One way to the UK?

On the first day, before going rafting, we walked into town to the CoOp and other shops (Swiss Army Knife shop, cheese shop where we bought brie and some other tourist shops). At the CoOp we all bought some chocolate….. and Lis bought ONE of EVERY block of chocolate they had in the store, so people back in Alice Springs make sure you hit her up for chocolate once she gets back to town!!! Following the shopping trip down the main (and only) street in Lauterbrunnen Lis returned to the campsite and Mara and I stopped off for a Hot Chocolate, Mmmmm.

Unfortunately  while Mara and I were freezing down the river, Lis had her paragliding cancelled due to the stormy weather rolling in. We were going to train up to Jungfrau Joch, the highest peak in Europe on day two, but as it snowed overnight as was cloudy as anything we got told not to bother waking up at 0430 as it was pointless going up the mountain for no view so that kind of sucked. Following hot showers to warm up after the rafting and swimming, we got ready to go out again – this time heading to the Hotel and Restaurant Oberland along with Craig and Fran to have a FONDUE! My god I have never seen so much cheese in one pot – we each had the classic fondue which was 200g EACH of cheese. Craig, Fran and I also shared a recommended white wine which went down nicely, especially as the cheese was really quite very strong! No idea what type it was, but we struggled to get through it all! Still a great experience to add to the list!

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To begin with, Germany has weird keyboards and the z and y keys are swapped around so forgive me if some of the words seem weird as I’m just going to type everything to try and fill you in on our trip so far!

So the travelling party consists of myself (planner haha), Elissa and Mara. On Friday 31 August we woke up early, stuffed the last few items into our packs, threw out a few more items from the packs (including my black fleecy jacket as it wouldn’t fit easily) and then headed for the tube station, where we caught the underground to Waterloo Station. From Waterloo Station we caught the Eurostar from London to Paris, and then Paris to Nice. In London we got there exactly 30 minutes before the train departed, so rushed through securiy and customs as fast as possible, and then waited for the train to be ready for boarding! Eurostar was quite nice, and we had a four-seats to ourselves around a table which was nice (and what we booked). On arriving in Paris, we had 45 minutes to get from Gare Du Nord (North) to Gare De Lyon (South), so we ran from train, lined up to get our RER (Paris metro) tickets and then went through the gates to find the metro train… well Mara & I went through the gates, but Lis got stuck on the other side!!! She put her ticket in, but the gates opened and closed really quickly and she didn’t get through them!!! So she had to run and find a station helper to get her through, and we were panicking a little at this stage about the time! So we ran downstairs to get the RER, and then on the actual platforms the letter signs disappeared! So we watched our train depart, and then had to wait for the next one, onlz 5 minutes behind. So we got to Gare De Lyon and rushed up all the stairs thinking we would just make our train… but once again we had to wait in lounge area looking at the TV screen for our platform to come up! Finally did, and we were on our way to Nice! We arrived in Nice in the late-afternoon, which was nice as it gave us time to look around the Hotel area and to visit the beach — pebble beach mind you, so not the nicest thing around but the ocean colour was absolutely amazing!

I’m doing pretty well with this weird keyboard! Just taking me ages to type!

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Well, I cant believe I forgot to write about it, but on Tuesday night after work Mara, Lis and I headed into the city to see the musical QUEEN - We Will Rock You! I got Lis her ticket as ... [Continue reading this entry]

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TO begin with, let me just say that last week flew by in a hectic rush and this week has been much the same - very little time to play on the internet and update my blog (so not good!). Well, ... [Continue reading this entry]

Okay so just when you think you've caught up on a little bit of life that's passed by, you lost track of time once again! Shows that I'm obviously busy enough over here for the moment hey! Well I left off ... [Continue reading this entry]

This week outside of work was pretty uneventful from what I can remember! It seemed to fly by! Although on Monday morning at 0900 I had my appointment with the National Insurance Number centre people and all the forms etc ... [Continue reading this entry]