Paris and Rome

Well the past few days truly have been amazing! We've got a few to catch up on so this might be a long one.

Once we got to Paris we spent many hours exploring the city, well mostly looking for the Cityrama terminal that we 'd need to be at early the next morning. I'm telling you those streets make no sense!

The next day we ventured to Versailles which was incredibly over the top. Unfortunately it was so foggy yoou could only see a few feet in front of you. before everything turned to white. None the less the inside of the palace was incredibly extravagant. I'm talking artwork ceilings and carved walls. It was stunning beyond belief.
When we got back from the tour we explored the river and a surrounding park that was filled with trees dropping Autumn leaves. Naturally we took this as an opportunity to take many, many photo's. Though the downside to this part of the day was the ladies trying to scam us by 'finding' a 'gold' ring on the ground which was 'good luck' and a 'gift from god' for us because it didn't fit her so she would give it to us.....for exchange for some money for food of course. People like this really bring down the quality of a city.  
Later that night we had Mum's birthday surprise. We started off with dinner in the Eiffel Tower, then a cruise on the Seine and Moulin Rouge. The night was great despite my extreme tiredness by the show. Luckily for mum we didn't have time to go up the tower. While waiting for the bus to leave for the show we got to watch the Tower light up beautifully. The show was everything we expected and more (extremely over the top, in a good way).

Thursday we caught the metro to Notredame where it was crape time every time the bells chimed (my holiday my rules). Notredame is somewhat bigger than I remembered. At this point I decided that my first son would be named Quazimodo. When I told Mum of this plan she didn't seem pleased and we settled on the compromise of my next cat.
I'm not sure exactly what the temperature of Paris was on Thursday but I'm guessing like -874987492837C. It was freezing!
Thursday night we flew to Rome.

On Friday morning we journeyed down to Pompeii. This has been one of my favorite days so far!
On the way we drove through the beautiful city of Naples and stopped for photos at the ocean. 
We then visited a place where they make and sell Cameo's. There we were showed how they are carved and got o see some being made. It would have been impossible to leave the showroom without a beautiful new addition to my jewelery collection. Mum bought me the most beautiful mother of pearl Cameo that I still can't stop looking at.
For lunch we went to a cute little authentic Italian place where they fed us about three courses and then fed us some more! The Spaghetti was great!
Then, Finally, it was time for the main focus of the trip, the ancient city of Pompeii. The ruins were so fascinating! To think that the city was perfectly preserved from the year 79 A.D. That's almost two thousand years ago! There are no words to describe how amazing the city was. Also we visited a medieval brothel. Oh and we saw an alter where animal sacrifices were made! And we saw the plaster casts of a few victims.

That brings us to today, Saturday...I think...
We set out this morning to visit the Trevi Fountain, which is just 'round the corner by the way. So we got Pizza and sat by the fountain for lunch. But I dropped my pizza...devastating right. But then we got Gelati...great right. The getali were huge and fantastic so it totally made up for the lack of pizza.
(also, when in Paris=Crepe Time, when in Rome=Pizza time)
Anyway the Trevi fountain isn't what I had thought, it's bigger (of course)! So after lunch we decided just to wonder the block, which turned into an "Ohmygosh every building in this city is amazing." walk. We ended up just walking the area of the city around our hotel and finding a thousand amazing monuments/temples/ruins/huge ancient buildings/huge "new" buildings. The "new" being built in the early 20th century.
When it got dark we decided to walk our street in the other direction (we had pretty much only gone south the entire day). The street was full of people the whole way and all the shops were open 'till late (Score!). At the end of the street there was this kind of square where there were masses of people just hanging out and another huge monument thing and a huge arc thing. The whole place had a cool vibe, there was a guy placing Pink Floyd on an electric guitar over an amp and there were people protesting for animal rights. I really liked that place.
Finally we grabbed more pizza (you can never have too much pizza) and went back to the hotel.

That is such a brief run down of the past couple of days but to explain them fully would take far too long. The moral of the story is that we're both having a blast!

Laura

Days 2 & 3 - Tattoos and Stepping outside your comfort zone

22/11/11
8:18am

My haven't the past few days been crazy! After after arriving at London at 6am we carried on with little sleep to Oxford street and then explored 'the tube' subway system on the way to the Tate Brittan to see 'Ophelia'. After gallivanting around the gallery and the nearest parts of London we checked the time on for the Medieval Banquet to realize it was 2 hours earlier than we thought, only an hour and a half away. It only took half an hour to find the place by cab so we were left outside in the cold for the next hour, luckily we found a cute little Turkish cafe to take refuge in. The medieval banquet was so much fun, we were ordered to bang on the table to show our appreciation for the performers and to call "Wench!" if we wanted more drinks. As fun as it was were could barely keep our eyes open in the taxi ride home.


Yesterday we again took to the tube to explore the city. This time we headed first to The London Dungeons which was somewhat more frightening than I had imagined. It was really fun though, I guess the highlight would be the courtroom part that added some humor when the whole group was sentenced to death for being associated with an Australian when I was put on trial, or maybe it was he death boat down the Thames. I don't know, it was all good.
Next we ventured to Camden which was really cool! I have never seen so many goth/tattoo/piercing shops in my life! Aside form the minor (and by that I mean major) freakout when we thought I'd lost our bags.
Oh and we all know the saying "Go to Camden, get a tattoo."
We ended the day in Harrods which was huge! we had tea in one of the lovely cafes which was really nice. I have never seen such a large (and expensive) department store in my life! It even had it's own gift shop! Well worth checking out.

Well now we're sitting at the train station for the Eurostar to Paris. I'm a tad frightened about being in a country where I don't speak that national language and neither does mum without  guide.  Oh well, should be fun!

Woah! I got through all of that before our train was called, go me!
Laura

Day 1 - The waiting game

19/11/2011

11:40am

So we're sitting in Brisbane international airport, as we have been since about 9am and will be until 12:55. Party central indeed. I'm feeling okay considering. Perhaps I should have skipped the afterparty though, or maybe followed someone who didn't get lost there. Oh well. I slept a few minutes on the plane here which was nice if not too short lived. I'm pretty excited to get on this plane to singapore and just sleep the whole time. Brittany's lollies have been keeping me going, tank you Britt!

So yesterday, on the worst possible day of the year, two of our three cameras decided to poop themselves. We had decided to buy a new lense for the SLR in duty free but apparently if you want the lense you have to get the camera too. So instead we got two new ones that were cheap together and the boys will get them for Christmas.

The only other moderately interesting thing thus far is that we just saw an American air force plane land and we're waiting to see if a bunch of military men walk through the airport. I'm not going to lie, the plane was huge and pretty scary.

Anywho mum's gone to get pizza and ice tea! So all in all I'm in a good mood despite my lack of energy.

Laura

The Countdown

Well it's 12 days until Mum and I set off and all final preparations are taking place. Every now and then we think of something that we still have to organise, but things are mostly taken care of. We're very excited, I'm trying my best to cram study Italian. However I seem to be failing to remember anything other than the essentials; "where are the toilets?", "Does this have meat?" etc. I'm thinking of do the bulk of my packing tomorrow, is that to early? I'm a list person so I've already written a list of what I need to pack. If I forget something I'll be annoyed to say the least.

Well that's enough of me talking about nothing until we hit the road,
Laura