France & B'days

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France
Karen Bowden Here we go again the next camp K and K.We have so much to tell you all, so get that cup of coffee, put your feet up and let us entertain you. London has been good to us, kaz has survived her first 4 months of teaching her little angels and she only has 2 months to go. It is fascinating to watch what kaz has been up to while teaching. Teaching 3 year olds to dance to aggadoo, nut bush, bus stop and so on. In addition, most of these kids first language is not English, some of them cannot speak English at all, but all of them can sing aggadoo.

Police ride vespers, it costs me $100 Aussie dollars for a haircut, tea really is the national drink, people do not wash up in the sink, they wash up in buckets in the sinks. They have baked bean with there k.f.c and not mashed potato and gravy. No one speaks glances or looks up on the tubes. The English do like to whine (a lot) and about everything. The weather is not that bad, but even the English whinge about it. They go down escalators on the right hand side. In the middle of winter it does get dark here at 4pm, but then in summer it is light until 10pm.Snake bites the drink are not originally from Australia and they should not be drunk, and yes Kaz does miss her Bundy and coke. We have headed to the theatre a few more time; we have seen Chicago, which was quite good. Bent the play, which was very full on, not a light-hearted show at all. Mental note if it comes to Australia. Billy Elliott, which we saw for our Birthdays, was brilliant. we both think it is on par with the lion king, so when it comes to Australia go and see it Went on a road trip on the weekend of my Birthday trying to fit in a bit more of this country as our time here is ending.

This is the difference between Kaz and I. Her 30th Birthday was a night out. A lovely dinner then we hit the pubs, a 5 am finish for her and her friends, In saying that she was really lucky to have had Ali one of her friends who flu over from Aus, another friend who came from out of London for her special night, and a few friends who live in London. It was great that we could all help to celebrate her 30th.My birthday; we go on a road trip that is the difference between us.

We hit the post Christmas sales in London, I do not know why because we cannot afford anything, but it was necessary to do apparently. Camden markets are still a favourite of ours and we have been back there a few times.

What to say about Paris, the city of arrogant people, mutton dressed up as lamb. Amazing cityscapes, lots of shopping and a history of war, love and reinventing itself. An intriguing place that kept us interested for the 3 days that we were there. I was very much in my element and I believe I took enough photos to prove that. We saw the Eiffel Tower by night, by day, it might just be a big radio receiver but for the enthused tourist it is a must see and a must take a million photos. We sat, and were dumb founded by the insanities of the mother of all round abouts at the Arc de Triomphe.There is an accident on this five non-lane roundabout every 14 seconds. That does not surprise me, not one bit. It is hard to take everything in when we are travelling. A lot of it is very surreal Standing at the Arc de Triomphe looking down the Champs Elysees, looking across to the Eiffel tower, standing outside the Louvre or Notre Dame. This is really happening; it is an amazing feeling and takes a little time to sink in.

We were lucky enough to be able to head to Paris with two friends of ours who live in London, one of which is English and could speak a little French, which saved us from eating raw meat in a restaurant one night. It was also good because there were three of us to keep Kaz entertained on the Euro star. I still cannot afford that play station that she wants.

We were harassed by the street sellers at Sacre Coeur, which was a bit daunting but did not take away from the amazing old church or the views of Paris from it. It was a great way to finish our weekend in Paris. In saying that I have to also tell, you that we missed the euro star by a good hour. I also have to add that it was my fault because I read the arrival time not the departure time opppssssss.But the disaster was averted by some quick but very pleading talking between the euro star staff and us. Thankfully, for me especially we got our tickets changed for no charge and we were able to get on the next train. I could talk about Paris for ages, it is an amazing city, and even the rainy Saturday that confronted us was perfect for black and white photos. It was a great relaxing weekend; we walked for most of the time from site to site. Hit the metro of a night when we headed towards the Moulin rouge. Kaz became a bit of a French-speaking champion and got us around on the metro very easily. The parisans are lazier then Londoners when it comes to the train system. There are about 100 stops across a city that is only 12 kms from one side to another.

So from one side of France to the other, and we were lucky enough to be able to go to Paris at the start of December and then from the 24th of December we jetted of to Geneva and headed to Chamonix in the French alps for our white Christmas, and a week of snowboarding. Chamonix is a very cute snow resort town sitting at the base of mount Blanc, highest mountain in Europe I believe. We found our way to our hostel settled in and headed into the town for a look around. Got all our gear from the hire place and we were ready to hit the slopes. Shame there was not any snow. Nothing is more disheartening for a snowboarder or a skier then to head to the French Alps and see hardly any snow on the mountains. To find out that they had the snowmaking machines working over time to get the slopes ready for the smaller then ever ski season. I do not want to get on the global warming bandwagon, but what the hell are we doing to this planet. The seasons are all over the place. The polar ice cap is melting. They are covering glaciers with thermal sheeting to try to stop them from melting; Islands are disappearing under the sea due to rising sea levels. Summers are hotter, winters are warmer, leaves stay on the trees through out winter, they say in 20 years the alps will be a year round summer resort area with no ski season at all. It is raining in the artic circle and turning the snow to sludge, which is devastating there, tourist revenue. What is this generation doing, and why do so many people think that they cannot do there part to help in a scary future that we are all heading towards.

Anyway back to our holiday in the Alps, we had an amazing Christmas Eve dinner, consisting of about six courses of French food. Our Christmas day was spent on the slopes on a sunny winter’s day. I attempted to snowboard for the first time (yeah that went well) I have never spent so much time on my butt. I want to know who decided that it would be a good idea to strap both feet onto a single board throw yourself onto the snow and firstly attempt to get upright and then head down a hill and stop without taking out innocent onlookers. So that was my day one. I did have kaz attempting quite patiently to teach me what to do. I cannot say I was a very good pupil. Im not used to not being able to do things (poor kaz).She loved being on the slopes again; it has been a few years between boarding for her. I have never seen her up and out of bed so eagerly every single morning, even day 3 and 4 when the muscles are screaming out for her to stop. Her shoulder that she left on the slopes after a small stack, the bruises that were nearly all meshing together like a deco parshe of injuries. All of these things should have caused a small amount of tenderness and perhaps a sleep in, but no not at all she was up and heading to the slopes every day, and with a smile upon her face like a child waking up on Christmas morning.Im also not used to her being better then me at something. All in all kaz was in her element, and even though I may sound like im not sold on the snowboarding thing, I will be going back for another attempt.

Other then that and even though there was not as much snow as all of us had hoped, the experience of the Alps is still an experience savoured. The views from atop a mountain in the Alps, gives you glimpses of three countries, of glaciers, the snow capped mountains still amazing. Getting to the mountains peaks is an experience in itself, the gondolas that head from one peak to another with only a cable holding you up is fasinating.the ancient technology that boggles the mind in how they did it.
So back to the snowfields, we were lucky in one way for the amazing blue skies that we had for the first 4 days, no snow fell, but it was lovely to be on the slopes. Day 3 for me saw me get the stack of the week award as my head took the brunt of the fall. I found my camera a little safer for the next couple of days as I took photos up on the slopes.

Kaz and crew hit a few different areas over the next couple of days. The favourite being a mountain called la berent,which not only had a great black run apparently for the snowboarders, the views were spectacular, and I was more then happy to sit at the top and take photos. Kaz’s stack was on an area called grand Monet. Her story is that she hit an ice patch which caused her to fall heavily on her shoulder (hmmm what ever) She did do some real damage, but nothing a bit of deep heat didn’t fix and back on those slopes she went.

New Years Eve was a quite affair. We had another 6-course meal then headed into the town centre, which had radomes letting off fireworks where ever and whenever they pleased. This put an interesting spin on fireworks on New Years Eve. It was definitely a little different then Sydney’s fireworks. What a place to celebrate heading into 2007; the French Alps. 2007 is looking great.
The start of 2007 also saw a huge dump of snow on Chamonix, changing the whole landscape of the area, it snowed for 24hrs.The down side of that was that the ski fields were closed because of the blizzard and kaz didn’t get to hit the slopes after the snow fall, we had to leave the following day. Instead, we had snowball fights, made snow angels, went to the kid’s area and went taboggining.We made a very cool toboggan cam, which we are going to put on the web at some stage. I fitted in a couple more photos after the snow fell. Sadly, we then had to leave and head back to England.

Now we are busy trying to organise the rest of our trip, with a very small budget. At this stage, we are heading to Egypt in February, morocco and into Spain in April and then randomly head through Europe and into Africa. Then who knows Asia possibly. We are lucky to have got this far with our planing; it is so frustrating not having the internet connected at home.
Anyway, ive had enough of typing; I hope you have enjoyed our latest k and k addition. We hope this letter finds everyone well and that 2007 has kicked off with a bang.

Love Kris & Kaz

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Photos

no snow angels here
kristy lost this snow ball fight,can you tell.the snow is harder in the french alps

happy new year
seen we were in the area,thought we would stay for new year as well.

xmas in the french alps
as happy as pigs in poo

merry xmas
now this is a perfect white xmas

hold on
yeah,this is what i call riding the slopes.