Australia Day

I was walking home today in a light snow and looking up at the Eiffel Tower all lit up and over Place de la Concorde towards the obelisk shining in the dark sky and I thought to myself, this place is OK after all.

I had a pretty down Australia Day yesterday and felt very homesick. I looked at the Triple J Hottest 100 and didn't recognise more than about a third of the songs. Usually I listen to Triple J every day at home and can have a pretty good guess at the top 10. Not this year. Of course, once I buy the CD and listen to it non stop all that will be remedied.

I thought of my mates at home having our annual BBQ in the sunshine and playing a bit of backyard cricket while drinking some Coopers Ale. These are the odd moments when it hits me just how far away I actually live!

I went to a local massive wine shop to try and buy some sparkling burgundy to show the people at work as they don't really do sparkling red here. Unfortunately, they don't stock it so I still bought a couple of Aussie reds including a GSM (that was for you Daz and J XX).

I went along to Cafe Oz after work with my friend Nicky to see what was happening. It was actually pretty quiet even though they were offering free shots to Aussies which would generally seem to indicate that you could expect quite a large number of them to turn up! I handed over my 6 euros for a Coopers Sparkling Ale (about A$10) and sat back to think about home. I guess that is the real patriotism and was quite appropriate.

Anyway, enough sad rambling. Last weekend I spent three days up in Meribel, in the Three Valleys in the Alps. It was pretty amazing as it snowed without stopping the whole time we were there. It made skiing a pretty scary event as it was hard to see even with goggles. Also, I hadn't ever really skied in powder before and certainly nothing like that so it was quite hairy. I ended up in snow to mid thigh at one stage where I just couldn't see enough to realise I had gone right off the edge of the piste. In the end, I skied Saturday and most of Sunday and handed in my skis Sunday night so as to spend Monday wandering the streets of the town.

I went up with three girls I have met here and we met up with my Aussie friend Nick (well half Aussie) who was there with a big group of Aussies over from London. We had a great night on Sunday where we had relaxing baths before heading out to a bar to all meet up and play a bit of pool before going to a really kitsch restaurant playing oompah music where we had fondue and other local specialities. Afterwards we partied on at Dick's Tea Bar where we danced until about 3am to cheesy music which was fab.

In all it was a really good weekend.

Tomorrow morning I fly to Prague to meet my friends Will and Adie. Am just a little nervous over the forecast being for between -4 and -10 degrees!

Love to all and air kisses as always.

Trials and tribulations

I got a cheery fax this week announcing that bits of my life had been found somewhere in the Paris metro. I made a long trip out to the Police depot yesterday to be handed my drivers licence, both credit cards, metro pass, sim card, receipts and misc scraps of paper and even my caffe nero loyalty card (thank heavens I won't be missing out on that free cappuccino after all).

Unfortunately, no wallet, no cash, no phone cards and no resturant vouchers but I guess you can't have everything. The main thing is I am now legally able to go out and terrorise the Parisian drivers again should the need arise. As an added bonus, I also don't have to go through the rigmarole of trying to get my photo taken at the embassy and sending my life story to Transport SA.

I now in any event have a fabulous new wallet so am feeling pretty cheery.

On top of that, just in case you had forgotten, I am skiing this weekend in the Alps and then off to Prague next week if the $2 airline I am flying with hasn't gone bust by then.

I managed to do half a yoga lesson last night to try and get some kind of muscle workout in advance of skiing so am consequently feeling a little rubbery today. Poor Kirstin arrived home at the same time as I was trying to perfom the most torturous position, the eagle, and therefore got herself quite a fright. I spared her the back bend and head stand although obviously I am normally more than capable of doing them...

Following my Xmas adventure, I am off on Thursday night to a new Caribbean bar near home with the expat group so will let you know what the pina coladas are like there.

All the best. XX

Well, its 2005

About time that I got back on here. Hope you enjoyed the photos below. Just to let you know also, if you click on one of the photos you can get to my Flickr web album meaning you can look at all the photos I have loaded on there.

Anyway, since the last time I wrote, its been a pretty busy time. First off, I had some friends around the night Alix and Amanda came down from Amsterdam to stay with me. It was a nice night althouhg the girls got here quite late as Amanda's flight got held up in Oz.

On Xmas eve we packed up and headed off for Paris Disneyland. Unfortunately, in the metro station on the way, some evil bastard opened my bag and stole my wallet containing my Xmas bonus cash, two credit cards, my Oz drivers licence and the rest. Thankfully, I realised within a couple of train stops what had happened and was able to cancel my cards before they could use them. I jumped off the train and left the girls to the trip and headed back to see whether I could find soemthing out. I also managed to get back home and pick up my spare card and cheque book before getting back on the train to go out and meet the girls.

Luckily, I managed to get over it all Ok despite later finding out that I wasn't insured for it.

I met the girls out at Disney which turned out to be a good place to be as it is almost impossible to stay unhappy out there!

We had a great day wandering around and trying out all of the rides etc. It was good weather and not too many people which was cool. We had dinner that night at the sea port themed hotel where we met father Xmas (photo can be seen on Flickr). It was a nice night and we retired back to out hotel which was the pine log cabin themed hotel.

On waking up on Xmas morning, we opened our presents including the polaroid camera which I gave to Alix and which we made good use of.

We had another good day going on rides etc at Disney and ended up having lunch in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride where they have a lovely little restaurant with huge fake lanterns and big trees and boatloads of tourists drifting past singin along, ho, ho, ho, a pirate's life for me...

A v large pina colada and three course lunch later, we didn't end up on too many rides that afternoon and barely made it thorugh dinner at Planet Hollywood that night, thankfully being able to fill conversation gaps by watching movie excerpts on the large screen TVs there.

On our last day out there we went to the new park which is a bit like Universal Studios. They had a fab stunt show which we went to but we didn't do much else as it was absolutely freezing. I did go on the Aerosmith rollercoaster though which I recommend to anyone as it was amazing. I even lost one of my little plaits in there as we spun around and ended up sporting a rather unusual hairstyle for the rest of the day.

That evening we made our way back to Paris where we had a quiet dinner out before spending the Monday with Amanda and taking her out to the airport.

For the rest of the week, Alix kept herself amused while I went back to work! First time I have worked that Xmas/ NY period and hopefully the last! Adrian flew back in from Acapulco where he spent Xmas on the 30th with his new surf board. Surprisingly, the paris metro turned out to be not very well equipped for an 8 foot surf board and associated baggage. Needless to say, Adrian got some very strange looks.

On NYE I had to work in the morning but then came back home to prepare for dinner for 9 here at my apartment. One of Al's school friends came over from London with a group of friends who all came around for a very nice casual dinner at home before wandering down to the Tuileries gardens by the Louvre, champagne bottles in hand, to see the fireworks.

Afterwards we came back here for another quiet drink and then bed.

Alix and Adrian stayed on for the weekend although staying in a hotel up the road. We managed to spend a bit of time wandering around Paris which was good.

Now its back to work again although I am off skiing next weekend and then to prague the week after before my parents and lovely cousin bec turn up the following weekend.

Well, I don't think I can manage another "great", "nice" or "good" and I am sure you can't either.

Best wishes uuntil the next instalment.