Catacombes

So being a rainy weekend, there is not a lot of nice things to do in Paris -there are only so many chocolat chauds one person can drink! We had also had a fairly big night the night before (that ended in a massive two day hangover!). So the appeal of a dark and quiet underground museum was very high. The line to get in was not that big but moved so slowly...they only allow 200 people inside at a time and it was a horrible day so I think a lot of tourists were there that normally wouldn't be. The catacombes are where the government moved heaps of bones from the old cemetries when they got too full. Now its a tourist attraction...lovley!
To get to the bones you ahve to walk down what felt liek hundreds of stairs and then through these long corridors (about 2km in all) until you see this....

It's not the most pleasnt of outings and the water table is quite high so it was a bit muddy in sectiosn which adds to the creepyness. I think the people who put the bones there had a lot of fun though. There were patterns in most of the 'walls' - one was a heart made out of skulls! You can't use a flash so these pictures aren't great but you get the idea!

BDX

I've been really egtting into my red wines since I've been in France. I used to drink a red every now and then but now I have red wine in general. So I had high expectations for Bordeaux and it lived up to those expectations! The weekend started off well with a bottle of Bordeaux wine with dinner. Which we probably took too long to drink as we had to seriously run for the train. I had forgotten we had booked first class tickets which was a nice surprise for us although I think we were a little loud for first class! We got into Bordeaux late at ngith but Rach had booked a hotel really close to the station which was perfect for us! Since I am still on a health kick before Matt gets here I got up early to go for a run and I'm so glad that I did because it was beautiful in the morning running next to the river while the sun was rising.
So we walked around the old town for a few hours in the morning - it was raining so not that pleasent before having an early lunch and hopping on the bus for our wine tour of the Medoc region.
We got taken on a tour of the vats and barrels of wine -yawn! Were told how hte wine was made - blah blah blah! Eventually we got to tast the wine! We tasted two different years of the same wine, they were completely different! One was a sunny year and the other wasn't which meant that although they were only a year apart one wine was ready to drink and the other needed to wait 5 years or so. Like a bottle of wine will last that long in my house! And how are you meant to know which year is which. Totally confusing!
Our next stop was at a gorgeous Chateau - which had a fairy princess castle with its own moat and dove cote. It was beautiful and actually looked liveable. The wine wasn't so good though! After an afternoon snooze on the bus, it was back to Bordeaux for dinner. We found a great little restaurant which served us way too much food but it was all delicious!

The next morning we decided to do a few of the sites in Bordeaux before our next wine tour in the afternoon. We climbed up the Cathedral's tower which worked off our morning croissants!
Bordeaux is quite a pretty town with its wide rivers and it does have some amazing architecture which is very french in nature, some of the buildings looked very similiar in style to the Palace of Versailles. We found an amazing food-market along the banks on the river where we picked up lunch, could quite easily have stayed there all day sampling food but alas another wine tour was beckoning!
We only went to one Chateau on this wine tour, which to me was the same as the others...blah blah blah....wine tasting! After tasting the wine at the Chateau we headed to the little village of Saint Emillon (its quite famous), the tour guide showed us around a few places before we got bored and ditched the tour to explore on our own. It was a beautiful village on top of a hill overlookign the vinyards, with really steep pedestrian streets. There were heaps of wine shops to cater for tourists and an exposition where we got to test our sense of smell. We ended our afternoon with a Vin Chaud (hot wine) which is one of the best I've had I believe and then caught the bus back to Bordeaux (one of the last people on as per usual!). The Miroir d'eau (Water mirrow) is quite famous in Bordeaux but there was no water in it when we went by the morning but since it was raining it was full of water now so we went to inspect. It is such a good idea for a tourist attraction - doubles any grand building, it was really pretty at night with lights of the building but in the day I'm sure it would be equally gorgeous.

And then it was time to catch our train home - unfortunatley in second class! We had a bottle of the finest (ok cheapest) Bordeaux wine for the trip home. Thanks Rach for an amazing Valentines weekend! hehe!

Chinese New Year!

So we ahd plans to check out the Chinese New Year parade in the 13th in Paris. But since I'm on a health kick we decided to walk the whole way - about 9km! It wasn't the most pleasant of walks but good to get the excercise!

That morning in Vincennes there was a fun-run on (we were a bit late realising otherwise I would have signed up). The water points didn't just have your standard water or Gatorade but RedBull-how awesome is that!
We eventually go the street where the parade was and found ourselves a good position to watch it go by. We kept oursleves amused by rating the Gendames (policemen) bums as they too stood around waiting - not many that were that shaggable but enough to keep us amused! Their uniforms are really really weird in the crotch area though - the zip doesn't do up from bottom to top but the opposite direction. Which means that the little zipper tag hangs down in between their legs - looking very much like you know what. Very funny, I just couldn't quite get it on my camera without looking like a stalker!
We waited for ages, we were very lucky to be at the front but there were annoying parisiennes behind us with cameras basically leaning them on our shoulders to get good shots. The parade was quite good - there were a lot of non-Chinese in the parade. Like African dance groups and stuff which was a little odd but most of the costumes were pretty good and the dragons and lions all did a pretty good show although they looked knackered by the time they got to us!

We stayed for about an hour before deciding to call it quits and head off for a nice Chinese lunch! A rather full-on weekend in Paris that didn't involve alcohol for a change!

Cirque d'Hiver

Another home weekend in Paris dawned but Rach had organised tickets to the circus for Saturday night. It's not a circus in the traditional sense - it doesn't travel. They hold it in a permanent 'theatre' and it sbeen run by the same family for ages. You can see the building behind me in this photo.
The circus didn't start well, the lions were first and both Rach and I were not impressed. The lions did not look happy and was a bit cruel to be teaching them tricks when they should be out roaming the plains. But it improved from there. The clown was very funny and a good break in between the various acts. The acrobatics were pretty amazing - absolutely beautiful some of them. I was looking forward to the horses but with the arena being so small there was not much they could do. The scariest one and the one we had the best view of (since we were at the back!) was the tight rope, the girl carrys the guy on her shoulders blindfolded and singing the whoel time - pretty amazing! Here's a photo I stole from another website!

The weirdest thing about that act was that the woman did not look strong or toned at all, she looked liked she'd just walked off the street with no training at all!

Boring Brussels

So after having a few weekends at home I was in desperate need of a weekend away so decided on Brussels since the bus was cheap - it wasn't too far away and I could tick another country off! It turned out to be a freezing cold weekend so not the best for sightseeing of which there is not a lot to do in Brussels! Also turns out Belgium is not very different to France (well Brussels anyway!), same language, similar style of building, I'm still going to count it as a different country though! I did try all the gorgeous Belgium food they have including mussels which were delicious.
The best thing all weekend was the waffles - they were amazign and you could get anything you wanted as a topping - I tried the banana, cream and choc and also the kiwi fruit one which was slightly odd but still yummy! The window displays were gorgeous you couldn't not be hungy for a waffle! That's a chocolate staue of Mannekin Pis in the window...
So the first day, I went to find my hotel room - scored an absolute bargain. It was like a little apartment - so nice to have a bathtub and to walk around with no shoes on! Little things like this impress me so much these days! I sought out the only landmark that I knew was associated with Brussels - Mannekin Pis. Its a statue of a boy pissing - Charming!)
The architecture of the old town in Brussels is very pretty - the Grand Place is gorgeous and would be really ncie in summer when they put a carpet of flowers down. I managed to get some shopping in with the winter sales still being on. Then, being as exciting as I am I decided to have an early night in with my bathtub and TV, got a take away dinner and went home! Thankgod there wasn't a lot to see otherwise I would have felt a bit guilty!
So the next day I decided to walk into the city via some of the monuments that were on the map. It was freezing cold - it wasn't snow on the ground but like icy dew, like the water in the air had just frozen and fallen to the ground.
I walked past this clock at about 11.55am and thought awesome timing -I'm going to see the clock go off (there millions of bells and little figurines that looked like they were going to move). There were other people waiting obvioulsy thinking the same as me. The clock struck 12 with abosultely nothing...I was so disappointed!
I did the chocolate museum which was alright - I saw more about chocolate at the Salon du Chocolat but it had some good displays and a demonstration. I also walked past a few of the UN or EU buildings, the Palace - I think this one was the EU parliament building, there were guards walking around the building making sure people didnt loiter.
Since it was so cold I decided to head to the Atomium which was built for the world expo in the 1980's I think. It wasn't the most exciting thing but the view from the top ball was really nice and inside was warm!
Then it was time to leave Brussels, it was a nice quiet weekend and I'm glad I had a weekend away but not the most exciting of places to visit!

Aussie Aussie Aussie!

Australia Day is probably my favourite holiday in the year (me being a true blue aussie and all!) and I was a bit miffed that France didn't celebrate it! But lucky enough I had a work from home day (code word for day off!) anyway. I think I would have preferred to be at work - watching everyone (via facebook) having BBQ's pool parties and playing cricket made me really want to come home! But Rach and I had grand plans to celebrate in style - strating with a bottle of Australian wine with dinner before heading off to our favourite night spot - Cafe Oz! I had us both draped with the aussie flag - although in this photo we look like we are from the UK (damn Union Jack!).
After consuming numerous Extra Dry which were cheaper than you cna get them in Aus we were well and truly blind and then the bar staff were giving us drinks since we were about the only people who were dressed up in the whole place! The rets of the ngiht is a bit fuzzy - not entirely sure who we got these roses off....
I think we did australia proud with the amount we drank, dancing on the tables and making a fool of ourselves.
The trip home was also quite eventful, Rachel didnt have a ticket and ofcourse while we were on the bus the ticket police hoppe don at which point we tried to hop off with a convincing story that we actually lived at this stop - I'm sure they have heard this story before and were having none of it! SO poor Rach got a fine, then we hopeped off at the next stop (which wasn't our stop) realised and hopped back on before the bus left again. Both of us woke up when we head Porte de Vincennes (Rach lives at Chateau de Vincennes) and jumped off the bus as the doors were closing. We didn't realise that we had done it again before the bus moved on. So we ended up walking home...not fun when you are cold and drunk. The worst part of this story is that the bus we take - the last stop is Chateau de Vincennes - so all we have to do is ride the bus to the end - when they tell everyone to leave - we're home! (and we've caught this bus before - we are silly!)