Paris, full of foreigners!

Dallas, 16, went on a trip to France as the companion of her friend, Claudette, and her enduring memory is not so much the big tourist attractions of Paris - where everybody seemed to be foreign - but a very simple flower festival in rural France.

"Apart from the Eiffel Tower and visiting the Mona Lisa, I didn't really like Paris at all," admits Dallas. "It always sounded such a romantic place but in reality it is dirty and smelly and full of people who aren't French at all."

"The hotel staff, the restaurant staff and just about everyone we came into contact with in Paris were either Indians, Pakistanis or Africans,” says Dallas, “and we felt cheated that we had travelled so far to a place where we expected to meet French people and the whole city seemed to be full of foreigners!”

"Luckily, we didn't stay long in Paris," says Dallas. "Claudette's parents took us to a chateau in the country where we actually did meet some genuine French people and had a wild time."

"The village where we stayed was having a flower festival the day after we arrived and I'd never seen people behave so wild and have so much fun," laughs Dallas. "There were floats covered in beautiful flower arrangements, and crowds of people, and a silly brass band – and then everyone went mad and flowers started flying!"

"Claudette and I got into the swing of things and started throwing flowers at everybody, too," laughs Dallas. "We were knee-deep in flowers and at one stage I fell down and was literally buried in them – and then I started having really serious breathing difficulties."

"At that stage, I was really glad Claudette's parents were there," laughs Dallas. "There was no way Claudette could have helped me - or would have wanted to help me because very soon she got caught up in the romance of France and I may as well have been on my own."

Read more about Dallas:

trip induced breathing problems

my french friend

a sensible taurus girl