Walk like an Egyptian

Hey Everyone - I couldn't resist using walk like an Egyptian as the title, however I am disappointed to say that I did not pull out the Egyptian walk whilst in Egypt! Never mind.

Below you will find a map of where we went - hopefully this will help put things into perspective for you. The border to the left is Libya and the border at the bottom is Sudan.

We had an awesome trip - and have so much to tell - I will divide our 10 days away into day by day accounts, and try and squeeze in the observations we made, along the way.

Day 1 - Good Friday

At 3 am our alarm clock went off, indicating that we had half an hour before our taxi was going to arrive to take us to the airport. Twenty minutes later our taxi rang to say when it was five minutes away, so we quickly did some last minute packing and rushed out the door (we had to get a taxi as the only means of public transport running at that time of morning are night buses - more trouble than it was worth).

We then went to the airport via Mark and Dee's so the four of us travelled together. We met Geraint and Steffy (our other travelling buddies - a relation of Bev's and Dee's) at Heathrow.

We arrived to chaos at Heathrow - any Brits reading this will laugh knowingly at this, as Heathrow is know for this very chaos! What we found out was that the check in staff didn't start until 4.30am, even though our tickets stated we should be at the airport at 4am - British systems I tell you!! Anyway long story short, we ended up jumping the very long queue, as we would never have made our flight in time. You can soon see how Heathrow at Easter or Christmas gets back logged/delays, as they had problems from the word go ie 4.30am Good Friday!!

We left a drizzly London morning, flew via Zurich (Switzerland) landing as the snow fell (extremely pretty I must say - and the Swiss have to be the most efficient people I have ever come across! The Brits could do with some lessons from the Swiss!). It was so nice leaving behind big crowds of people at Heathrow, arriving to an empty airport of very few people. We then transferred to our Cairo flight, arriving in 38 degree Celcius heat! Talk about a day of four seasons!(well three at least). We were met at the airport by a rep from our tour company, and transferred to our hotel by mini bus.

We were immediately immersed in a bustling, loud city full of cars, beeping horns (Egyptians don't use indicators, they just toot to say they are coming up on the inside lane), near car crashes - on a two lane road they have three lanes of cars - and every now and then one breaks down, donkey drawn carts you name it, it's going on! It is just like those email jokes that people send around! They use a lot of run down old vehicles - we saw about one broken down old car for every half an hour we spent on the motorway! All of the buses were jammed packed with locals, and driving round with the doors wide open - naturally air conditioned. It wasn't unusual to see a whole family - mum dad and the kids on a motorbike, wearing jandals and no helmets flying down the motorway - suck that Otara! Petrol is really cheap in Egypt - about 1/10th of the price we pay, therefore making driving more affordable to the average egyptian (everyone is called muhammed or some shortening of it). The motorway is a prime example of the lack of Health and safety Egpyt has - of which we saw plent more of!

The buildings and traffic in Cairo

OSH Health and Safety at its finest - spot the guy on the motorbike with no helmet and jandals, also spot the broken down taxi being pushed - a typical day on the Cairo motorway!

There were quite a few parks in the area that our hotel was in, which were quite nice - check out all of the satelite dishes on the buildings!

Bev and I at the Citadel Mosque with Cairo behind us - the sky is a mixture of smog and sand in the air from the desert.

Within about two minutes of Egypt I realised I was something of an excitement to the egyptian men - it sucks to be blonde and white in egypt.

Along the course of our trip I was "x-ray scanned" by so many egyptian men's eyes - ugh they are so disgusting! However I have to say I did find it amusing that the souvenir sellers came up with all sorts of terms of endearments to try and get my attention to come into their shop - such as hebebe (arabic for "my love"), spicey girl - (which I think they meant saucy girl rather than the spice girls), sweet heart etc and Bev got told he was a lucky man about a million times (haha). But it is really demeaning that they stare at you all of the time, and it is certainly not flattering or appreciated. It really degrades you, and you lose a lot of confidence as you are just an object.

At one of the temples were went to, there was a group of local 12-13 year old girls. They were standing in front of Bev, Mark and I, and were pointing and laughing at our legs (I'm guessing my lily whites and Marks hairy whites or our funny western shoes), so Mark got them back, by pointing at their feet and made me crack up - it was so mean but funny, because the girl's faces just immediately dropped when they realised we thought they were also strange, suddenly we weren't so interesting any more and they walked away :o)

Another difficult thing with Egypt is that everyone is always in your face, if they are not oggling you they are trying to take your money off you somehow! We were buying water at a market, when one shop guy tried to take my money out of my wallet for me, and I got angry with him and told him to bugger off and wait. He then very quickly told us all that the price of the water had gone up in price - so we said nah, we don't want it anyway, and walked away! How rude! However on a lighter note, in the same vain as the terms of endearment, to get you into their stalls at the market they call out to you. One guy called out to us - "I don't know what you want, but I have it" and another clever clogs yelled out "I have 75 ways to take you money" and "how can I take your money" - with some of them you wondered if they actually understood what they were saying in English - but I think they did to be funny and get your attention, haha you have to give them full points for honesty!

For dinner that first night we decided to ask the Hotel check in guy what he recommended, and he said - "We have a restaurant here" and then we said "but we want to go out", so he reluctantly recommended us a restaurant just around the corner from our hotel. This would be the last time that most of us ate meat on the trip, as after that both Bevan and Mark had stomach aches! Hmmmm! It was interesting to note that the Egyptian standards of cleanliness were a lot different to that of our own - for example we had to keep shuffling through the plates at the restaurants to find a clean plate!

Day 2 - Saturday

This day was an extremely full-on day, and quite hard on our bodies since they were not used to the extreme heat (esp Bev and I after a year of winters - however I found it heaven - overdosing on Vitamin D!!).

We were met early by our guide, who was with us for the rest of the trip. Emad (or Ed for our purposes) was a well educated black african egyptian man(of the nubian tribe), in his 30's. He was extremely punctual, patient and easy going - exactly what we needed in a tour guide - I don't think we would have enjoyed the trip as much as we did if we had had another guide. He was happy to answer any questions we had, and was very open to cultural and religious questions we had about the egyptian way of life - and his own life for that matter.

We started by going to Sakkara - the first pyramid, and the world's oldest stone structure.

We then went to Memphis - the capital of the ancient kingdom

The Great Pyramids and the Sphinx.

Two of the Giza Pyramids - See the comparison between the size of the people and the pyramid - they were pretty huge.

Bev's shadow on the Camel

Giza pyramids and the Sphinx

At the Pyramids we went for a camel ride which was really fun! They are certainly amazing animals putting up with that heat.

Bev on a camel

There are quite a few off shoots of the nile, many of which can probably termed canals - but the water is really disgusting, as it is stagnant - people just drop their rubbish/household waste in it, a few dead cows float in it, further down we saw some people doing their washing in it etc - a little like the River Ganges! And everywhere we traveled, there were wild cats and dogs roaaming around.

We were supposed to have transferred from Cairo that night to Aswan by sleeper train, however for some reason the tour company left it too late to book our trip, so there were no spaces left.


They therefore had to upgrade us to a flight from Cairo to Aswan the following morning (Day 3), and pay for us to stay an extra night at our Cairo hotel - because this cost was now on them, we were suddenly all down graded to sleeping in the same room (an apartment style room with three beds in one room and a king in the other). With a lot of fuss we were able to get a fourth mattress for our room, so that everyone had a bed!





Day 3 -Easter Sunday

Another 3am start - we left the hotel and travelled back to the airport, and flew to Aswan. Unfortunately our tour company was too cheap to upgrade our tour guide to fly with us, so we had to wait for him (a 12 hour journey) to arrive in Aswan! However we didn't complain, as we got to lounge around by the pool and have a swim whilst we waited for our rooms to be ready - this was especially nice as the temperature was now soaring around 42 degrees celcius!!

We found Aswan and Luxor to be quite different from Cairo, as they were much smaller, more back-water cities.

Check out the hand coloured in/handwritten Mobil sign, and the extremely flash Vodafone shop!

Once our guide arrived, we travelled to the Unfinished Obelisk, Aswan Dam and Philae Temple - Philae temple was probably the highlight of our trip for me or at least on par with the Pyramids.

Philae Temple

Day 4 - Easter Monday


Another 3am morning - yep you can gather we were a little over 3am starts by this time! We had to travel in convoy (about 100 tourist buses) lead by the police- we asked how come, but never really got a straight answer about this....! However the convoy turned out to be bit of a farce, as everyone went hell for leather, and travelled around 140 km/hr through the desert!

But I must say it was all worth it, as we arrived at our destination - Abu Simbel at around 6.30am, still in the cool of the morning, and it was an extremely beautiful location, on the edge of the dam.

Abu Simbel

On arriving back at the hotel, we all arranged our bags ready for the Felucca (sail boat) trip. We then boarded our felucca just outside our hotel(the hotel overlooked the nile - an extremely gorgeous location - it was so pretty it almost seemed like the landscape had been painted), and lazily sailed down the Nile (sailing with the current means you head North - towards Cairo - which is what we did). We really enjoyed lazying on the Felucca, it was nice to escape the information overload and pyramid/temple overload that we had started to become overwhelmed by. And it was nice to get away from the plain sandy desert colour to the lively green surrounding the Nile. However, there were a few less comfortable bits to the Felucca - firstly, there was no toilet - so if you really needed to go, then you had to pull over to land and find a tree! Also combine this with our dodgy Egyptian-food tummies....go figure!

Us on the Felucca

However, to ease us into this, on the first night, we stopped at a place that was hired by our tour company to provide toilets and showers (of reasonable cleanliness - something you couldn't take for granted!). The two options of sailing on the Nile consist of the Felucca - as we did, or travelling by big ocean liners - as all the rich ponsy people did (or those that value their toiletting in private!)

It was illegal to sail your Felucca at night, as on these big ocean liners would quite easily run you down. So on this first night we docked at the place with the showers/toilets, and slept on the boat - quite soothing, however there were a few too many hungry mosquitos ready to nibble ones hot, exposed feet, even though we had a mosquito net over the boat!

Day 5 - Tuesday

Our Felucca trip got all the more exciting(or less pleasant depending on how you view it) on this second day, as we found out we wouldn't be docking at a toilet/shower overnight - just farmland with a few trees.......I was gutted to find out that I have lost my ability to hold on as I did when I was little........! However, we were pleased that the temperature significantly dropped this second night, making sleep a little easier, and there were no mosquitos. However, sleeping on the Felucca seemed significantly harder the second night!



Day 6 - Wednesday

We docked early, and were met by a mini bus, ready to take us to four temples. We were pleased to arrive at the first location to use their toilet! It is funny how suddenly your trip becomes more about when your next clean toilet stop is, and not what sites you are visiting.


On that note, toiletting was an interesting experience in Egypt. It is hard to find clean toilets, you don't flush your toilet paper - it goes in a rubbish bin beside the toilet, and they don't have toilet paper in the toilets - there is an attendant that gives you toilet paper (not enough to wipe anything mind you), and on your way out, you tip the attendant! It is quite a wealthy occupation!

We firstly went to Kom-Ombu temple, and then to Edfu - the most well-preserved temple in all of Egypt.


We then transferred to Luxor, checked into our hotel and had some lunch. We then carried on to see Luxor Temple and Karnak Temple. Karnak Temple was especially pretty as it was just on dusk as we saw it, so the lights were all turned on, lighting up the big pillars.



Day 7 - Thursday


We were so tired by this point, we were able to convince our guide that we didn't want to start until 9am so that we could have a decent sleep. We awoke quite refreshed, and visited the valley of the Kings, and the temple of Queen Hatshepsut (said hat-cheap-suit or hot chicken soup for the comics). We also took a couple of minutes to take photos of Colossi of Memnon and stop at an alabaster shop - where they had heaps of beautiful vases and bowls made from the local stone. I tried my hand at bargining for one really pretty bowl, but was disappointingly unsuccessful - normally they don't let you out of the door without renegotiating the price, but this one let me go - I had obviously gone too far below what they were prepared to accept - bugger! I probably should have buckled.

That afternoon we arrived back at our hotel, had a swim and dinner and then sat in the hotel lobby waiting to go to the train station to be transferred to the train station to catch the sleeper train back to Cairo at 11.30pm. The sleeper train was an interesting experience. And waiting for the 1st class train we got to see what 2nd class and cattle class looked like - Otara and OSH eat your heart out!



Day 8 - Friday

This was probably the least exciting day of our whole trip - as we were so tired! (However, pretty to cool to have been to a church that Jesus himself is said to have been to!

However, we did enjoy looking out of the train window as we came into Cairo, as there were heaps of crops - such as sugar cane and other veges being grown, quite nice and green.

For the first time in our trip, we were able to check into our rooms immediately on arrival in Cairo, so we all quickly rushed off to have a shower, before our days sightseeing. We were then mini-bused Christian Old Cairo, where the Romans constructed the fortress of Babylon. Built over the fuins of the two towers of this fortress, the Church of St Mary known as the Hanging Church. We then had lunch at a Egyptian restaurant - they eat a lot of naan bread (called something different though), and hummus, kebabs, filafels etc however by this stage we were over eating anything with meat, so went vegetarian.


Day 9 - Saturday

This was a really great day of absolutely unashamedly nothing. We woke late, went to breakfast, lay around in our rooms, had a two hour afternoon nap, played cards, read etc. A great day just to blobby. We were so tired that we didn't get woken up by the prayers that morning - every sunset and sunrise, prayers are belted out through loud speakers at the top of the mosques, which sound like air-raid sirens!


Day 10 - Sunday

Yesterday, we awoke at 9am, had breakfast - our last Egyptian breakfast, of which we were not mourning. They mainly consisted of egg (omelette, scrambled or hard boiled)- which is fine, and one type of cereal (their attempt at keeping us westerners happy), but also cold meats, salad, (both of which we were avoiding, meat for obvious reasons, and salad because they use local tap water to wash the veges) and lots of sweet bread, and cheese. We found that breakfast conversations would always start with someone asking who had the runs today!

We then piddled around for the morning, and checked out of our rooms at 12noon. We were then transferred to the airport to catch our plane at 3pm. We did a quick squizz of souvenir shopping (I bought a smaller replica of the bowl I should have bought at the alabaster shop), and then we flew back to Zurich, and then from Zurich to London - arriving in London at 9.30pm.

And that was our Egypt trip :o) - I definitely recommend everyone put Egypt on their "must see before I die list".

Famous Footsteps

Hey guys,

This last week has been an incredibly busy one for me, organising four events in two weeks certainly keeps one out of mischief! I was in Birmingham on Tues/Wednesday for an event, and I am back there again tomorrow and Wednesday this week. This last weekend Bev had hockey on Saturday, so I hung out with Christine and Monique, as it is Moniques last month here before she goes home to NZ - so jealous......... We had heaps of fun, we banged into each other on the dodgems and then ten pin bowled, followed by a yummy dinner.

These Russells are good at sniffing out the best food spots in the west end - when Bev and I go, we always get really average, expensive food!

On Sunday we decided that we would all go somewhere - initially we thought Canterbury, but we were in the end swayed by Oxford. So off we went! (Via Paddinton Station - hence Bev's new friend :o)

Oxford is only an hours train ride North West of London, so not too taxing.

It is extremely beautiful, and full of really cool old buildings as part of the university. Pretty cool to hang out in the same city (130,000 people) as famous writers once did such as Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland), C.S Lewis and J R Tolkien -not to mention some famous animal behaviourists. I didn't think I would ever be so interested in who once lived in a place, but in hindsight, the only real people that NZ has like that is Katherine Mansfield or perhaps Janet Frame, and they are pretty lame in comparison. Going to Oxford made me think about that PhD I am still keen to do...............! How cool would it be to have an Oxford doctorate under Marian Dawkins....swoon.

Christ Church College

Looking down the main street

Anyway that is really all we have been up to in the last week, we are just counting down now until our Egypt trip at Easter - can't wait! Only three weeks to go! Next week Bev and I have been married three years! Can you believe how fast time goes! And the following weekend we will have been here Six months whew! Can't wait until the weather fines up - we have had some nice sunny days recently, it would just be nice if we could turn up the heat! Seems weird that there are daffidols around in March - my brain is still trying to work out what season and what month it is by all of these strange weather patterns. Funny how you associate certain seasons with certain events ie daffidols mean it is nearly Bev's birthday, yet his birthday is in August!


Recently I have been thinking about how travelling really opens your eyes to the world. I know this sounds extremely cliched, and it is hard to explain to people who have never been further than Australia.


But you soon learn things about yourself as a kiwi, and your nature, and how the world is a big place full of problems and poverty which we have no idea about living in NZ. It has made me think more about the things I buy, and want for, but don't really need. It makes you think about corruption, poverty and how the western world controls a lot of these situations, yet has the ability to change them in a second - but doesn't.


In New Zealand this is further from our sight, as we don't walk past beggars in our daily automation to work, we don't see boy racers who drive ferraris (yep that's my kinda boyracer - no shitty nissan pulsars with big exhausts here!). Here on a daily basis you see the people who can afford ferraris and you see people who can't afford their next meal or a place to sleep. I think often we feel that we are immune or exempt from doing anything about these poor people, but by doing nothing, we are as bad as the next person. What is the ultimate purpose of life? Do we just work really hard and get to a salary of $200K and then say we have achieved everything we have always wanted to achieve? Do we pay off our house mortgage at the age of 60 and think, wow thats my life fulfilled - I owe nothing. Do these dreams sound empty to anyone else?

Anyway hope that got you all thinking

Until next time

Jam and Bev

It's good to be a Kiwi Mate

Hey guys,

Been a while since our last blog, but we have been busy recovering from our event overload! After Paris it was Waitangi week. On the Wednesday night we went out to the Kiwi kitchen for a good kiwi night out. Great food and sing alongs to some kiwi classic songs. For food: starters of green lipped mussels, mains of NZ Lamb shank on Kumera chips, and finally hokey pokey icecream. It was sooooo good having a kiwi tucker again...mmm kumera chips. The Music was a one man band but he played some fantasic classics; From Dave Dobyn, Herbs, Crowded house, to tetormai nga iwi and every now and then pulling out some "cheer bro's", and "too meckie's" for fun.

Waitangi weekend came, and the weather was fantastic and oddly warm - at the same time last year they apparently had snow storms (we still haven't seen snow here!). I had hockey in the morning, but that was a waste of time. The other team and half our team were too scared to play on a sand turf with a little frost on it (naturally gritted with sand!). I was so pissed off....maybe it's my kiwi "she'll be right mate" attitude.

Anyway, Jam and I decided we would go for a a visit to China town to check out the lantern decorations for Chinese New Years' celebrations, and celebrate with a yum feed of yumcha(chinese brunch) and then we were off to Westminster Parliament Square to check out the tail end of the Waitangi day pub crawl. Thousands of kiwis celebrated Waitangi day, a tradition started by 2 Hamiltonions 30 years ago, consisting of a pub crawl via the Circle tube line. I kept tabs through out the day on the central London transport system, watching thousands of kiwis cause major delays and shutdown stations for the crawl - whoa ho.

Parliament Square was where thousands of kiwis did the haka, although we missed it, we kept on bumping into other kiwis we knew from uni and school etc. It was fantasic seeing kiwis dressed for the occasion; beige, stubbies, as cows, anything with a kiwi icon was there. The best dressed in my opinion was a couple of guys dressed in NZ police uniforms. Made us do a double take! There were kiwis pulling out some old school games like bull rush and handball.

Some Friesian's

A very pissed Lou :o)

Um, the black cocks......

My boss came back from NZ from a 3 week holiday and she pointed out somethings that we definitely notice about food and coffee in NZ vs here. Everywhere she went in NZ she got perfect food and coffee, but compared to here it is a massive hit and miss exercise...very hard to find good coffee here, and good food (at a price you are willing to pay!).

Last weekend I decided to surprise Jam with a trip to Brighton, 45min by train from London. It was a beautiful clear blue day, but quite cold - quite like the days we get in August/Sept in NZ. We enjoyed a relaxing day, looking at the Royal Pavillion (a lavish, over-the-top Chinese/Indian styled castle built by King George), and then heading down to the pebble beach, and looking around the Pier that Brighton is famous for.

It is funny how beaches are so a part of us as Kiwis that you don't realise that after 5 months of not having been to a beach, how much you've missed it! Just the sounds of the seagulls made us feel homesick! We were surprised by the size of the pier, and the amusement park that they have on it! The beach was quite European in feel because there was the beach, then the road, then old apartment buildings on the other side of the road - quite like you see in the pictures of spain etc

Outside the Royal Pavillion at Brighton

The pebble beach at Brighton - looking down from the Pier

Brighton Pier

The Pier from the beach

This weekend, I worked on Saturday, then Jam and I went into Putney to do some shopping. We went and saw Jumper at the movies, and then came home and watched the France vs England 6 Nations match - we were voting for France - esp since the AB's couldn't beat the French in a quarter final -we didnt want the English to beat them, however we are now even more shame faced..........!

We'd never thought we'd crack and spend almost $50 on a meal of Dominos pizza (Takeaway Pizza is really expensive here!). Considering back at home the equvalent meal would have been about $22. Our British flatmates can't belive that a pizza at Dominos at best is £2 at home. However, it was better quality pizza -ie more toppings - but still we could have gone to the supermarket and bought more toppings for it, and still got it cheaper in NZ!

Anyway Laters

Bev and Jam

Bonjour

Bonjour!

As promised, here is the blog about our trip to Paris - city of lights (our first trip to Europe - very exciting)

We had the most magical trip to Paris, it is the most amazing place - we totally loved it!

On Thursday (last week) we both left work after lunch, and made our way to King's Cross -St Pancras Station (the Eurostar moved there in November from Waterloo Station). We meet up with our tour group and left at 5.30pm. The trip was fast, (annoyingly so for your ear pressure), and it was dark outside so unfortuantely we couldn't see anything. Paris is an hour ahead in time, so we didn't arrive until 8.45pm French time.

We had a bus pick us up from the Gare du Nord station, (it was freezing and trying to rain), we had a little bit of a tour of the city at night on our way to our hotel. We then checked into our hotel. Since we hadn't had any dinner, Bev and I went looking for some dinner, however we were staying in the middle of the business district, so there wasn't any food places open, so we just went back to our hotel and had microwaved lasagne from the bar. However, on our way back to the Hotel, it clocked on the hour, and we were able to see the famous light show on the Eiffel tower - so pretty! Our first experience of a Frenchman was also at this time.

We had heard heaps of stories of the french not paying you any attention unless you can speak french (which we couldn't) so we were prepared for rudeness, however, this french guy saw us standing out in the rain, on a cold night watching the light show and had a big goofy grin on his face and said something to us in french that went "blah blah blah vista", followed by another big grin - I worked out after he had walked away (and we had only given him a blank but friendly smile) that he must have said what a lovely view (hence the vista bit) - ie very friendly conversation for a stranger, let alone a frenchman :o)

On Friday morning we set out from our hotel at 9.30am (after a delicious french breakfast involving cheese, fresh bread, crepes and cereal - a nice change from the usual bacon and eggs served at hotels) on the tour bus, and did a tour of the city, learning some history about the city and the fabulous monuments within it. Unfortunately it was pouring with rain, but this did little to dampen our high spirits at being in Paris! We got some wet pictures of the Eiffel tower,

Jam at the Eiffel Tower - rainy day

went round the giant roundabout at the base of the Arc de Triomphe (and just as our tour guide was telling us no one has insurance going round the roundabout, we nearly crashed twice!) and then went on a quick tour of a perfume factory - I think our guide gets commission for taking us there! Didn't buy anything though, as it was all quite expensive. We then went with another Kiwi couple (from Napier of all places, and they know a few of the same people that Bev knows - crazy small world!) and our guide - yep we had our guide all to ourselves to a big deparment store called Lafayettes - it has the most gorgeous dome ceiling (see pictures) and is about 9 stories high! We had the most fantastic lunch at the department store -the french really know how to do food - a big difference to what we have found in London - where you pay heaps for something that tastes extremely average!

The dome ceiling at Lafayettes (the department store)

We bought some souvenirs, then us and the kiwi couple headed to the Louvre, buying yummy french chocolate and macroons on the way there. The Louvre was pretty cool, saw the Mona Lisa - which was I must say was pretty disappointing - very small, and behind a pane of glass, and cordoned off! Grr but the funny thing was it said no photography, but everyone was taking photos, however it wasn't until Bev decided to take a photo of the people taking photos that he got in trouble for photography! :o)

Bev with the Mona Lisa at the Louvre

Us outside the Louvre

After the Louvre, we walked down the Seine river (it had stopped raining by this stage thank goodness),

The Seine River

and headed towards the Latin Quarter to meet up with our tour guide again for a traditional french dinner. It was another fantastic meal (minus the snails which were all wrong - however I did eat one, and Bev ate 5 so a good effort).

Snails for dinner anyone??

We then went to a french supermarket which was fun, then meandered to the Cabaret to meet back up with our guide and some of the others from our tour group. The cabaret was good, a little too risque for my liking, but an experience nonetheless. On the way home we mastered use of the Metro, so we were very proud of ourselves.

Some of our tour group after the Cabaret

On Saturday we got up lateish (since the Cabaret hadn't started until 9.30pm - we were pretty knackered) to an absolutely beautiful clear blue sky day. We headed straight to the Eiffel tour on the Metro to try and beat the crowds. We decided to walk up the Eiffel tour, all 668 steps of it, as it was cheaper, further enhanced the experience and most of all had a far shorter queue.

With the day being so clear, the views were magnificent, totally worth our money spent. However the experience was slightly dampened by the annoying Gypsy women who scout around tourist trying to get money from you! Grrrrr - they all ask if you speak English, so Bev took to replying to them in Chinese - that got rid of the :o) They also had scary army officers carrying semi automatic guns protecting the Eiffel tower! Wouldn't wana piss these guys off!

A far nicer day to have your photo taken with the Eiffel tower

Us at the very top of the Eiffel tower, and the fantastic view below

We then headed to the Notre Dame Cathedral, having lunch at a little cafe opposite it first (I had a very delicious french toasted sammy), then heading inside for a looksy.

Bev made a new friend at the Cafe (a quirky waiter)

The Notre Dame Cathedral (on the left) and the Seine River

We then met up with a friend of Bevs from Uni, Pete, and headed with him to Sacre Coeur (a gorgeous Roman Catholic Church). The area surrounding the Sacre Coeur is gorgeous too as the streets are cobbled, and the shops are quaint boutiques - very artsy fartsy but cool. Some famous names have lived in this area including Monet and Picasso - so that is pretty cool too.

A collage of the words "I love you" written in all different languages

Sacre Coeur (Roman Catholic Church)

We then went to a cafe and had a coffee,

Cheesy photo of us at the cafe

and then headed to a Fondue restaurant (actually a swiss invention but obviously adopted by the French at some point- which was heaps of fun - they give you baby bottles to drink your wine out of, and the restaurant was so small that all the tables were in one long line on each wall with no gaps for people to get to the seats between the table and the wall, so patrons have to stand on the chairs and jump over the table to get to these seats! The owners were very quirky and it was extremely fun.

Bev drinking out of his baby bottle of wine

Bevs friend Pete then took us to the Arc de Triomphe to get some quick photos,

Us at the Arc de Triomphe(the giant roundabout goes around its base - cars on the roundabout have to give way to cars entering the roundabout - hence the high crash rate!)

We then headed down the Champs Elysees to check out how the others live - where large labels such as Gucci etc have stores. We then said goodbye to Pete and headed back to our hotel.

On Sunday morning, we got up and headed to the Gare du Nord station, to head back to stinky ol' London! It was so hard coming home to London, because once we pulled in, it wasn't the usual Auckland airport affair of putting your suitcases in the boot of the car and then driving past the city, farmland home.

Instead, it was grab your suitcase, walk up and down stairs to the tube, find an alternative path to get home because the normal one is closed for repairs, fend off millions of people, get to your stop, catch a bus (we waited 20mins because there was some delay - the longest we have waited yet!) then by the time we got home, all the supermarkets were closed so we couldn't get our weekly groceries............all we wanted to do was hop back on the eurostar to Paris- it is such a cool place. And the fact that they speak another language made it all the more endearing - I found it really funny trying to order a pastry, as I only know a few words in french (and have a bad kiwi accent too) and I had the same thing happen to me as I had in Scotland where you say something, and the other people in line whip their heads round to have a gawk at this strange alien creature who talks with a funny accent :o)

A funny french poster - advertising the eurostar to London (Londres)
Perhaps a symbol of the how the French view the English? :o)

All in all an excellent trip which has made us very eager for the next one!

Lots of Love

Jam and Bev