Me,My Life & I

Hey all, I hope you're well. I've been puzzled for sometime by the fact that although I feel a gut instinct loyalty to God, I also do not have a gut instinct of dissaproval of homosexuality, as it seems to be construed by the media and some extremists etc that Christians should have. If that makes sense?

I'm about to be baptised and come into membership at my own church. We're fairly liberal and don't exactly do things in the traditional way, but when it comes down to it, the bible is the word of God. It says in the church constitution that to be a member you must live a lifestyle in keeping with the Christian faith. I do that to the best of my ability, however is actively not criticising something that the bible speaks against, and therefore condoning it, not in keeping with the Christian way of life? I was slightly worried about coming into membership with this worry over me. I cannot and feel that  I should not find it in myself to criticise homosexuality. I have many gay friends and have no problem with their lifestyle, it is their life (note I do not say choice - I do not believe that your sexuality is a choice.People are the way they are) and who am I to tell them they are wrong. The bible preaches above all other things, love, and whatever your opinion of Jesus Christ, whether Son of God or phoney, he was certainly not about exclusion. That is why it angers me so so so SO much when I see Christians preaching hatred and exclusion and not love and inclusion. But anyway, what sparked this post what a post I read over at the wonderful Hayley G Hoover blog. She made things make sense to me.

So, for a bit of a clearer post on what I'm actually trying to say go here.

Hope you're all well, and that I've not offended anybody. Please don't tell me I'm brainwashed by the church, or that God doesn't exist. Or anything else, I personally have found in my own life and in the witness of others that there is proof enough of a living Jesus Christ for me to believe in him. I am not someone who blindly follows, I believe it is wrong to do that. But in my opinion the bible is the guidance for the Christian life, and I have been really struggling up until today with the fact that I so heavily disagreed with this particular aspect. Again I say I really do hope I haven't offended anyone, feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions below.

Until Next Time

Megan.

Hey all,I hope you're well. I've decided to seperate out my personal blog and my media stuff blog. Therefore I've set up a new account over at blogspot to house all my film,tv and general media related stuff. I'll still post stuff here,so no worries. But if you want to keep up with reviews etc you can find me at www.merelysaying.blogspot.com

Until next time

Hey all, hope you're well. I've seen this twice now so feel I am ready to give you a proper review of this film.

As a whole, I didn't enjoy this as much as I'd hoped to. I feel that this is something that is no better than a badly put together one off tv documentary and it could've been shown as such. This leads me to think the only reason it's in the cinema is as a complete money making scheme. Shame on them.

However, if you're a Jackson fan, it's worth going to see. You can tell from the film that his shows were going to be mind blowing. He is on, if not top, very good form. He sings,dances and runs around the stage without getting so much as out of breath. And this is a man who is 50 years old, not old but far from the young Michael Jackson who could pull off all of those dance moves. He does it well and keeps up with the young,fit as a fiddle dancers who are backing him up.

Aside from being an interesting look into his rehearsals, it's nothing special and I'd say unless you're a Jacko fan really you're not going to take anything away from it.

Notable though is the fact that aside from being rather skinny, he looked healthy and in good shape. Makes his death a bit sadder to me. Anyway. Alright film, dunno if I'll be buying the dvd though.

Your thoughts, opinions?

Until next time

Megan x

Hey all, hope you're well. I saw this film in Paris and thought I'd better get around to reviewing it, so here we go.

Poor show, I'd say. Amanda Seyfriend and Megan Fox do well enough, but the problem isn't with them. It's with the poor script they've been given, I feel.

Sure it's a bit of good fun. Sexy, relevant, very teen orientated. But it's just not that good a film.

I'm not sure if they were going for a comic tone or not, but at times to me it just came off as really funny. Diablo Cody certainly writes humour better than she does horror, that's for sure. The plot could have been interesting but drifted off into a mega far fetched weirdness.The effects were bad, the ending very unrealistic, the whole thing shot a little bit shoddily.

As a whole, I'd say wait for the dvd.

Until next time

Megan x

Hey all, hope you're well. I'm doing good and as promised have finished my Paris report, so now it's time for some movie reviews.The first is for the Meryl Streep and Amy Adams vehicle - Julie & Julia. I seen it about two months ago so I'll be fuzzy on the details, but I'll give it a shot....

To anyone who keeps a blog, which i'm guessing if you read this you do, you'll know the stress that comes with not having updated in a while. So challenge yourself, if you can, to the thought of blogging every day. And on top of that - carrying out a self set,daunting challenge in front of the eyes of all of your readers. Scary prospect I know.

This film,based on the true stories of Julia Child and Julie Powell, follows one woman who has set herself such a challenge, and one who is trying to find some kind of challenge in her life.

As a whole it is thoroughly entertaining and a great film to pick you up when you're feeling a bit down. Meryl Streep is fantastic as always and Amy Adams certainly doesn't fall under the shadow of Streep's talent.

It's stylish,funny and just enjoyable overall. I would highly reccommend it to anyone, especially bloggers.

That's about all I can remember.

Hope you're all well.

Until Next Time

Megan x

DAY NINE - COMING HOME

We finished packing and cleaned up the aparment (removing various shaving foam acts of vandalism from the bathroom wall! ) and then went down to give Giovanni the keys, only to discover he wasn't there.Eventually someone turned up and we passed the keys onto them, so hopefully they got them back ok!?

Walk back to the Gare Du Nord was nothing on the traumatic marathon we walked on arrival, and things were all fine. We had to change trains once on the way to the airport, and I'd lost my ticket so couldn't get through the barriers at the other end, but Kirsty let me through with her and all was good.

Flight went well and was happy to get home.

Overall a fantastic week.

Some highlights:

*Sinead (Don't ask)
*I WANT YOU....TO BE MY WIFE!
*Jelly Duuuuude
*Gemma's "full of shit"
*Our game of truths
*Numerous chocolat chauds
*BonBons as a whole
*The scoreboard on the kitchen blackboard lol
*Midnight runs to Macdonalds
*Gemma managing to consistently use an invalid ticket in the metro gate thingys, leading to utter strangers (and Jamie) getting locked out.
*Le clown ne pas Penis

Memories:

*Climbing the Eiffel Tower
*Seeing Notre Dame
*The men that play music on the metro
*Disneyland Paris
*Late night chats and just general fun with my five favourite people.

A great week guys, and hopefully the first of many. Love you all x

Until Next Time

Megan x

DAY EIGHT - MORE SHOPPING! MOULIN ROUGE, AND AMELIE'S CAFE

Got up about half nine and had cheese on toast and a cup of tea for breakfast. Then we headed out shopping on the Champs Elysees one last time. It was all good at first - I bought myself another nine dvds (Volver,The Sixth Sense,Benny and Joon,The Godfather,Belleville Rendevouz,Dirty Dancing,A Clockwork Orange,Interview With A Vampire and Rock Horror and Gina got Volver aswell because it was 10 for €50!)

All was good until we went into Zara and Gina's money got stolen - the THEIVING BASTARDS! €85 cash taken right out of her purse. They didn't take her cards so I suppose we can be thankful for that, but still. It's gutting that we got to the last day without anything like that and then BAM some bugger goes and spoils it all.

We went home after that and packed. Then I went for a nap and we got ready to go for something to eat at Giovanni's. Pizza's and cokes all round.

Then we went to the Moulin Rouge. We didn't go see the show because lets face it - rip off. But we did take lots of pretty pictures and I got to wear THE PURPLE DRESS! (Note to future self - you spent ages trying to slim down to fit into that dress,and it did eventually fit a couple of weeks before you went away. Hence the capitalisation and importance.) The Moulin Rouge was smaller than expected, but still very pretty. Then, the highlight of the day for me - WE WENT FOR HOT CHOCOLATE IN AMELIE'S CAFE! It was pretty cool and a got a photo of the gnome Amelie steals.

Finally, we went to see the Eiffel Tower sparkle one last time and it put on the best light show we'd seen all week - changing colours and generally just being very pretty.

Last day in Paris was a really enjoyable one.

Until Next Time

Megan x

DAY SEVEN - MORE SHOPPING

Slept in till quarter past one then headed up to the MASSIVE H&M up the road from us. I bought Snoopy socks and some cosy mittens for winter time. We tried to book the fashion show again for the next day (Friday) but it was 'fully booked' according to the woman who seemed to know who we were, and that we'd failed to turn up the previous week.

After that we headed to the catacombs and after walking in a complete circle found the poorly marked entrace. Turned out our journey was a waste of time anyway because they were closed due to acts of vandalism.

A little upset by that, we soon cheered up when after heading over the champs elysees again we managed to find Carrie Bradshaw's hotel! It was very pretty. We also seen all the designer shops and got followed.

Then we were for lunch at a cafe called Cafe Mode. Very applicable. I had a sandwich mixte (ham and cheese). It was certainly a workout for the jaw! We then headed back up to the champs elysees and done some shopping. I bought a top at Zara that says "Bite Me" and has fangs and lips on it. I also bought a grumpy dwarf at the AMAZING disney store they have there. Then we bought tickets to go see Jennifer's Body. After that, as we had time to kill, we went to a dvd shop we had earlier found whilst shopping.I bought 5 Disney dvds for €50 which is a pretty good deal considering they were €15-€20 each. The one's I bought were The Hunchback of Notre Dame,Sleeping Beauty,Pochahontas,Tarzan and The Aristocats.

Next was our stop off at the cinema to see Jennifer's Body. It was a bad film, but still enjoyable. Not sure whether it was supposed to be funny or not, but it WAS funny in parts. Diablo Cody writes humour much better than she does horror, I can tell you that much.

When we got home after the film we had Macdonalds (again) and settled down to watch the Uninvited. It's not as good the second time around when you know the twist, but it's still good watching. We then watched the Hunchback of Notre Dame and headed to bed.

Until Next Time

Megan x

DAY SIX - NOTRE DAME AND THE LOUVRE

Woke up hungover. NOT FUN. Painkillers, more sleep and a shower solved that though.

We headed out to Notre Dame. We took pics then headed up to the first floor, and the gift shop. I bought my dad a gargoyle keyring because A.It was Notre Dame and B.we used to watch that programme Gargoyles on a saturday morning and it made me think of that. Then we headed up the rest of the 377 stairs (Laura counted) to the top, stopping off on the second floor for some air and more pictures. View from the top was pretty good, though it was a cloudy day.

After stopping off at the gift shop IN the catherdral, where I bought rosaries, we headed for lunch. I had a croque monseiur and coke - €5 for a glass of coke!

Stomachs full we headed to the Louvre, stopping off at the bridge that features in the last episode(s?) of Sex And The City. Whilst we were at this bridge a party boat of some kind floated past and it had snow on it! Needless to say as they passed under the bridge the occupants of the boat started lobbing makeshift snowballs at the spectators on the bridge. Luckily we weren't hit.

At the Louvre we found the Mona Lisa after much searching. It's a bit smaller than you'd expect, but still nice to see it. We then spent ages trying to find Da Vinci's The Last Supper, only to eventually be told that it resides in Italy and that the Da Vinci code is a very unreliable book. We stopped off at the gift shop where I bought nothing before going to see the inverted pyramid, which was pretty cool I must say.

Once home we got chinese in - PATHETIC PORTION SIZES! I had sweet and sour.

Dressed ourselves up again and headed off to the Eiffel Tower. We had a wander and watched the lights show. We tried to make it back in time to get caramel sundaes at Macdonalds before it shut at twelve, but alas we were too late!

Good day.

Until Next Time

Megan x

DAY FIVE - SHOPPING

Got up at half ten and had french toast made by Gina for breakfast. Showered and headed out.

First we hit the Musee De L'arts Decoratifs. We looked at an exhibition on Toulouse Lautrec. Then we looked at the jewellerry and fashion sections. It was pretty interesting.

Next we were going to go to the Louvre, but discovered it was shut on Tuesdays! Instead we went shopping on the Champs Elysees. On our way to the shops we stopped off at Haggen Daaz for ice cream which ended up coasting €70! I didn't buy anything at the shops. We headed home.

After dressing ourselves up we headed back up to the Arc De Triomphe where we discovered that because we were under 18 we couldn't climb up! A nice German couple offered to take us up but the woman serving wouldn't let us. Too Wee

So instead we watched the Eiffel Tower sparkle again and then headed down for something to eat on the Champs Elysees. We ended up at an Italian where I accidently ordered rissotto for Jamie and I. Eventually though I had spaghetti carbonara and then lemon and vodka sorbet, which I shared with Kirsty. I couldn't eat it though - the texture made me feel sick. On the way home I just about fell down the stairs to the metro.

Once home we had a drink or two and some very revealing truths came out in a game of Truth (without dares ) Overall a very good day and night.

Until Next Time

Megan x

Ok so I've totally been avoiding coming back and finishing this off because I can't face the prospect of uploading the pics to go along with it, so from here on in, it's gonna just be the diary entries. Like it or lump it. If you're a friend you'll be able to see the pics on facebook, and if you're not, I really amn't that fussed about you seeing pics of me anyway. So here we go....

DAY FOUR - DISNEYLAND PARIS

Got up bright and early at 7am and had myself some scrambled eggs on toast for breakfast, burning half of the eggs to the pan - MY BAD. Turns out I can't function in a kitchen without non-stick pans.

We headed out to Disneyland Paris by train (all wearing our 'I Love Paris' hoodies btw!)  which took quite some time and during this time my camera decided to have an utter spaz, making a noise that can only be described as a screech! And I couldn't get it to go off because the battery thing was jammed shut! Embarrasing, and many,many dirty looks were tossed my way.

Upon arrival at the park our tickets wouldn't scan through and so we had to be entered in through the turnstiles manually. Typical.

So, DISCOVERYLAND.

*Space Mountain - high speed, stomach churning fun. Bashed your head about a bit but overall a good ride. Much better than its American counterpart.
*Honey I Shrunk The Audience - This was our longest wait aside from Big Thunder Mountain. I don't like 3D and this done nothing to change my opinion. However it wasn't as scary as I've spent the past few visits to Florida imagining it was. The build up was too long for what was overall a bit of an unimpressive final product.

FANTASYLAND

*Tea cups - Fun,as expected.Notably though we all tried to fit into one tea cup and couldn't so had to split up. That was a bit disheartening I must say
*It's A Small World - Better than I remember it being. Really pretty and I got some good pics and video.

ADVENTURELAND

Until Next Time

DAY THREE - PASTA CRUISE

Slept in until half ten,which was nice

On the way heading back over to the Eiffel Tower and River Seine for the cruise we'd planned we spotted a Hotel called Romeo and Juliet.

After wandering under the Eiffel Tower again we hopped on the cruise we'd planned for the day before. We paid for a pasta cruise and what a joke that was. The start was lovely; pretty scenery,nice pictures etc. But then the problems started. Basically, Jamie,Laura and I missed the entire cruise because we were inside waiting for what eventually turned out to be STILL FROZEN pasta! And on top of that, Kirsty,Gina and Gemma didn't even get the pasta they'd paid for - they got cheese and ham crepes! BOKE. All in all - rip off. The picture below is a cheery one of us,before the encounter with the fart in a trance boat guy who was badly microwaving pasta in between fannying about doing nothing. Yes I'm still bitter!

After we got off the boat we walked,and walked,and walked trying to find the fashion museum, or Notre Dame, whichever one we came to first. During the walk we bumped into a palace, a museum and suddenly we found ourselves on the Champs Elysees and looking up the road at the Arc De Triomphe. We kept walking down and had some crepes and fed some birds. They were cute,but the monster pigeons that followed weren't! After the crepes the walking continued and we found ourselves at the place de la concorde. Took some pictures of the obelisk and then we walked therough the gardens up to the Louvre. Turns out Jamie was lying to me about spotting Anne Hathaway's [Shakespeare's Wife] bed.Gutted. We found the fashion museum but we only got to go into the shop because the museum was shut by the time we got there. We got back there later in the week though,so all was good. After that we hit some gift shops and each bought an I LOVE PARIS jumper. Not that we're total TOURISTS or anything. I also bought a photoframe to frame one of our group pictures in front of the eiffel tower. Then it was home for a dinner of cheesey pasta,super noodles,cheese and ham baguettes,crisps and wine. As prepared by everyone. Classy.

We sang along to some Britney songs, pulled the curtains down by accident and there was a whole lot of I WANT YOU.....TO BE MY WIFE! Plus I had a wee breakdown over my hair (when did I turn into a depressing drunk!?) but hey,lets not go there.

Until Next Time

Megan x

DAY TWO - THE EIFFEL TOWER!

Up, had a breakfast of cocoa pops, tea,bread and butter, pieces of orange. And some people had jelly.

We had out first encounter with the metro, and headed to the eiffel tower.

I took a million and one pictures of the eiffel tower from every imaginable spot in Paris over the course of the week, so I'm of course not going to include them all in this blog, but here's a couple from the walk over to the tower. A nice tourist guy offered to take some group pictures of us in front of the tower so they're here aswell.

On the way over the the Eiffel Tower Jamie achieved some mighty haggling. There were men peddling various goods under and around the Eiffel Tower,and they were pretty diffcult to shake once they started talking to you. So I was pretty pleased when Jamie got them at their own game, haggling for some keyrings. Initially these keyrings were

Hey all, hope you're well. As promised, here's my Paris journal. No shit - taken right from the page. This is what we got up to.DAY ONE.

[Here's the situation, if you don't know me. This October I headed off for my first trip abroad with my friends. Paris was our destination and we were there for 8 nights. Good times were had and this is going to be a blow by blow record of them.]

So:

DAY ONE: TRAVEL

I was up at the early,early,early hour of around 3am, barely any point in going to sleep really, but ah well. Headed to Laura's for fourish and headed off in the taxi to Glasgow airport at about half past four. IN THE MORNING! The things I do for fun.

Check in was at six thirty so we spent some time eating breakfast (cheese and ham toasties and a mocha from Starbucks) and taking some early morning pictures. CUE THE FIRST PIC OF THE BLOG

We were, unsurprisingly given our excitement, the first ones at check in. All was fine with the tickets and suitcases, however we did have one little panic when Kirsty's suitcase went on and came up at 23.3kg on a 20kg allowance. It soon settled at 19.9kg though, so we were lucky there!

Once through departures those who hadn't had breakfast yet snacked up, and I had a red bull, meaning after that and a mocha, I was fully caffienated and raring to go!

Going through security - Jamie, Laura and Kirsty were the unlucky few amongst us who got frisked. It was gonna happen to at least one of us, inevitably, so better that it was three together lol.

Flight was fine, and contrary to popular belief , I went for a pee twice. That's an improvement on last year's bathroom run in on my Florida flight (I know,I know, TMI. But those of you who know me, might understand where I'm coming from!)

Once we'd got our luggage, which all successfully came through without having been broken into or anything, we headed off for the train into the centre of Paris. And what a walk that was! MASSIVE,MASSIVE,MASSIVE Airport, which I think we must have walked the length of by the time we actually got to the platform. On the train:

After we got off the train is where we experienced our first problem of the week. We walked, and walked, and WALKED, but apparently the directions I'd printed off to get us from the train station to the apartment were wrong somewhere and what should have taken us about ten minutes ended up taking about half an hour!! Eventually we got there though and Giovanni knew who we were and let us in. The apartment was lovely but we had little time to settle in before it was off to try and find the fashion show at the Galleries La Fayette. We found a guy who was walking there aswell and so went with him (all the while Kirsty was insisting we were going to get kidnapped and sold for trafficking!? Really glad that I didn't watch Taken before we went!). Sadly though we weren't in time and so missed the show We split up into two seperate taxis, Jamie, Gemma and I in one, and Kirsty,Laura and Gina in the other.

Once we got back in, Jamie and I went down to the shop underneath us, taking about five minutes discovering how to open the front door of the apartment block, and bought milk and sugar so that everyone could have a cup of tea with the tea bags Gemma had brought. When we arrived back upstairs the others had got home, after being dropped in the wrong place by their taxi and having to walk it home, they'd stopped off at Macdonalds on the way and this made Jamie,Gemma and I hungry. So out we headed to grab some big macs. What a lovely first meal in Paris!

Other things that happened on that first day were Jamie and Gina having a sing along to We Belong Together

Gina made some jelly that was put in the fridge for breakfast the following day.
We sang 'I've got a feeling' with the lyrics 'this week's gonna be a good week'

Me and Jamie went to Macdonalds and bought caramel sundaes for everyone at midnight they sadly came with nuts

Overall, a good, but tiring first day.

Until Next Time

Megan

I apologise for my prolonged absence, but I have the following to come (this week hopefully)

A Day by Day report of my Paris trip (with pictures?)
Review of Julie and Julia, which I seen more than a month ago!
Review of Jennifer's Body, which I seen in Paris.
Review of This Is It - which I seen on Wednesday.

And OCTOBER'S ROUND UP!....hopefully.

See you soon.