London to Paris

Ok, so here I am, finally with a day off from all the holidaying! I am so glad we will have a recuperation week in Japan before going back home and work! I probably won't have time to catch up entirely, but Andy thinks I write for too long anyway!! Sorry!! Skim read!!Since I last wrote we have had 9 days on the Top Deck tour. We were only on one part of a bigger 24 day tour so it was a bit sad to wave goodbye to the bus today and know that they were all going off together for continued shenanigans and we were being left behind. What can I say about the tour? We may as well have done a Contiki tour! Wow, these people know how to party, but it was good to actually feel my age for a change rather than feel like the little old lady I usually feel like!I think the last time I wrote was in beautiful Mykonos, if not, sorry for repeating myself. Straight after I wrote we went down to the beach for dinner. The restaurants are RIGHT on the beach, literally. You step out of the water, across the sand and onto the deck of the restaurant. So that night we got sucked in by an old greek man standing out the front of his restaurant saying "I have nice table!" and then a little less enthusiastically "Good food". He also had a beverage hidden in a potplant. So we got a table right on the edge of the deck and at awesome food. Anyway, the point of this story is that while we were sitting there this little kitten appears from nowhere and started running up and down the beach! A cat on the beach!!! It was very funny. Ok, so the next day we had an early start flying back to Athens. I also have to tell you there were two little kittens in Mykonos airport just going around introducing themselves. We had a 5 hour stop at Athens airport, which I think I know like the back of my hand now. Bought myself some new earring from Accessorize and rang mum and had a good chat to her. We got to London around 4pm and was so excited to see Sarah at the airport!! It was really nice to see a familliar face and for her too. She took us on London - the abridged tour! We had a good go on the tube which was really no different to Torontos underground and Melbournes trains, except the network is ridiculous and we were very glad to have Sarah guide us through it! We popped up from the tube at Westminster Abbey and saw Big Ben. It really is big. She took us for a walk up to Downing Street which was really only significant because Hugh Grant was obviously the prime minister in Love Actually. We found a very nice little pub and had dinner and apple and rhubarb crumble for dessert. I totally confused the barman by asking for Ice cream AND custard. Those crazy Australians. Then we headed up to Birmingham Castle, thats if you are Justine of course, Me and Sarah actually call it Buckingham Palace. I was quite impressed, and we stood at the gate feeling quite sorry for the royals who would never have the freedom to be able to do a discreet Maccas run or anything like that. I think we are all quite happy to be commoners. We finished the night by catching the double decker bus back to the train station.
NEXT MORNING! Top Deck begins! We had to be up at 6.30 to get the coach to the ferry to take us to Paris! We met Claudia our awesome tour leader but didnt really speak to anyone on our tour because it was just a bit too ealry for all of us. On the way to the ferry we sat in front of two people -Bow and Mel - and just listened in on their conversation for two hours. When we got off the ferry we recited everything we'd learned about them by eavesdropping, and broke the ice. Great way to meet people everyone! On the ferry we also made friends with Rikki, Damo and Jackie. Most of our tour was Aussies, with a few NZers, and a handful of other places. When we got to Paris we roomed up with Mel and Bow who werent scared off. So Paris... WOW. I really hadnt thought much about Paris and really only wanted to go so I could say I'd been. Best city in the world so far. It is beautiful. I just could not stop staring at it. It is huge and and EVERY SINGLE building is beautiful. THere is no ugliness in Paris. I loved it. It's really clean too. I swear there was no litter anywhere. After we checked into our rooms we got back on the coach for a bus tour of Paris. We drove past the Moulin Rouge and stopped to walk up the steps to the Sacre Coeur, this beautiful cathedral on the highest peak in Paris - which was really not that high. Beatiful views of the city. We then drove past MArilyn Monroes home and Claudia starts telling us about how Marilyn collected teddies and how there was one hidden in a window around the next corner, so we are all craning our necks to the right trying to find this teddy in a window and Claudia yels out "Just kidding! Look to the left!" And there was the Eiffel Tower all lit up blue and flashing. The whole bus was like "Ohhhhhhh". We did a lap around the Tower which really is so beautiful. We did a bit more driving aorund the main sights and then went home to sleep!
Croissants for breakfast the next morning, of course! We had a free day to do our own thing so we took Mel with us and walked up to the Louvre took a photo and then didnt go in! Instead we went to the Musee D'Orsay which lots of people told us was better that the Louvre. I loved it because it had so many paintings and artists I'd studied back in high school when I still loved art! So I got to see Van Goghs self portrait, Monets waterlillies, Degas ballet paintings, Renoir, Toulousse Lautrec, Manet, Matisse! Ohhh it was really cool and definitely got me inspired and reminded me of how I used to love art so much before my traumatising uni days. I went around taking photos of every painting I liked which ended up being way over 100. From there we walked up along the River to the Eiffel tower stopping for crepes. We had a bit of a break under the tower, which was a good spot because it was quite drizzly and grey. Ben, I'm glad you'd told me it always rains in Paris because it did! After a while we got up and went to meet our bike tour! A whole bunch of us had signed up for this optional extra so it was pretty much all people from our tour. The tour was with a little company that runs bike tours in Madrid and Rome and a few other European cities. It was definitely a high light of the trip so far. The ride went for 4 hours and was so fun. We were all a bit freaked out because the all ride on the roads with no helmets! It just seemed so wrong. We weren't on the roads much, but it was pretty scary when we did! I kept laughing at how in Melbourne you only see cyclists in full lycra but no one wears anything but their normal clothes for riding in Paris! I even saw a lady riding in heels!!!! Our guide was a really nice girl from Texas (?) who just bombarded us with French history, but it was fascinating. She told us that during German occupation in WW2 the Eiffel Tower's elevator wasn't working and the French insisted that they couldnt fix it but the day after the French reclaimed Paris they had it back in action. Hahaha, i thought that was great. I know also know three different King Louis. So we went back to a lot of the places we'd seen on the bus the night before but got a lot more time to look and heard the history. Napoleons tomb, Invalides museum, Champs D'Elysees. Then we stopped for more crepes. My bum was very sore but I was sad to get off the bike!It finished at about 7.30 in the evening and we had to do a quick dash back up to Napoleons tomb where we were having a picnic dinner with the Top Deck crew. That night most of us went out a cabaret show at Paradis Latin, which was so fun. It was a lot more entertaining than I thought it would be. At one point this trapeze man was flying around above the audience. I was so involved I thought I was going to have a heart attack. After the cabaret show a lot of people went out, but it was like midnight and to me going to the cabaret show WAS going out!! The next morning we woke up and Bow was in bed but still wearing his shoes. We got on the bus to head for Switzerland, but I will write about that later!! I'll try to get some photos on in the next few days!