Double meals

Bonjour! Nous sommes au Paris. Okay, well we were two days ago. We are now in London, in a gorgeous townhouse by the river Thames.

Our week began with the cattle run from Melbourne to Doha (Qatar) - 14 hours flying time, which I must say is basically hell. The air is dry, you can't relax (or sleep) and every now and then the plane lurches sideways allowing your life to flash before your eyes and occasionally your stomach. The other weird thing was that throughout the journey we managed to have every meal twice. Tom's family very kindly fed us dinner on the eve of our trip and Sean drove us to the airport for our 11:55pm flight. Soon after the plane took off we were served second dinner. In the morning breakfast, before landing in Doha, moving through security just in time to board the second flight - where we were served breakfast again. Then lunch. We were beginning to feel like Tolkien novel escapees.

We finally made it to Paris mid way through the day, funneled through customs and then left to fend for ourselves. We were tired, stinky and wanted to get to the hostel for a shower and a lie down before it occurred to us that we had no idea how to get there and could not speak the language. So we just sat down for a while to take in the fact that we were on the other side of the world in Paris. After a few minutes we pooled resources and discovered that the rail system in Paris is very easy to use. There is a shuttle from the airport which takes you directly to the nearest train and then you can go from there. Our hostel had given us excellent directions and we made it before dark (about 4:30pm).

It felt like a bit of a dream being in Paris. Apart from the romantic architecture, it really is hard to imagine as a Australian that there is a whole country that speaks French. Speaking French felt like a bit of a game, not something real people actually do. We found on the whole however, that our efforts were rewarded with smiles and encouragement. Our hostel staff were particularly pleased to teach us new phrases. One pitfall we found (as my father had predicted) was while we could ask a question in French the response was also in French. We became very good at perfecting our rabbit-in-the-headlights look as a stream of French sped past waving gleefully. It then was a matter of mime until we got back onto familiar ground - usually "Thank you"

What do you do in Paris when you really only have two full days? See the outside of stuff. We stumbled on Le Louvre in a morning walk, then Notre Dame. We managed to get to Versailles intentionally, though not from the correct train station. Versailles is incredible. I would recommend everyone to see the decadent excesses of the French royalty. Every room is spectactular in its own way and the palace goes on forever. There appear to have been no private rooms and we were astounded to discover that French queens give birth in public so that legitimacy of the succession could not be questioned.

On the way home we saw the Tour Eiffel at night, all lit up. Gypsies sell souvenirs when they are not being chased by armed police officers on bicycles.

On our last day we had a bit of a walk around before catching the Eurostar under the channel to London.

British security seems somewhat stricter than French and were actually reluctant to let us into the country, but after some cajoling with arguments of visiting relatives they let us through.

The train ride was uneventful except for a strange apology message that came over the speakers at the beginning of the journey which we ignored.

Upon meeting my cousins in London the meaning of the apology became apparent - yes folks we were completely unaware that no less than 5 Eurostar trains had gotten stuck in the tunnel for up to 18 hours! It seems that the English snow was too much for the trains to push out the way on the way back up to England from the channel. While every train before ours had been delayed or cancelled ours was fine. I'm rather glad we missed all the fuss, instead of worrying about the trains for 3 days.

Yesterday was Christmas with Turkey and all the Trimmings. An exellent meal for cold weather. We sat and ate, then sat, ate, sat and finally ate. A very sensible Chrstmas Day celebration. We took Shamou, the rather aged Malamute, for a long slow stroll along the river before collapsing in bed, dead to the world.

Today we have completed the Monopoly board tour of London - After going to the ATM in order to Pass GO we went to goal (The Tower of London) as well as The Strand, Trafalgar Square, Fenchurch Station, Leicester Square, Picadilly Circus, Regent, Bond and Oxford Streets. On our way into London we had already been through Kings Cross and passed Angel on the train. We also saw Tower bridge, Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace (from a distance; to be honest we were more interested in squirrels).

Tomorrow we pick up a hire care and will travel to wherever the roads are clearest: Stay Tuned.