It has indeed been a long day. We were up at 6am today, then on the coach by 7am. We have just arrived in Paris at it is 4pm. LOOOOONNNNG. We have free wireless at the hotel we are staying at so while waiting for dinner I thought I would make the most of it. I have a room-mate called Sunny. She has A LOT of energy and is a morning person... we shall see how long that lasts. Once again I am the lone kiwi on the tour. There are about 25 Aussies on the tour, a few Americans and some Canadians. Unlike the last tour, we have all been socialising and talking amongst ourselves. We have already had speed dating to get to know the others around us on the bus. There are some very cute guys on this tour too. Had to catch my jaw with the amount of pretty man meat around. It's a bit overwhelming (but woohooo!).
When I arrived into London yesterday afternoon I felt very proud of myself. On the train I had already bought my underground ticket, so when I got off at Kings Cross I headed straight to the underground. It was really easy and I am glad that Uncle Jim had looked it up for me on the internet so I didn't have to flouder about needlessly. Anyways, I got on the underground with little fuss and was off. I quickly found my way to the hotel, checked in and it was only 2.30pm.
I dumped everything at the hotel and went for a walk along to the Bristish Museum. Of course, in a typical 'Deborah' moment, I went in through the back doors. I couldn't understand why everyone was so in awe of the museum. People go on and on and I was walking the corridors going 'yeah, it's interesting, but it's nothing special'. That was my thought until I actually ended up in the front of the museum. I stood there for about 5 minutes complete in awe of the entrance way. It was... well, look at the picture. (there was actually supposed to be a photos here but the hotel internet is super slow... so just imagine a huge central oval building housed inside a temple with two massive Roman style temples on either side.) Inside those temples are the remains of Egypts statues - huge heads and bits of pharoah bodies that were ten times my size (and that was just the heads), what the British museum had 'rescued' from Rome and Greece such as the Parthenon architecture and statues. There was an entire temple to the daughters of Neptune too. As you can imagine, I was in my element. I lost myself in there for about three hours and still hadn't seen anything.
I left the museum at 5.30pm, through the front this time, and it took me a few minutes to figure out where the hell I was. I had a meeting in the Contiki Basement at 6pm to meet the tour group. I am proud to say that I must have looked like a local or at least confident in where I was going, because two lots of lost tourists asked me if they knew where there hotels or streets were.
After meeting up in the Contiki basement, we all checked in and then most of us headed over to the London Pub just outside the hotel and had dinner and a few drinks and socialised a bit more. By 9pm I was starting to get tired so I headed back to the hotel, toasty and warm after 2 bucket sized wines (although calling it wine was being generous - after the first half a bucket I couldn't taste it anyway).
I was sharing a hotel room last night with an Aussie called Alex. Really friendly girl. My new roomie is a Korean-American (called Sunny), and I think she will be my roomie for the whole tour now.
Tonight we are heading off to the Eiffle Tower. Apparently we have tickets already booked for us to go all the way to the top. We will get to see Paris by night, and in the first floor of the tower there is an ice-skating rink set up! I am quite excited. There is also supposed to be mulled wine, champagne and hotchocolate. It's so Parisian!!! Tomorrow I am heading to the catacombs and for a little wander about with some of the others. And then at night, when most of the group is off to the Moulin Rouge, about five of us who aren't going, are heading off to a nice french restaurant for some escargo... everyone tells me it tastes like chicken, and soon I will be able to tell you the truth of it.
Love xxx
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