Contiki tour starts

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Our contiki tour started on Friday 8 July in London. We were planning to stay the night at the hotel that the tour started from but given the events in London we were not able to get to our hotel. So we stayed at a friends place, which meant an early start, we tried booking a cab but could not so at 5am we were walking up the road trying to hail a cab. The cabbie could not take us all the way to the hotel because the area was still all blocked, so we walked in. At every street corner we were met by police who questioned where we were going. By the time we got there we had passed about 20 cops. Then at the hotel there were at least another 20 out the front watching us all come in. We found out later that people that were in the hotel could see the bus that had blown up from their window, which gives an indication of how close we were to things, we were just extremly lucky not to have gotten there yet.

By 7am we were all checked in and on the bus, heading to Dover to catch the ferry to France. Most the day was spent driving, making a few stops along the way. Our accomodation for the 2 nights in Paris were cabins. Our first night we had welcome drinks and dinner, then drove into town to see the sights.

Today we have had the day to ourselves. We went to the top of the eiffel tower, saw the Mona Lisa in the Lourve, went to Notre Dame, and after this we are going to the Arc de Triumph.

We have met some really lovely people on the tour so far, a couple from Canberra (small world!), guys from Adelaide and Canada, a girl from South Africa and heaps of aussies!!

Tonight we are going out for dinner then a show. Tomorrow we head to the south of France to a chatteu. Should be great!

This entry has nearly killed me, french keyboards have the letters in different places, it is so hard to touch type. But as our tour manager said about Europe, it is not wrong, just different!

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Photos

In the middle of the Champs De-Elysses
Dana and I standing in the middle of the Champs De-Elysses (it's ok, the cars had a red light). This is a huge street with all the fancy & big name shops on it. In the background is the Arc De Triumphe

Parisian Caberet show
We started at a french dinner then all went to a caberet show. There were dancing girls, acrobats, comedians, a great night of entertainment - with lots of champagne of course!

At the Louvre
We saw Mona Lisa and many other paiting & sculptures by famous artists.

At Notre Dame
Amy, Me and Amy.

Comments

[Kizza]

Thank god you're all right!
Hey sweetie, I've been off sick for a few days - and was worried about you in London. Thanks for letting me know your all right! Have fun - talk soon. Love Kirril

[Mario]

What about the Frog legs?
Hey Fi, Not good to hear things didn't start out well in the UK. Hopefully things will pick up and France will be a blast. Have you tried some frog legs? Come on you know you like them :-) Make sure you eat some of their world famous pastries and a few bottle of your fav champange. Take care.