New Zealand flag, scarf and All Blacks jersey in hand we headed to Cardiff to watch Wales get cruched by the New Zealand All Blacks (at Rugby Union - For those who don't know what sport the ABs play). We caught a £1 bus after work which took us from London Victoria and dropped us off in the heart of Cardiff about 4 hours later.

We stayed with Steve and his girlfriend Jane. Steve is a good mate of mine from high school in Bangkok, Thailand. He is living about half an hour out of Cardiff so it was easy for us to get to the game. Steve's place is nice and relaxing, as we had nothing to worry about and nothing to do. So I am looking forward to going back for Christmas. It was really good to catch up on old times, seemed especially good for me as I didn't seem to remember half the stories he was telling.

Saturday morning we headed into Cardiff, initially Carmen and I were going to do some sightseeing and the normal tourist things such as go through Cardiff castle, but the weather was that bitterly cold, we deicided to join Steve, Jane and Steve's friend Gareth at the movies, we went and saw The Incredibles. It was a bit of a laugh. When that finished we headed around the corner and went into the stadium.

After a bit of fluffing about, the national anthems started. None of the crowd sing out anthem as no one knows the Maori words (very embarrassing), then the Welsh belt out their anthem and then the game began. We couldnt see the score board and tried to keep track of the score, but by the end we had lost the plot and didn't really know with any confidence who had won. Few moments later we were flooded with relief to learn we had won by 1 point. Few drinks around town, some chinese take-away and back home to crash.

The next day Steve and Gareth took us around the main highlights of the surround areas, it was very cold and a tad misty/rainy so we stayed in the car and did our sightseeing from there. We are starting to think that travelling is a thing best done in the summer. He took around some old Welsh castles, up some hills for some nice views and around the coast. It was a good whirl wind tour.

We ended up at the pub having some local brews and some homemade pies before jumping back on our train back to London. Good weekend, and we are looking forward to heading back for Christmas.

Sunday morning, we packed up and left our shoebox of a hotel room. The sky was clear and blue, so we headed via underground to the Arc de Triomphe. Now the London underground is pretty naff, it is old and there are always delays. The Paris underground is quite amazing, they have tried to create a tube stop within 500 meters of any point in the city, and this results in hundreds of stops. BUT, for some reason it smells like the tube goes through the sewer system, and the walking tunnels smell like urine, it was quite disgusting.

We went to the Arc de Triomphe on Sunday morning, so there wasn’t much in the way of traffic. But you could see the mayhem developing even with such few vehicles. There are 13 roads leading into the round about, the road around the Arc de Triomphe is about 40 meters wide, so about 10 lanes wide, with no markings what so ever. I really think it would be a laugh to see it in full swing at rush hour Monday after work.

Lunchtime, randomly strolling the streets we started to get hungry. We noticed that there were large queues at ever bakery we passed. Then the thought occurred to us ‘we are in France, lets go to a French bakery’. We window-shopped until one of the bakeries queue had died down and dove in and bought our food. We ate inside the bakery and watched the locals. You know how you stereotype French as always having a baguette (bread stick), well they do. These large queues were for one thing, baguettes. Each person came in, ordered a single 90cent baguette and walked out. After lunch walking back down the street we actually noticed that everyone was going somewhere with a baguette in their hand, it was simply amusing. It would be like someone coming to New Zealand and everyone actually did have a sheep in his or her backyard.

Next on the itinerary was the Catacombs. However, open arriving at the Catacombs, we were presented a sign, which stated that they were closed over winter (November – March). Gutted.

So we had an afternoon to kill before our flights back to London, what to do?! Out comes the trusty lonely planet. Top of the list was Moulin Rouge with associated red light district. So we sped across town, looked about, wasn’t much to see on a Sunday afternoon, but you could get the idea. Of note it costs $175 euro to see a show and get a meal at Moulin Rouge. We walked around the streets, found a crowd and followed it. We ended up a hill at the Sacre Coeur Basilica. It is situated in a very arty part of town. When I say arty, I mean there were hundreds of artiest painting, doing drawings, sketches and selling their wares. It was pretty interesting.

We got on our flight and was home by about 10:30pm. A good weekend.

Paris is a city of culture, refinement and sophistication. I however, am not. Although the Louvre was very interesting, 90% of it was wasted on me and I ended up playing spot the famous piece of art and admiring the building more than the art.

After the Louvre we strolled down the river Seine to Notre Dame. If I was thinking, we would have a photo of me with a jumper down my back swinging from a balcony pretending to be the hunchback of Notre Dame. Alas, it did not occur to me at the time. Carmen did however try to become one with the stone work. The cathedral is nice, but I think over the last 6 months we have been spoilt for churches, chapels and cathedrals to the point where I said “if this wasn’t free, I’d feel riped off”. Given that it only took about 45 minutes to look about inside and out, and we were unable to get up the Eiffel tower the day before. We were both keen to head back to it and tackle it head on.

Now I don’t think Carmen is able to judge size. The Eiffel is huge, it is more than 300 meters high. That is massive. To get a quick idea, I dug up some facts: 7,000 tonnes of steel, 50 tonnes of paint, the base covers 2.5 acres, 300.52 meters high, 2.5 million rivets, and its brown. I was very impressed and think a trip to Paris just to see the tower is worth it. We are nearing the dying stages of autumn on this side of the world, infact I think winter is at the door. So it was pretty chilly in Paris, about 3-8 degrees most days. As we approached ‘Le tour Eiffel’ it started to drizzle, and the wind was picking up so it was very cold and we were even murmuring to each other about not going up because of the cold. But there was no way in heck we were coming to Paris and not going up the Eiffel tour. The queue to go up had subsided dramatically due to the cold, we opted for the stairs instead of the elevator, paid our 3.50 euro and started our ascent. We paused only briefly at the first level (57meters), just to continue up to the 2nd level (115meters). This is as far as you can walk up, at this point you need to pay an extra 3.10 euro and catch an elevator to the top. The have alot of interesting facts and events about the tower, including how much it sways in the wind, thermal expansion etc (geeks :+) ). Up we went. To the top (276meters – the rest is the spire). The view of Paris is quite spectacular. As a little French girl said as she was lifted up to look over the safety rail 'Ou La Laa'.

The sun was setting, and it pretty much concluded our day, we had been walking at a steady rate for about 12 hours straight minus lunch. We hit the sack and was asleep in minutes.

A sleep in on Saturday all the way to 8am (yes that feels like a sleep in when you are used to getting up at 6.30am), before heading off to be ‘cultured’ (or at least pretend to be) at the Louvre. You’ll see by some of our photos that we failed on taking in the full cultural aspect, but I thought we made a pretty good effort…

The entrance to the Louvre is under a great big glass pyramid which, although not in keeping with the rest of the building looks fantastic. There are also a number of smaller pyramids and an inverted pyramid (though we didn’t find that until right at the end). Those that have read Dan Brown’s ‘The Da Vinci Code’ will have heard of these pyramids, and throughout our journey through the Louvre we were trying to piece together the visuals with things that are explained in the book. Those that haven’t read it – definitely a book I’d recommend.

We descended the staircase under the giant pyramid and upon picking up the map, and looking at the building, it didn’t take long to discover that we were going to have to prioritise otherwise we would be there for weeks!!! Luckily for us budding art-buffs, the map featured all the highlights, so we decided to try and cover most of the museum just hitting the main points along the way. Not having the patience for waiting the 1.5hrs until the next tour, we went with the Audio Guide option (you’ve all seen them) and ended up being highly informed throughout our travels.

The big highlight was getting to see the most famous lady in the world up close and personal. Well not really up close (about 3 meters), but if you are going I would recommend getting there early as by the time we left the Louvre at lunchtime the cues were quite big. Aaron decided that while all the Japanese tourists were ignoring the ‘No photos’ sign that it wasn’t beneath him to ignore it either. (Aaron – There maybe thousands of photos of the Mona Lisa, but this one is mine)

My favourite bits were the sculptures gallery (I find sculptures more interesting than paintings) and the Mesopotamia section. We also found the ceilings were just as if not more impressive than any of the art.

Aaron - You all know this statue (Venus de Milo), but did you know she had builder cleavage.

What better way to spend a weekend than in Paris? Well that’s what we thought, and when Aaron found a cheap flight and hotel deal a couple of months ago, we decided there were definitely boxes to be ticked in Paris.

Leaving late Friday arvo, I was definitely excited, and even though Aaron was a little more subdued then I – he was definitely excited too. I could tell by the way that he’d spent a couple of his ‘so-called’ work hours preparing an itinerary for the weekend to capture all the main sights.

First on the agenda upon arriving in Paris was to check into our hotel then head for the Eiffel Tower to climb it’s hundreds of steps and take in Paris from above. The checking into our hotel happened but, alas, the climbing did not… Arriving at the Eiffel Tower at about 9.30pm, we were disappointed to see that it had closed for the evening, and annoyed at the tour book that had said it was open til 11pm. Still managed to take in it’s size (Aaron and I differed a bit on this one, he thought it was huge and while I agreed, in all honesty I thought it was probably going to be bigger than it was) and splendour all covered in lights though.

Then it was back to our hotel for a well earned rest as afterall, we had contemplated climbing all those steps and the thought of it in itself was hard work. Just as an aside I thought I’d tell you a bit about our room… It was a shoebox! It had 2 single beds together as a double but made up as single beds – our theory was that they probably couldn’t fit a double bed through the door and into the room, as there was definitely not enough room to have the single beds separated no matter which way you looked at it. Also, it had a bathroom that made you feel like you were in a caravan, where there was about 20cm between the toilet and the shower (so that when you sat on the toilet your feet were in the shower), and most of that space was taken up by the sink – lucky the door opened outward into the room as there was hardly room to turn around, let alone swing a cat. But it was clean and relatively nice so shouldn’t really complain, especially since we were paying a pittance for it compared to the prices displayed downstairs on the wall.

Big hello to Nick and Lisa, that have joined us from NZ in the kiwi assault on the UK (yes the Kiwi's are taking over)!!! Lisa is studying at Cranfield Uni and Nick is working at a pub while he hunts for a 'proper' job. They came down for the day last Saturday and it was nice to be around kiwi accents.

We met up at Camden Market and spent the morning checking out the stalls, then making the most of the cheap variety of food available. In the afternoon we headed to Westminster Abbey - only to find it is closed Saturday afternoons, so we went to check out Covent Garden and see a few street performers. With the sun setting, it was decided that we would shoot back to our flat for a quick bite then off to Battersea Park to see some fireworks for Guy Fawkes.

The Guy Fawkes display was probably very amazing, well at least the bits we saw were and it was at least 20 mins long. Unfortunately visability was reduced by a bit of light drizzle and it was announced that it was the 'best firework display that I never saw.'

We were amused by the lack of parking skills displayed by the motorists while we stood waiting for the display to start. One car that was at least a foot to long for the park (even if a crane had picked it up and tried to put it in), tried parallel parking, then finding that 'parking by braille' wasn't working for him, decided to park using the bulldozer technique of nudging (not so gently) the nice new mini out of the way. Considering there were at least 80 people turned round watching the lack of skills this motorist exhibited, leaving to find another park was probably a good idea.