It is winter again, which means its time to hit the slopes. After returning with a tan from Africa, and missing the free trips provided from brokers etc through work - I was keen to get in some snow time - having cashed out for new gear last year. A group of twelve (Abby Aaron John Josie Brett Silvia Nick Darren Heidi Ryan Lisa Nigel) of us hired out a whole chalet at les Arcs 2000 in the French Alps. Place was cozy, warm and even came with a little helper who cooked us a full breakfast each morning and a three course meal each night. Food was amazing and the free house wine was even good enough to drink this time. Was good to have a place to ourselves with pubs and clubs just a small stroll away.

Only getting up once or twice a year meant most people were at the breakfast table early and ready to go for first lifts everyday, only returning at dusk and the mountain closing. Absolutely wasted, heavy party nights were pretty limited with most opting to pass out in front of the fire, beer in hand. Mountain had a good range of runs, and we found it easy to find a challenge. Buying a helmet to protect the ole noggin - we hit the snow park a few times for some attempted air time, no comment on how that turned out. But the helmet was a good investment and gives a lot more confidence esp. when doing some of the harder black (DD) runs. Not alot eventful happend as such, but had a great week boarding, getting up everyday. There was no excuses - wind, snow or aching/cramping legs.

Catching the train across to Reims made life easy, the hour and half journey flew by with the four of us falling asleep pretty quickly in the warmth of the sunshine. Picking up a rental car gave us free range of the city and surround areas, so after finding our hotel we headed straight back into the centre of town to find a restaurant for tea. Sitting outside, some of us tried the local delights of escargot (snails!). They are just as bad as I remember, but it could be just the thought of them that makes them circle around and around and around in my mouth.

Next day we drove down to Epernay to check our some vineyards and cellars. It turns out the champagne companies don’t grow their own grapes - they buy them from the surrounding vineyards and mix and treat them to their own specifications. Was all pretty interesting. We went to Champagne Castellane first, which was very old and impressive. This was a tour of the actual working cellar, mixing, bottling, ageing and labeling. There are close to 70km of cellars under the small town of Epernay.

After lunch we picked up some lunch from the supermarket and had a picnic out in the vineyards. Followed by driving through small towns and vineyards in the country side. On the way back we stopped at another cellar - Piper Heisieck. This one was much more geared for the tourist. A little buggy taking us through a pre-defined very cheesy tour of some little tunnel I doubt was ever used as a cellar.

Next day, we had time to hit up the last two touristy things in the area, dwarf mutant trees and a snail farm.

It has been a few years, and because I am to lazy and tight to go home, my Mum has taken the initiative and jumped on a plane to come visit me for a few weeks. I can't help but get the feeling it is a bit of a check up to make sure I am brushing my teeth and eating all my vegetables!

So mum knocked around London with a friend of hers (Gail) and her daughter (Nicola) for a few days doing the local touristy items before the four of them headed over Paris. After a few days I joined them, hoping back on my beloved Eurostar to join them for Moulin Rouge.

Before the show we had a pretty average dinner at a little cafe that we found near the Moulin Rouge. On the whole Moulin Rouge is a little pricey (€90), I guess it is since the movie came out, but it was a lot of fun and includes a bottle of champagne.

It is a bit of a camp classic I guess. But you go in, get seated at cosy table, served your bubble and wait for the show to start. It is a great extravaganza of dancing, singing, comedy and all manner of entertainment. With lots of dancing, fantastic costumes and numerous gorgeous topless girls its hard to take your eyes off the stage for more then a moment or two. The odd intermittent comedy, acrobatic etc acts add to the show - they must give the dancers a breather and a chance to change.

For a one off show, that you really have to do to complete the Paris experience I think it is worth it. Finishing up at about 1:30am we headed back to the hotel to get some sleep before heading across to Reims (champagne district) the next day.

Last week, I awoke to the bone numbing effects of London snow. I take a lot more interest in the weather these days as it effects my job, with cold weather comes higher demand for both gas and power and hence higher prices. A little volatility goes a long way to helping make a buck or two. In true London weather fashion, all public transport gets effected, its odd - it doesn't matter what the weather is, it is going to effect the rail ways somehow. In...
Summer: "We are sorry, the heat has caused rails to deform - the next train has been canceled"
Autumn: "We are sorry, leaves on the tracks are causing delays"
Winter: "Ice on the tracks is causing issues with the breaks, the next train has been delayed"
Spring: "The next train has been canceled due to lack of staff" - I think they take Spring off to recover some of the over time due to the slow trains in the rest of the year.

Abby arrived to check out London as a possibility of one of her overseas transfer options, so I was going to try and give it a good impression. Naturally after a mild winter she arrived during the only cold snap. Regardless, we went and saw Wicked the musical. This was most likely the best musical I had been to. It is based on the Wizard of Oz and holds true to the story but shows the path of the Witches, it very cleverly merges with the original story giving it a good twist. I would recommend it :)

The next day, we jumped on the Eurostar across to Paris, just for the night. Picked up some cheap last minute tickets so it was a good excuse to show off how easy it is to travel and it had been a month since I had gotten out of the country. Again, as in Europe - I was impressed with the trains, quick easy..its just a shame its not a tad cheaper in comparison to flights. So we jumped up the Eiffel tower at night to get some views of the city and went to the Louvre. Most of the time we just strolled around the city and entertained ourselves.

Once back in London, we did the footpath tour. Taking in most of the highlights from the street, me trying to make up the history and stories about London. With Abby pointing out each time some obvious flaw in my mythical history lesson and catching me making it up. We did manage to catch the Changing of the Guards which was one thing I had been meaning to do for the last 3 years but never actually got around to. We had a really good time, and I'm going to LA tomorrow for a week, hopefully we can get a road trip in there down to Mexico for some margaritas, tequilas, senorita, a bull fight and anything else that brings Mexico to the mind.

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.