Les vacations!

Helllooo peeps...well what have we been up to.

Cant believe Christmas and new years have been and gone! It was one of the more bizarre christmas's i have had, but yet sooo fun.

On the 24th we braved a huge queue of about 2000 people and waited for ever in a line to ensure that we got on our Eurostar train to Paris. Leading up to the 24th had been cancellations and major delays, meaning that thousands and thousands of people were stranded either in London or Paris unable to get anywhere. Needless to say, we were very worried that we would not make it to Paris, thus destroying our dreams of Chrismas at Eurodisney...however....our cunning plan when we heard that services were resuming and were trying to clear the backlog was to arrive early at St Pancras, to ensure that we made it onto our train. Our train was due to leave at 9am, and we figured that 6.30am would give us plenty of time to beat others there.

Our first site was of a long queue, but not as bad as we expected, until we turned the corner and surveyed a gigantic snaking queue that we couldnt see the end of. We trudged past this giant snake and were slightly horrified to see than not only did it keep going, but it now went outside, unable to be held in the building itself. As we walked outside into the freezing morning, we were more horrified to see that the line continued all the way down the side of the building...a good 4oo meters. It was here that we joined the queue! Needless to say at this point we weren't feeling very optimistic about making our train on time. But it moved incredibly quickly, we all had bets on when we would make it to the front....Megan won! Then somehow we managed to get placed on our original train.....STOKED! So was a great adventurous start to a very cool break in Paris.

Paris itself was so much cooler than i had actually expected. I have always thought that the Eiffel tower was so overrated, but boy does it look so much better in real life. We saw all the main sights, managed to walk forever down the Champs Elysee....sore feet, was wowed by the Arc de Triomphe, impressed by the Louvre and how its modern shape somehow makes the super old palace around it more beautiful, not less, in awe of the Eiffel Tower (especially after we returned at night and walked up the 670 steps...yes i counted, to get to the second floor), speechless at the architecture of the Sacre Coeur and just totally enjoying the gorgeous streets and markets of Paris in winter.
The boys in particular spent a good amount of their time browsing the delights of the local patisseries. Where we were staying was off the tourist track and really lovely. We were immersed in local Frenchness, and Ben got to try out his you tube learnt French. I enjoyed feeding him phrases and words that i was way to shamed to try out for myself. Seeing him speak phrases and obviously be understood was awesome, and then super funny when they would reply to him, only for him to be completely lost. Needless to say "i speak a little french" was one of our most common phrases.
We also managed to catch up with a friend that Caleb and Ben and i know from back in the day, what are the chances of her being in Paris at the same time as us....was nice catching up in some very warm restaurant on Christmas Eve.

Christmas Day...we arose nice and early with the anticipation of the best present ever.....a day at Eurodisney! The morning there was amazing, lines of 5-15min...so awesome. However we were probably too spoilt as by the afternoon we were way too cool to wait in lines of 40 min...so spent a bit of time wandering round, sussing out food options.....as you do. It was lots of fun, introduced Ben and Megan to the wonders of its a small world! Good times!

Our New Years excitement was specially amazing because we moved into our new place! We have moved in with Ben and Megan which is awesome too. Its wicked to be able to share experiences with people who you know are gonna be round on our return. Our new flat is mint.....lotsa room, and really close for me to work. Our lounge is huge and we are open for business....we want to have an open home to newbies in London, so please make use of our lounge! We will be very excited to have visitors.

Life is ticking along, we have booked tickets home for a brief visit in june. We spend like 5 days in Thailand, where we plan to just chill out on the beaches, and then 7 days in Auckland, so hopefully will be able to catch up with everyone then.

We are heading to Nth Ireland this weekend, just for a visit. It will be caleb's first time in Nth Ireland, so fingers crossed that we can get there, cos there is snow forecast for tonight and the rest of the week, which means lots of cancelled flights....i can't believe how London comes to a halt when it snows, its unbelievable!
Our next trip we are hoping to do is maybe Finland or Norway or something over Easter....wanna see the northern lights! So gotta do some planning.....so cool to be so close to things like this.

Anyway....think that is all...miss ya's
xoxoxoxo

OOOOHHHHH i can hear christmas bells a ringing!!! i LOVE christmas, my favourite time of year, especially Christmas eve, i love the christmas eve service and then a short sleep before waking up to presents and tons of food! It really doesnt get much better, so this year should be an interesting time for me then. We figured that because we weren't having to do the whole family thing this year, we should make the most of it, so we booked tickets for a short escape to Paris, with the brilliant plan of spending christmas day at Eurodisney. The only small flaw in the plan is that the temp is likely to be a big fat 0 degrees or less.....eeek. Plenty of people have taken great delight in informing me that they have never been as cold in their lives as they were in Paris! Brilliant! However on the up side im hoping it will be far to cold for many people to be as stupid as us to venture onto rollercoasters and the like and therefore we will get on as many rides in as short a time as possible.
Now that Caleb and i will have done Disneyland and Eurodisney on Christmas days, i feel as though we should fit in Tokyo Disney and Disneyworld, just to round it all off....what a chore!

In other delightful christmas news we went shopping for our christmas tree on the weekend. Brought one from the wee church down the road and its now sitting in our lounge/dining room twinkling away with its little lights. Awwww i love christmas! Our church has carol services over the next two weeks so im gonna get my rightful share of carol loving....actually much to everyone else's dismay i have discovered the christmas song channel on the t.v, hours of fun for me,not so much for everyone else. oooh yeah, when we went to get the christmas tree we also got to see REINDEER, like real ones, and baby ones too! They were in the local mall, just hanging out, on show for everyone to have a gawk at, totally awesome.

It s getting rather chilly here, like days are between 4-7 degrees, and the nights a wee big colder. So we have to wear jackets etc when we go out. Caleb has even had to begin to wear trousers, which if you know him at all is insane! Sometimes i forget, especially at work that its freezing outside, run outside to do somethin and very quickly return for jacket etc. Im still holding off on the scarf and gloves, but i dont know how much longer i can do that for...also gonna have to look for some ear warmers (ive seen some really cute ones round).

We had our first experience of Brick Lane last weekend. Jess W and her boyf Carl took us there for Londons most popular dish! For those of you, like me up until a couple of months ago who had no idea what Brick Lane is....its a street in the middle of London full of Indian restaurants. As soon as you approach you are accosted by men who try to lure you into their curry house with all sorts of deals and promises. Our deal was pretty sweet, 2 free rounds of drinks, free poppadoms and 30% off! Pretty sweet deal really. And it was soooo yummy. Will definately be back. After Brick Lane we went to this bar/club and spent the next few hours in hysterics as we watched this guy dance.....can't explain the hilarity of his dancing, but lets just say that he thought he was THE MAN, and so did the 3 or 4 other quality guys that thought they were watching God's gift to women about to pull all the chicks with his dancing skills....too funny.

Anyway.....so close to Christmas, even closer till Ben and Megan arrive...whoopwhoop, and then it will be 2010 which is insane!

Hope this is a little catch up of our lives.
Luv yas!!!