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Published: January 16th 2007
Proud Supporters!
Beth, Josh, HannahWe got up with a bit of a struggle at 4.30am, and quickly walked down to Lancaster Gate Tube Station at 5am while it was still rather dark. The tube station was shut even though the first tube is meant to be at 5.11am. We decided to walk up to Marble Arch Tube Station, which was also closed.
For lack of a direct bus, and the fact that time was passing rather quickly, we jumped in a taxi and headed down to the Embankment Tube Station to meet everyone else going on the tour to Paris to watch the All Blacks play France tonight!
I managed to catch up on a few ZZ’s on the coach to Dover, before we boarded the ferry to Calais. Apparently this is the first ship Brendan has ever been on that he has not worked on - crazy!
We arrived at our B&B in Paris at about 5pm, and all went to our rooms for a snooze for an hour or so.
We got dress up in our All Black shirts, New Zealand Flags and anything else that was black or had anything vaguely to do with NZ, and then jumped on
the coach towards the Stade de France for a rather noisy, Kiwi proud bus ride with Queen pumping and beer flowing. It was a great way to get us revved up before the game - waving our flags energetically to anyone and everyone that drove by!
We got to the stadium and stocked up on drinks and food. Brendan spotted a stall selling NZ scarf’s and bought me and him one.
We made out way to our gate and quickly went to the bathroom before the game started - unfortunately the queues where long, and there were so many people that somehow I lost my brand new scarf!! 😞
I had a bit of a run around looking for it, but it was long gone, and probably already found a new home by now.
We took our seats, which were only a dozen rows back just to the side of the goal posts. The stadium was huge and we were sitting in a dominantly Kiwi contingent of the 80,000 strong crowd.
Brendan went to fetch us beer, only to find out half way though that is was alcohol free (and we paid more for it than the
Go the ABs!
Josh, Chicken Little, Hannah, Brendan proper version at the front of the stadium!).
The game was great! And we were sure to make as much noise as possible for anything remotely to do with the All Blacks. We had a successful win, 23-11 and once the crowds died down a bit, or shall we say most of the French left, we decided to head back to the coach in order not to be left behind.
We underestimated the volume of people there, and got stuck in some rather large people-jams. It was rather a case of following that blow-up sheep!!!
We made it back to coach and had another rowdy trip back to the B&B. Brendan, Grant, Matt and I stayed up playing cards while drinking Whiskey and Vodka straight due to the lack of mixers.
Mid way through I got a call from James and totally forgot that I was also paying through the nose for the call (about £1/min (NZ$3/min)).
Before we had finished the conversion, my credit ran out, and the phone called ended without even enough credit to text back to let him know what had happened!
By this stage, Brendan had drunk both his share and
Kiwi Proud!
Go the ABs! my share (and probably a little more) of the Whiskey and Vodka and had sent himself to bed. So after being up for almost 24hours, I decided that wasn’t a bad idea.
I had a struggle to get out of bed the next day but managed to haul myself out and get dressed and packed in time.
Brendan, however, was a bit harder. I had a bit of a mission trying to get him out of bed (‘Mr Hangover’ itself). I eventually got him up, showered, dressed and packed within minutes of the bus departing without us. We didn’t even get to have the breakfast that was included in our package!
We headed into the centre of Paris to do some sightseeing. Brendan was looking as white as bed sheet, with a slightly toxic green glow. He says he was scarily close to showing everyone what he had to eat for the last few days. Somehow we managed to get into Paris without such displays of his intestine process efficiencies.
Half the bus went to a river cruise, while our group - most of whom had been to Paris before - decided to explore on foot.
It
didn’t take me long to find a Crepe stand, I ended up eating four crepes in total throughout the day. Perhaps a slight miss-placed Heathrow injection waiting to happen.
We had a look at the Eiffel Tower, and then up past the Palais De Chaillot to get some good photos back toward the Tower. We walked along to the Arc De Triomphe, located in the centre of the world’s largest traffic roundabout.
We walked into the centre of the island to have a good look. The Arc is a lot bigger than it looks from a distance. It is intricately detailed, even in places where it too far for the eye to see. You can walk up to the top and apparently get some stunning views over Paris. However, we did not have time.
We rushed back to the bus for our strict 12.30pm departure and got there with just minutes to spare, only to found that the bus had broken down.
We waited for a bit, the decided to go and get something to eat (more crepes). It appeared as though it was going to take awhile to fix as they needed to call a mechanic.
Go Go Gadget Legs
Grant doing his best to fit into the Go-Karts... While we waited we thought we’d do some more sightseeing, so the rest of us went for a walk under the Eiffel Tower, through the gardens beyond and towards the Ecole Militaire.
Suz and Matt spotted me in amongst the crowd as we were walking under the tower, which was very random! I knew they were also in Paris to watch the rugby game, but gave up trying to catch up with them, as there were so many people, plus I had no credit left on my phone.
I caught back up with the others, who had found a kids pedal go-kart in the Champ De Mars, over looking the Eiffel Tower. Michelle, Katie and Grant couldn’t help themselves, even thought Grant clearly did not fit in the go-karts!
After our little excursion we headed back to the bus to find it still was not working, so we joined the rest of the group on the river edge drinking what ever beer was left from the trip and playing ‘hacky sack’.
The mechanic finally arrived and managed to get the bus running again within a reasonably quick time frame - relatively speaking that is. We
Eiffel Tower
Beth, Hannah, Michelle, Grant, Katie & chick were finally back on the road again at 4pm - 3.5 hours later than expected.
We headed up to Calais and due to the rather delayed leaving time, they were being quite strict on toilet stops (why do we always end up on the coaches with no working toilets!?). Mr Teaspoon (Bjane) got to the point where he so desperately needed to go, that he almost filled a 1.5 L water bottle while kneeling by the back exit door! - I’m sure the photography and us doing our best to draw the rest of the buses attention to him, didn’t help his performance anxiety.
We made a quick stop at the wine and alcohol warehouse in Calais, so everyone could stock up of a few goodies - I got the largest bottle of Malibu on sale, and some yummy French cheese.
We made it to the ferry terminal, got though customs and boarded the ferry back to Dover. The weather was quite rough, making it difficult navigate our way around the ship. And sure enough, we got stuck out in the English Channel for an additional couple of hours in the storm while we waited for a
Eiffel Tower - Matt & Suz
How random bumping into these two amongst all these people! berth to be available for us, and there were another two ships in front of us.
So the normally 1.5 hours ferry ride turned into 3-4 hours. Not that we minded too much, we were within walking distance of the bar, and continued to play our game of ‘Mafia’.
We finally arrived in Dover and swapped coaches in the hope of a smoother ride back to London. However, by the time we got back, it was the early hours of the morning and the last tubes were well and truly over. Beth, Kate, Brendan and I walked up to Trafalgar Square and found night buses to our respective homes and collapsed into our beds rather exhausted.
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Hels
non-member comment
Yah Hannah! Another update! keep on going girl and soon we can make it to the new year :-)