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Published: January 8th 2009
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Regent St
They closed it down for us Christmas time around London
The lead up to Christmas has been great, London has really put on an amazing show of lights and decorations, thank goodness because the darkness and bad weather would have been much worse without all the lights. We have had a busy month, starting with Anne-Laure who came to stay in London for the weekend. We went to the shops and had fun soaking up the Christmas atmosphere around London. They closed down Regent St and Oxford St one day so we had heaps of room to wonder around the shops.
We had a fab Christmas party on the 13th December with a group of Aussies we met while on our travels around Europe. They put on a huge Christmas dinner with all the trimmings and two delicious deserts. We had secret santa prize giving and enjoyed cracking the bonbons (crackers).
Turned out to be a little crazy after the two games of Kings.
Christmas in a frigin castle!!!
The hightlight of the month would have to be when Dales parents arived and we all took off to Scotland for Christmas in a castle. What an experience!
Carbisdale Castle
The castle we stayed in for christmas eve and christmas night now I can say that I have stayed in a 118 year old castle for Christmas.
We left Edinburgh on the 23rd and met up with our tour guide, a rough as nails Scot who called himself Graham from Clan Gordon. We made our way north towards Fort William, Glencoe, Loch Ness and Inverness and up though the highlands. This turned out to be a longggg...... way away and yet once we got to Inverness we still had another 1 and half hours drive to the castle.
Loch Ness was fantastic and had a beautiful ruined castle and our guide was sure that Nessie existed in the Loch and had may stories telling us why. Loch Ness is around 300m deep and can fit two Eifle Towers in it and you still would not see the top. We were unlucky to find no snow, Graham telling us it was the first time in 18 years that it hasn't snowed at this time in Scotland.
The castle was all lit up and it looked amazing pirched up on a hill, once inside it was huge and was exciting to find ourselves lost in the many corridores and hallways.
The castle was said to be haunted by a few ghosts, although I didn't see any, random people would suprise me when walking thought the hall ways. On Christmas Eve we had Scottish folk dancing which was great fun and stayed up to midnight to do the count down to christmas.
Woke up quite early as Dale was so eager to open the Christmas presents. We sat around our bunks and opened them all then had breaky and took off for a drive to the river Shin and the beach. (Just like home aye the beach on a nice sunny day). We got back to the Castle and had christmas lunch at 4pm, the food was great, an improvement on every other meal we ate at the castle. (hostel food). That night we had some more folk dancing then headed to bed.
The next day we were up early to drive back to Edinburgh on the way we went past a 5000 year old burial ground. We also went to a well which had healing powers. We also went past the Forth Railway Bridge, which was ranked 8th wonder of the world. The 2.5 km. (1.5 mile)the world’s
The Royal Mile
A pub down the Royal Mile the main street in Scotland first major steel bridge ranks as one of the great feats of civilization.
We had fun the next day visiting Edinburgh Castle we tried some great traditional food such as haggis, and we were ready to make your way back to London.
2009 In Paris
We celebrated New Years in London then the next day headed for Paris. Yay I was so happy to be back in Paris and excited to see snow and frozen ponds on the way. We arrived and headed to our 4 star Hotel which was a huge improvement on the hostel accommodation we had in Scotland. It was freezing, on the first day we woke to snow but still managed to get out and about. We took Donna and Tony to all the amazing sights then headed back to the Hotel to relax. The next day the clouds disappeared so we took the opportunity to head up the Eiffel Tower which was new to Dale and I as well. We ended up waiting in a freezing cold line for 2 hours before getting up to the 2nd floor. There was then another 45 min wait outside on the second floor
to get to the top, we all decided the views were already good enough. (TOOO Cold, I have never been so cold before). We then went to the Sacre Coeur which I always find amazing and had dinner in my favourite restaurant in Paris "La Marmite". We introduced Donna and Tony to snails, Moulin Rouge, red light district and the next day introduced them to the Mona Lisa. We were so glad to be in Paris again and see some snow. Little did we know snow was waiting for us the very next morning in London.
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