all posts

all the things bar staff want to say to you but can't because they'll lose their job

lies you shouldn't tell on tinder

bitch im back

highlights of the internet

i see london, i see france

five beauty products that are really worth the hype

the next generation

my campaign to make the 1975's second record album of the year even though its only february

why the smiths are my favourite band of all time

new year, new me

LDN vs MANC

all the ways in which harry styles is saying fuck you to gender norms

made in the am is one direction's finest work

please stop slagging off wetherspoons

turns out gender isn't that important anyway

five things ive learnt about manchester in five weeks

just to confirm, i am not a drug dealer

every single song ive listened to this summer

today was a busy week for us

i saw some excellent things last weekend

the lunatics are taking over the asylum

everything you can imagine is real

all of my pre-uni fears

the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb

livin life feelin free

25 things ive learnt in 25 weeks of being 18

the worst thing ive done in my life

where can i bulk buy inspiration

do what u gotta do

who the fuck was i two years ago

i literally do not care

i feel like a meme

one devastation

ucas kiss my ass

love at first sight

heartbreak

why i lose my shit when i can't find my earphones

british airways piloted by loren miles and bleach london

FOUR review

the 1975 (part 2) at alexandra palace

the 1975 at the royal albert hall

why being a vegetarian is not all bad

bitch im back

As of yesterday, Beyoncé’s back with another visual album and she’s reminding girls of their self-worth and reminding everyone that Black Lives Matter. From music to costume and lyrics to imagery, Beyoncé highlights and puts on a pedestal the two things that would’ve made her the least valued member of society two hundred years ago – her gender and her race.

Just like any other Beyoncé record, she’s reminding girls of their value before some boy has the chance to come in and walk all over it. I think its this which makes Bey most appealing to young women – she’s one of the first women to hit the big time with not only a powerful message for young women, but also with anthem after anthem. She’s got us going mad over some boy we never had and looking up baseball bats on Amazon.

There’s tones in her music which are reminiscent of the history of black people in America. She also dresses continually in periodic dress and many of the videos are set in grand plantation-style houses with haunting trees. Beyoncé has unforgiving references to her history, slavery, Malcom X, and Black History Month and its haunting to every single person regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation, or class – it speaks to everyone, and misses out no one.

Hold Up is the ultimate song to let off some steam to. We see Beyoncé skipping down the pavement in a sunshine yellow dress smiling at passers by as she swings a baseball bat and smashes up cameras and runs over cars in a monster truck. “What’s worse; looking jealous or crazy? Jealous and crazy” it’s a reminder that beneath the powerful status, sold out worldwide tours, and enviable figure is any other regular girl.

In Don’t Hurt Yourself we see Beyoncé reflecting on the situation in some grotty underground car park, then she lifts her head and loses her shit. Its so honest and everyone watching can’t help but think that that’s exactly how anyone would react if you’d found out that your partner had cheated on you. She's not afraid to throw in curse words but, as always, its done tastefully and only adds to the boldness and invincibility the song makes you feel. She cleverly ties this in with her race – Malcom X’s voice is played in the middle of the song saying “the most disrespected person in America is the black woman” brilliantly bringing together the disrespect she’s faced in her relationship and the disrespect her ancestors have faced in American history.

Sorry, a far stretch from the Bieber record with the same title, has a cameo from Serena Williams – another way in which Beyoncé is showcasing the power of black women. You can sense that her friends and family dragged her along on a night out (the party bus and twerking are the giveaway) to try and get her over what happened, or at least to forget about it for a bit, but she’s still thinking about how he did her wrong as all her moves are performed with him in her subconscious thought. Which I guess is understandable.

6 Inch seems to be a reminder to Beyoncé that she is Beyoncé. And, subsequently, its also a reminded to every other woman that she is worth something, because at the end of the day you’ll always have yourself and your own mini empire that you build. But amongst all that, there's no illusion that the relationship meant a lot to her. Beyoncé’s seen rolling around in the backseat of a car that looks a lot like the stretch from the Partition video, but this time she's sans-Jay-Z. But she's gained a massively stylish floppy black hat so pros and cons. The following scene is a nice contradiction between the way she sings “come back” in a desperate tone, and the burning mansion behind her stance. Also the building is one of those plantation-style homes and she's supported by four other girls who are watching the building burn alongside her.

The next record is very un-Beyoncé. Daddy Lessons sees her embrace a country and western style of record, further proof that Beyoncé can do anything she sets her sights on. In the same way as Grown Woman featured clips from her own childhood, this video has images of her with her father and then lots of other clips of young, black girls with their fathers. The lessons she says she learnt from her father were that he warned her about “men like you” which I think everyone has heard either from their own parents, their friends, or from icons in music and writing and the media in general. Still, not a bad thing to be reminding young, impressionable women of.

Later, we’re treated to a classic Beyoncé ballad. She proves that, even 26 years after the beginning of her singing career, she's till got it. In Sandcastles she emotionally tells of how she knows she ought to and wanted to leave the relationship, but she couldn't. The emotion in this record is so clear from the way her voice breaks when she tries to belt a few lines, to the images of her and Jay-Z as they hold each other and he literally kisses her feet. Its so emotionally intimate, you feel a bit invasive watching the couple interact.

People would be very quick to jump on the bandwagon to say that you should leave your partner if they ever cheated on you, and people like to think that they're strong enough and confident enough to do that. But it’s not always the case. I can imagine that this album, especially a couple of the records on it, speaks to people in that situation in a Rihanna-style Twitter DM conversation with Beyoncé asking for relationship advice. She’s normalised and explained the healing stages of a relationship after a betrayal like that and only someone with the reach that Beyoncé has is able to explain something so personal in a way which reaches millions.

She quite sharply moves onto the topic of race in Freedom. Beyoncé sings a capella to a group of black women all in nineteenth century dress on an intimate stage, and then they all sit down for dinner outside on a long table, featuring Zendaya, Winnie Harlow, the girls from Ibeyi, and Amandla Stenberg – what a guest list. You instantly get a feel for what the record is going to be about before Beyoncé even sings one note. “Freedom, Freedom where are you?” is another unfiltered reference to slavery which once again proves that Beyoncé’s records have so much more depth to them than any other mainstream artist working in pop music today.

The last record is a touching and uplifting ballad about the reconciliation stage of her relationship in which she talks about her love being unparalleled and more genuine than that of any other person. We see clips from her own private videos of her pregnancy and of their daughter’s birthday which show that the empire they built together is much greater than any either of them could build alone.

After the credits, Formation closes the visual album and, although I've read some other articles saying that it feels like it was sort of disjointedly plonked on the end of the tracklist, I have to disagree. The lead single off this album is still one that makes you want to get up and move your hips or at least nod along vigorously at your desk. I feel that Formation would be an excellent way to summarise the album or introduce it so it only seems fitting that it would come last on the tracklist and also as the first song we heard from the album.

Lemonade feels like Beyoncé had something to say. Something she needed to get off her chest just like any other artist. It adds to her credibility, not only as a musical artist, but as any other creative with something to say. Her boldness and honesty shine through throughout the record in a way only she could achieve and, after listening to it, its clear to see that no one can put Beyoncé in the corner.

You can watch Lemonade (The Visual Album) in full here.

TRACK LIST

1. Pray You Can’t Catch Me

2. Hold Up

3. Don’t Hurt Yourself

4. Sorry

5. 6 Inch

6. Daddy Lessons

7. Love Drought

8. Sandcastles

9. Forward

10. Freedom

11. All Night
12. Formation

highlights of the internet

After spending almost two weeks in my room procrastinating revision, and venturing out only for food and to meet with one of my tutors, I've had a lot of time to play on the internet. This means that I've found new photographers, new music, new articles, new blogs and, of course, I've done a whole load of online window shopping. Alongside messing up my sleeping pattern (study leave provides no real structure to my days), I've faked an interest in about forty events on Facebook which I’ll receive notifications for but never go to, I’ve sent a zillion text messages, and I've watched a fair bit of TV that I missed when I was in Paris. This vegetation will only have been productive if I relay my findings with the outside world, so buckle up for a round up of my internet highlights.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Through browsing i-D, VICE and the articles they promote on my Facebook feed, I’ve found a new photographer who I really like. Her name’s Olivia Bee and I’m an instant fan. I’m not going to sit here and write I really like the colours she creates or the angles she shoots from, but I do want to talk about a couple of photos in particular. One of the images I really like is called Neon Headache (New York), 2015 and its your typical skyline shot but she’s able to capture the very tops of the buildings in New York with the background of this gorgeous dark purple and orange sunset, and the fact that the picture focuses strictly on the skyline appeals to me greatly. Us Against The World, 2014 drew my in initially by the two fringed jackets which I am a total sucker for recently. But I also like how patchy the sky looks in the background and the figures that the girls’ defined calves create against it. Kids in Love is my favourite of her stories – Baller, 2011 and Max Jumped Off a Train, 2012 are my favourite pictures form this collection, too. Featuring her friends, Vans, tasteful nudity, and more fringed jackets, Bee has captured that grunge feel revolutionised by Kate Moss in the 90s which made me fall in love with photography. It is fundamentally opposed to all the phoney photo shoots for clothing lines like Kylie Jenner’s recent Puma campaign in which she turns around and holds a ball to promote sportswear.

As much as I’m opposed to Facebook and toy with deleting my account at least once a week, it is useful for talking to coursemates who you wouldn’t strictly swap numbers with, finding events in your city, and having a stream of good articles dropped directly infront of you. I’ve liked the VICE UK and i-D pages of course, but sometimes it’s an album by a middle aged man that’s gone viral which really captures your interest. THE TUBE by Bob Mazzer was one of those. He captured some incredible photos of the tube and the people it carries in the last forty years and he’s been good enough to plonk them on his profile for us all to see. I love anything relating to youth cultures from the last hundred years, and it is so cool to see dozens of pictures of contemporary scenes which I’ve read about in books and seen in galleries, blend into scenes which I’d be familiar with from when I took the tube in 2010. They show images which are so quintessentially British it makes me want to move to London immediately.

By trawling through all these great photos, I am endlessly inspired to buy a fancy Nikon camera.

MUSIC

Remember Rizzle Kicks? Well Jordan Stephens (the rapper one) has just launched his own side project called Wildhood and he has a debut album out to go alongside it. Vert is the album title and, although there's only eight songs, there's a very different sound to the pop undertones that featured on Rizzle Kicks’ albums. This is the first time that Jordan has strayed from rapping in favour for singing and it really works. You can tell he’s spent hours in studios perfecting the music he’s written in his room or on a train, but there’s still the originality and dirt that you’d expect from one of his albums. He talks about drugs and sex, but there's also messy relationships and regrets which appear and its that honesty which makes this collection of songs another great piece of music which the UK does so brilliantly.

You can listen to Vert in full on Spotify here

***

Whilst in Paris, I became hooked on Hamilton – the factually accurate, hip-hop, Broadway recount of Alexander Hamilton’s life. In just two and a half hours you follow his migration to New York, and his political career. Also featured is his much talked about affair and his role in the War of Independence. Already a huge hit in The States, its been performed in the White House and made over twenty million dollars in pre-sales before opening night. Its pretty much impossible to choose the top three songs that I would recommend because there are forty-six songs and they're all so different and exciting. The tag line of the play, if you like, is the story of the origins of America told by America today, which is the over elaborate way of saying that the cast is truly diverse and the playlist isn’t your usual theatrical music. I think that the popularity of this musical could honestly change the face of theatre as it would appeal to the typical audience, but it also has the potential to draw in a whole new demographic of people who wouldn’t normally spend their evenings at the theatre. I’m bursting with excitement for Hamilton to come to the West End.

You can listen to the full album on Spotify here (and I highly recommend you do).
I would draw your attention to Alexander Hamilton, The Schuyler Sisters, You'll Be Back, Satisfied, Yorktown, Say No To This, The Room Where It Happens, and Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story - there are a lot of highlights.

***

I’ve been a fan of Tyler, The Creator for a while now and I was so stoked when Cherry Bomb dropped last year. What The Fuck Right Now came out at the beginning of last month and I saw it within the first twenty-four hours [sunglasses emoji]. Although loads of people have probably already heard this song on the Golf Media app or since its been put up on YouTube, I wanted to include it in this list because its just a fucking great record. I've spent so long watching videos on YouTube today of interviews with Tyler and loads of things he says just make so much sense. Take slurs for example – if you use and reuse them unapologetically you sort of take the meaning out of the word and therefore remove the insult, no longer allowing the racist and homophobic slurs to even exist, never mind them being directed at people. On top of that, his ethos of just doing what makes you happy and having ambition that doesn’t revolve around Instagram gratification – also discussed in this record – really makes sense and inspired me to delete three-quarters of the fucking apps on my phone months ago.

On a musical note (pun unintended), it’s cool to see Tyler use his musical abilities to nick a backbeat from Kanye on The Life of Pablo and turn it into a song which is so typically Tyler. It feels like this music and the production on the original record was made for Tyler in the first place – Freestyle 4  now feels like its been taken from Tyler rather than the other way around. It’s also nice to see A$AP Rocky rear his head on this record musically as I’m excited to see what WANG$AP has in store.

READING

In addition to my regular i-D reading and re-reading, I’ve been checking out a couple of new books from the university library and I’ve found some good reads online. In terms of books, I’ve finally finished The Catcher in The Rye which I was trying to read for ages but I hardly found the time to pick it up whilst I was in Paris. Its definitely not a book that everyone would enjoy because it’s mostly narrative, but I enjoyed it. Following Holden Caulfield around 1940s New York as he talks about his distaste for school and annoyance with the stagnancy of life was a good read, not always the most optimistic, but a good read none the less. I think that’s what’s given the book its reputation as being one of those essential reads because it discusses those very real and honest feelings which would’ve been controversial in the fifties when it was released. Personally, I like books, films, photos, and music which deal with that vulnerability and rawness because I feel like it gives me some sort of superficial ties to the content – that sounds pretentious but either way I liked this book and Holden’s hunting hat. It felt like lots of mini stories which you could pick up at any point and read five pages and then put it down and come back in an hour which made the book easy to read. Would recommend.

Now I'm on study leave (although I have done no actual studying), I have caught the bug for reading for leisure which is nice because I can’t remember the last time I looked at my desk and saw three books that weren’t for school and that I actually looked forward to reading. I’ve just started reading The Sun Also Rises by Hemmingway and I like going through the pages and seeing the names of places in Paris which I've been. I look forward to reading the rest of the book.

As usual, I was browsing the Think Pieces section on i-D when I came across this article called defining the f word: why we need to be more radical with feminism. It was an excellently written article which helped me more articulately explain my views on feminism and why I don’t think Miley Cyrus running around with a dildo strapped to her hips was particularly feminist. It highlights some good points about the popularisation of feminism and how, although increased awareness is a good thing, making it a thing that every celebrity is asked about (including politicians as well as musicians and actors) sort of drains the meaning out of the word rather than to use the word for good. Maisie Williams was recently quoted saying that we should stop using the words ‘feminist’ and ‘feminism’ because, if you're not a feminist, you're sexist. Although it was quite a bold statement, I feel like she has a point and her argument also supports the argument that this article makes about how the widespread use of the term ‘feminist’ is sort of counterproductive to the movement in the first place.

On a less academic note, I read a hilarious article on BuzzFeed. 21 Tumblr Posts About Masturbation That Will Get You Every Time was a classic BuzzFeed list-article which had me laughing from start to finish. I don’t really have a lot to say about this article but it made my ribs sore because I was laughing so hard – “breaking my ribs was not festive.”

FASHION

First of all, a moment of silence needs to be held because Hedi Slimane has left Saint Laurent and my heart is broken. Slimane brought sleekness and sharpness to the Parisian house and, in just three years, rebranded the whole label turning it from something distinctly elitist into something which was new and fresh and ultimately cool. He created line after line of clothes which were well made and clean cut which is what appealed to me the most. I'm sure many people will agree with me when I say that there's nothing better than a sharp suit and LBD; but Slimane was able to turn these wardrobe basics into something with artistic design and a voice. They appeal to many with their originality by being distorted versions of things everyone owns which made any Saint Laurent piece stand out. Vetements took Saint Laurent and made it more wearable and dirty with their long sleeves, misshaped heels, and frayed denim – but without Slimane I wonder where their brand would be. By creating lines which were so distinctly different to other fashion houses, it only seems appropriate that he would rename the house altogether. Vaccarello has big, gold, cowboy boots to fill.

MISCELLANEOUS

Amongst the five hundred pink post-its I have on my wall reminding me of impending deadlines and to wash my bath towels, I have a note with shows I mean to watch and what episode I'm already up to. I’ve recently gotten into Plebs since I saw the advert for series three on the TV and the inner historian in me is chuckling along whenever I watch. I was sceptical about the show before, but it turns out I thoroughly enjoy watching people blunder through Roman life. It brings a sort of familiarity and humility to Ancient life which I think people often miss, and I find it not only intriguing but also quite funny. Season three is up on itv player at the moment.

I’ve also binge watched loads of old episodes of Celebrity Juice, the most recent Geordie Shore episodes, and marathoned Adventure Time. Where would we be without Watch Series?

Another thing I’m itching to go and see is the Rolling Stones exhibition which is on at the Saatchi gallery at the moment. Exhibitionism is the biggest collection of hand-written notes, jazzy jumpsuits, and guitars and amps from the last fifty to sixty years that The Rolling Stones have collected and decided to put on display for all of us mega fans to geek out at. Luckily its on from April to September so I’ll definitely go down to the capital at some point this summer. 

I see London, I see France

Two weeks ago I ventured across the Channel to explore a bit of Paris with two of my friends and our trip was filled with the wonder that is French McDonalds, tears, and a fixation with the Eiffel Tower. We saw so many different things and Paris has changed my stomach, my mind, and my outlook on life for the better. I’m not trying to make out like I’m a whole new person after one week in France, I’m just trying to say that it was a fucking great holiday.

Firstly, I should mention that we took the notorious Megabus from London to Paris and I can confirm that all the VICE articles and all the horror stories are true, but I can also say that they have been exaggerated for journalistic affect. Of course the coach was late to arrive in London, and we arrived about an hour late in Paris on top of that. Of course there was a middle-aged Australian man, who seemed to be travelling alone, at the back shouting “champignons!!!!” (which is French for mushrooms) at least once an hour. Of course it was hot, the engine was making weird noises, and people were making extremely loud phone calls – but all in all it honestly wasn’t so bad. However, even I found myself leaning my head against the chair infront of me after eight hours, but all that stress on my body only cost me £15 each way – a deal so good you couldn’t say no even if you had the money to fly (which student does?).

The hostel was nice enough. There were lime green walls, a broken shower head that couldn’t stand up on its own, and moody French kitchen staff; but there was also a decent mattress, an inclusive breakfast, and good Wi-Fi so what more do you need really. At our first breakfast an American girl came up to us and was asking about good bars in the city for her and her brother who she’d come with, but obviously we didn’t know of any so we just made small talk instead – I felt like I was properly embracing the hostel experience. I noted she wasn’t wearing tights but she mentioned that they came from California so she was about to get a nice shock from our distinctly colder European spring weather.

We stayed in Montmartre, an area which is allegedly more trendy but also has a huge number of hills and steps which never seemed to shock my lungs, even on the last morning. The first place on our itinerary was naturally the Musée d’Orsay where we were dragged around a bit and questioned on impressionism by American tourists before we got to see Van Gogh, and it didn’t disappoint. We saw Dr Gachet, his 1889 portrait, L'Église d'Auvers-sur-Oise (that church one from Doctor Who), and of course Starry Night Over the Rhone. We also saw some of Gauguin’s paintings which were significantly less crowded, but were sadly overlooked by many in favour of the more famous works across the room. I chose a new favourite Van Gogh and Gauguin.

After the most incredible white hot chocolate you’ll ever taste from Angelina in the 1^st Arrondissement, we walked past six hundred tourist shops selling Eiffel Tower key chains, a Sephora, and a couple of MANGOs to this narrow building in the middle of the French Oxford Street. It’s a building with loads of art studios inside across six floors where you're able to go in and have a look around. It’s a former squat which has been reserved as a space for artists which I’m glad hasn't become just another building consumed by the shopping metropolis.

We wandered through more streets just chatting to each other and mumbling “pardon” every time we walked into someone. Eventually our stomachs started to pipe up and we went for some huge falafels from the friendliest man ever in a quiet area in the backstreets. Every cent of the six euros we spent on them was worth it, it was even rated highly on tripadvisor.com or somewhere, and I have to agree with the reviews despite the four huge chunks of aubergine right in the middle of my pitta, which I'm convinced I would’ve been able to construct a sentence to ask not to have from my B in GCSE French.

Parisian metros are several thousand times better than the underground in London or the buses in Manchester because you have to open the doors yourself with a little handle that you flick up, and their lines are numbered instead of some stupid name like ‘Hammersmith and City’ which is so much harder to remember when you get on and have to make three changes. After getting off the metro that evening, we visited the Eiffel Tower (of course) and we sat on the opposite side of the Seine with a baguette and some jam for our tea as the sun set, and it was hands down one of my Paris highlights.

The next day we visited the Sacré-Cœur and had an incredible view of Paris from the site which was near to our hostel. There was someone playing ‘Hallelujah’ on the harp which is obviously my jam so I threw some money in his hat. I bought a beret (naturally) from a nearby tourist shop and we went off on our quest to find some ice cream. It took us so long that we found the Moulin Rouge, The Wall of Love, walked down all the back streets in Montmartre, and I walked in on a man wiping his bum in the Starbucks toilets. Eventually we found an overpriced ice cream shop just off the Place Du Tertre which was also a really cool spot with a crowd of artists trying to draw you in for a portrait. We went back to eat at the Sacré-Cœur and we saw a couple get engaged! We then followed Google Maps to find the Amélie Café (which has a proper name (?!) - Café des Deux Moulins) and got overcharged for two glasses of pineapple and mango juice. After that adventure, we decided to go back to the Musée d’Orsay because, with the sensible one at work, we really were a clueless pair who had no guidance.

That evening we went to see Notre Dame in the glow of its floodlights and we stopped by Shakespeare and Co. which honestly is a must-do for anyone who likes bookshops. We sat in the shop just looking around at the places where they’d stuffed as many poetry books as possible onto the shelves in the underside of the staircase and the notes that people had pinned onto a board with plasters and post-it notes. We browsed the philosophy, history, and music books and there was a book full of Ian Curtis’ handwritten notes from when he wrote all the lyrics to Joy Division’s songs and I swear to God if I didn’t have to carry it back to England/wasn’t broke I would’ve bought it right there and then. After we went to this café/restaurant and I stressed out over the mayonnaise being squeezed all over the chips rather than to the side, we witnessed a robbery (!!) where a passerby had attempted to steal the money left out for the bill on an outside table but was caught. Exciting stuff.

After helping my long lost French twin pick up her dropped metro card the next morning, we headed to the Arc De Triomphe and wandered around trying to find a way to cross the eight-car-wide road before realizing there was an underpass. We struggled through the hike up to the top and it was worth it for the view of the Champs-Élysées and all fourteen roads coming from the center. That evening we bought a couple of pizzas from Pizza Hut (they have that in France!!) and headed to my favourite spot in the whole of Paris; the bank of the Seine. We were severely disappointed that one of the pizzas had tuna on because two of us are vegetarian, but made up for it by doing a quiz where some questions were deep (what quality do you tolerate the most), some questions were hard (what’s your favourite military event, your favourite fictional hero/heroine), and some questions were just a bit of fun (your favourite food, drink, colour, flower). We trailed back to the metro station when it started to get unbearably cold and our fussiness to get onto an empty carriage and a broken carriage door meant that the metro pulled away before we could even get on. The metro only stops for about twelve seconds at a station – Paris hasn’t got time for your shit. We were left re-enacting Mr. Bean’s Holiday on the platform in absolute stitches before another metro arrived and we finally got back to the hostel.

The next day we took three extra trains which we didn’t need to get and shared many a joke on the way to Versailles, and then queued for over two hours to get inside. The place is literally huge and the wealth is incredible. The chandeliers, the fabrics, the details, and the ceilings were all so impressive, and it was interesting to see how the estate had grown and expanded over time. It had that old smell which you sometimes get in museums which I wasn’t really expecting but I was distracted by someone walking all over my toes as we filed through the rooms. We got to the gardens, but our aforementioned tardiness meant that it was closed to the public as it could take up to A WHOLE HOUR to walk across the estate – imagine that being your back garden. When we got back into Paris, we went for another McDonalds which I’m surprised hasn’t come up yet because it feels like a good 85% of our meals were two portions of large fries and Speculoos McFlurries. If you don’t know what Speculoos is, you might know what Lotus biscuits are (you know those little fancy ones you sometimes get with teas), and its basically them but in a spread and then put in a McFlurry with caramel sauce and, for me, it was the hardest thing I had to leave in Paris – closely followed by the garlic mayonnaise French McDonalds gives you with your wedges, and then my best friend.

We had the Catacombs planned for the day after and I honestly wasn’t looking forward to it because its a fucking creepy concept in the first place. It’s just a casual underground walkway underneath the whole damn city with six million skeletons placed inside, with illegal entrances where people get lost and die and, to top it all off, all the skeletons are arranged in love heart formations or in the shape of a skull and crossbones and they're all looking at you. I think you can tell I wasn’t best pleased to pay ten euros to wander round the death pit and, not only that, but I was left to walk at the back because I’m the shortest of us three and the other two were keen to see the dead bodies. I just had this very weird feeling that we shouldn’t be down there because we were invading six million people’s graves and, despite the lights along the walkways, it was eerie. If you like death and walking about the perfect setting for a horror film (of which there have been a few) then you would probably enjoy the Catacombs, but I needed a McFlurry and fries to recover even an hour after we left.

Ironically, we went to a religious site afterwards. The mosque was unbelievably pretty and even the brief rain couldn’t ruin it. If anything it made the mosaics glisten and it was nice to be able to reach out and touch them after almost a week of seeing the prettiest, most interesting things in museums and art galleries and not being able to do so. We went to the adjoining café and had hot, sweet teas forced into our hands and I drooled over the pastries being served from platters. There was a busy atmosphere, people were chatting in many languages, and the interior was covered in rich browns, terracotta oranges, and bright emeralds. I think that we did quite well to visit the more obscure sights in Paris rather than sticking to the main streets and all the typical sights which made our trip that much more enjoyable.

On that note, it turns out that there's more than just the Mona Lisa at the Louvre. There are a pyramids worth of sarcophaguses, room after room of statues, loads of miniature artefacts, mummies, Roman masks, huge tiled surfaces that have been saved, art, and we didn’t even see half of it. I could’ve easily spent three or four more hours there. On top of all that, the view from the inside was a photographers dream; the sky was blue and the glass contrasted beautifully against the marble interior and the older buildings outside. We went for lunch at McDonalds afterwards (where else) and we had every intention to go to another museum nearby, but we found out you had to pay for entry rather than sponge off your passport which had gotten us in many places for free, so we voted against it and just went back to the hostel to recharge our phones and grab a jumper. After I watched the Geordie Shore episode that I had missed (essential, even when in France), we headed over to the Eiffel Tower for our last night in Paris.

We got off at Trocadéro, turned the corner, and saw the Eiffel Tower. Its honestly something you don’t get used to seeing, well maybe if you lived in Paris you might, but I saw it everyday for a week and it still stunned me. My attention was drawn to the Trocadéro (which I think is actually called the Palais de Chaillot and it may or may not be a museum, but you’d need to ask a better person than me) where my friend translated the lines written on the side of the building. It reads “Tout homme créer sans le savoir comme il respire mais l'artiste se sent créer son acte engage tout son être sa peine bien-aimée le fortifie”, which translates to “Every man creates without knowing it, as he breathes. But the artist feels himself creating. His act engages all his being, his pain, well loved, strengthens him” or words to that effect. After reveling in the artsy feeling that washed over me as I stood there and consciously thought of the fact that I was in Paris for the seven hundredth time, I turned and took a dozen photos of the Eiffel Tower including, of course, the fake holding up from my palm.

Being underneath the Eiffel Tower is a weird feeling. You don’t realise how big it actually is until you’re right next to it, looking up at three hundred metres of 129 year old iron. We queued for a while through the light rain, and eventually clambered into the cable-car-shuttle-thing that takes you up to the second floor. I was quietly glad to be squished in the middle of the carriage hiding behind my friends with a mouthful of fur hood because I always thought I disliked heights, but this trip may have proved otherwise because by the end I was chomping at the bit to go to the top, but it was unfortunately closed because it just happened to be really windy that night. Initially I didn’t enjoy the height and vowed I’d never go out to the second platform with its poor railings, but I later found myself unable to move from that spot. Maybe if I was feeling more radical, I would’ve walked on the glass panel on the first floor, but it just wasn’t that kind of night. Eventually I got used to the height and started to appreciate the whole place and the fact I was about a hundred and twenty metres above the ground. I felt so weirdly content as I stood on my own and looked down at the spot on the bank of the Seine where we had sat twice that week, and if going a hundred and twenty metres off the ground is what it takes to be happy, then I no longer disagree with skyscrapers and I think Manchester should suck it up a bit and get some more. I haven’t felt peace like that in so long and in all honesty, I cried. Eventually, after a pretzel and a muffin (there's a café, a gift shop, a bar, and a cinema room all in the Eiffel Tower – crazy, I know), we walked down some stairs which really didn’t feel safe for how windy it was and how unsecure they looked, down to the first floor where I washed my hands with a view fifty odd metres above Paris – how often can you say you took a wee fifty seven metres up in the air? I found my friends in the cinema room with projections on three walls of videos from the Tower’s history. There were clips of Paris in the nineteenth century before its construction, and clips where workers were dangling off the half built tower with no harness where we all cringed in unison. There was one clip in particular where they showed the Eiffel Tower setting off fireworks which read “VIVE LA PAIX” and it had just been an emotional night, and it was our last night, and I was just so touched by everything happening around me and I haven’t felt that content in so long. To be in Paris with two of my best friends was just such an experience and I felt like I’d had all the emotion from the whole week crammed into one moment as I sat next to them watching these videos on the walls and I may or may not have cried again.

We had to come down eventually, but not after watching the video one more time, we dodged the eight men trying to sell us Eiffel Tower keychains on our way out and battled through the wind and rain back towards the metro station. The weather then improved so we turned back to see the Tower all lit up - it had been lit in the colours of the Belgian flag for the rest of our trip after the horrendous events there, so this was our first time seeing it in its normal colours and it was such a sight. We grabbed some crêpes from a nearby stall, and sat and watched it glimmer for those five minutes on the hour. Some people asked us to take their picture and it stopped glittering mid-picture which made me laugh because they genuinely looked really disappointed. Unfortunately, our night out had to end at some point and I was really sad about it because it was also the end of our trip as we were due to travel back the next day.

I refused to start walking to the platform after we passed the barriers in the metro station because I was leaving one of my friends in Paris (she’s living there she’s not like just wandering around for another week) and it totally broke my heart. We travelled home early the next morning after hiking up over a hundred steps in Montmartre to the local Carrefour at 8am, and I ploughed through sore ears whilst we were in the Channel Tunnel. The night after that, I went out in Chelmsford for another friend’s birthday and got hit over the head with a bottle, so it was really nice to be welcomed back to England.

Travelling and seeing new places with your friends is something else entirely and, even though I've only done it the once so far, I can’t wait to see more of this planet we are so lucky to live on with them. I had the best time in Paris and I relished every second I spent in their company which made it so much harder to leave that incredible city behind. I desperately want to go again because I know that there’s a million things I haven’t done, and I can imagine that Parisian summers are an absolute dream.

You can check out more of my photos here: http://grlafraid.tumblr.com/tagged/paris