Parents in Paris

Picnic in Parc de Sceaux
Fondue in St Michel and then a walk along the Seine.
Fireworks at Versailles, the train saga where we lost my Dad!
Drinks on the hill at Sacre Coeur

 

Armona Island, Portugal

L'Escala - Spain

I met my parents at the airport at what seemed like the crack of dawn and took them 'home' to see my place and unpack before our train to Figures in Spain on the TGV. Very pretty trip along the coast. We were meeting the rest of the Mead side of the family at a house at L'Escala. Thank god I brought Rach with me! The next day was dedicated to Sangria drinking, we started at a bar on the beach but decided we could make it better and cheaper at home. Container below was full of Sangria. Some of us less seasoned drinkers will never drink Sangria again. We did get out and explore the coastline which was beautiful and got a lot of sunbaking done even though the pool was freezing cold! Another crazy travel mishap - ended up going to the wrong train station. Do we ever get it right!!!! We were already looking nervous in the back of the car here!

Italia Take 2 - Milan and Venice

Friday night flight out of Paris - there are strikes but still manage to get to the airport in time. So much stress! Woke up in Milan - one of the most boring town ever. Had gelato for brekky - starting the theme of the weekend. Gelato solves all. Decided to leave early and stop at Verona on the way to Venice. Got sidetracked by the look of a pretty lake out of the window. Had no idea where we were.Finally found a sign that said Desenzano. The Lake was beautiful and we found a little jetty to sunbake on and drink luke warm wine from the bottle. Laughing hard at trying to make my boobs look bigger :) Then on to beautiful Venice - stayed in a hotel in the centre, lovely little window sill for a piccy! Trying on our made in china venetian masks on - broke it before we even left Venice :( On the canals in the rain.. it was pissing down almost all day. Looking like drowned rats overlooking St Mark's square. Eating Gelato in the pouring rain on Murano Island.Makes anyone smile. Blowing away at Murano Island in front of the glass sculpture. Then we met Chewie and Lisa for dinner and copious amounts of Bellinis - the bar had to go into their cellar to get more bottles and we drank it warm after that. Catching the very last boat home with the Bridge of Sighs in the background. Very hungover and grumpy early morning flight back to Paris! No gelato to soothe hangover = very sad Nikki.

More Visitors

Yay, more visitors in the form of Lisa and Chewie and Jon and Stacey. And all in Paris at the same weekend! Amazing coincidence! Met Chewie and Lisa on a sunny Friday at the Louvre before heading up to Sacre Coeur. We did lots and lots of walking, all the way down the Champs Elysees from the top of the Arc de Triomphe to the Tuileries for a picnic french style. Also did a long walk through the Luxembourg Gardens and to the best crepe place in the world - even though all of the tourists got kebabs anyway! So good to show off my city :) Was lucky enough to catch up with Chewie and Lisa again in Venice the next weekend.

London Town

Took the Euro-star from Paris to London, incredibly hungover from drinks for Rach's birthday. That day was Kate & Wills wedding - watched it online. So close to being there to see it! Really easy to catch, go through customs before you leave - best way to travel. Got up early to go see Westminster Abbey, only got as close as the above picture - tooooo many people! Had a lovely walk through Hyde Park and saw Kate & Will take off in a helicopter (miles away though!) Then went out with Kelly to a popular night spot. Saw a guy snort cocaine from his credit card right next to me....they are called loos! Had a lovely lazy Sunday reading the paper in English followed by pork pie's for dinner on the Euro-star on the way home - absolute bliss!

Berlin

So I seem to have completely missed out on writing a blog from when I went to Berlin- I loved Berlin so not sure how I forgot. I arrived in Berlin after a late flight from Paris on Friday (15th April). I stayed in a lovely hostel and had an 8 bed room all to myself on the first night which was nice! My first day in Berlin I had booked a bike tour outside the city (bit sick of touring round boring monuments!).

The bike tour was to Potsdam which was only about 45mins away on the train. There were only 5 of us on the tour which was great because it meant we could almost pick and choose what we wanted to see. We rode through the town first and rode under the Jager gate – the inspiration for the Jagermeister logo! I wasn’t quick enough to take a photo of it though!
There are lots of palaces and the parks and lakes were beautiful. One of the more famous palaces was Sans Souci (means No worries).

It was quite modest for a palace; it looked like you could actually live in it. It turned into a lovely sunny day so we went to a beer garden for lunch. Beer and schnitzel – delicious! I love German food! We also went for a tour through the Cecilienhof Palace which was where the Potsdam Conference was held at the end of WW2 where they decided deal with Germany so they didn’t start another War!

After getting back to Berlin, I just had enough time to head ‘home’ for a shower and a change for a pub crawl. I managed to convince one of the girls who was staying in my room to join me. The pub crawl was so much fun. Immediately met some great people - yay for single travellers –we’re so much friendlier! Pretty much the whole group were ‘expats’ working in Europe and travelling on the weekends – also meant they were around my age. The pub crawl consisted of visiting 4 pubs with free shots in each pub and drink specials and we got a carton of beer to share while we waited for everyone.

Absolute bargain for 12euros! Had a fabulous time and definitely must do more pub crawls in other cities. I didn’t stay too long at the last club but still only got home at about 1am!

The next morning I had another bike tour of the city booked in so I had to drag my hungover self out of bed to be on time. Luckily there was a Starbucks nearby and I managed to consume enough coffee to get me through. The bike tour was great – saw all of the major sites.

Brandenburg gate, Holocaust memorial, Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, where Hitler’s bunker used to be, Parliament buildings, Tiergarden.

It was great to see and touch all this history that you learn about in the classroom. We had lunch at a beer garden in Tiergarden. Another beer and schnitzel – yummy! We spent a lazy afternoon sitting on the grass on the island of museums.

Now when we got back I looked at my watch and it was 4.30pm and I needed to be at the airport at 6.30pm. I thought I had enough time to quickly go see the eastside gallery before I went to the airport. So hopped on the train out there and the next time I look at my watch it was 5.30pm and I was on the other side of Berlin – I don’t know where the time went! SO long story short I ended up missing my flight and having to pay 250Euros for a flight out the next morning at 6am which meant another night in Berlin and a very early start. A very expensive lesson to learn! It was very lucky that I had such a fabulous weekend otherwise I would have bawled my eyes out about it.