Donna very closely while cooking, to expand our repertoire of recipes. Of course we also worked…we cleared the lawn of leaves and weeds and went on walks with Icon.

The week passed really quickly and on January 21st we went on to Paris.

PARIS

So there we were – in the city of love, of fashion, of light, or whatever else you might call the capital of France. We spent a total of six nights here. Three of them in a fairly cheap hotel, because unfortunately we couldn’t find a couchsurfer, and the last three with friends of Hélène, whom we had met at Jenny’s. I could now describe in the smallest detail when we did what exactly, but I guess, that’s not very interesting. All in all, we more or less just walked through the city, visited the Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay and ate out a few times. Paris is beautiful, but it probably won’t be my favorite city, it’s just too big for me and I think it has too much traffic. Nevertheless, the days were very nice and I can recommend everyone to visit the French capital once. I would also like to recommend a few (secret) things here:

  • If you are looking for a cheap but nice hotel, I can recommend the „Grand Hotel de Clermont“. It’s in the Montmartre district of Paris, where you’ll find some cute cafes and restaurants and the well-known view from the Sacré-Cœur (which I think is more beautiful at night than at day).
  • In Montmartre you will find a really great little restaurant: „Mamie Colette“. Here we met up one evening with Lola (from Argentina), Maria (from the US) and Handenur (from Turkey), whom we met through “Host a Sister” (a Facebook group for traveling women that works similar to couchsurfing). We had a really great evening with super delicious food for a very fair price. For 22€ we had a starter or dessert with a main course and a glass of wine or soda. We can highly recommend the Burgers and the mouse au chocolat!
  • The Musèe d’Orsay, which I almost liked better than the few parts we had seen in the Louvre (okay, that could also be because we only spent two hours here and therefore could not see everything). Here you will find some sculptures and beautiful paintings from impressionism to modernism.

And here is something that I absolutely cannot recommend:

  • Visit restaurants and cafes near museums, the Eiffel Tower or other attractions. You can quickly get rid of 30€ for a meal (especially if you pay 8€ for 0.5l of water with some syrup)
  • and the Boullion Julien. I feel a bit bad to mention it in this section, but our visit there was indescribable… It was recommended to us by Donna as a nice restaurant where you can get a three course meal for a reasonable price and the reviews on Google weren’t either bad. She was right about two things: the decor was really nice and the food was relatively cheap (although the menu at Mamie Colette was cheaper). I don’t want to go into the details of our evening now because the story is just funnier, when we tell it live, and I feel a little sorry for the restaurant. So if you want to hear the story, ask me or Lina ;).

Once again we had a very nice time and met great people.

But: we’re not ready to settle yet and it was time to move on again!

Yup, and so we ended up somewhere in the middle of nowhere in France with Karen, Tom, their five chickens, Walter the rabbit and the three dogs Molly, Billy and Oscar. When we told Priscille and Clèlie, Hélène’s friends with whom we stayed the last three nights in Paris, that we were going to a small village near Limoges, they just laughed. Apparently there’s some sort of imaginary line through France where there’s nothing supposed to be – and that’s where we life for the next three weeks. Even though there won’t be much partying or anything like that here, I like it here. Tom and Karen are really nice and the work is good too. For example, today we started painting one of the guest rooms.

So, I guess, that´s it again.

Au revoir!