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