Had a pretty chilled out day today activities wise, but it was once again pretty stressful! We checked out of the Bordeaux hotel and asked the front desk to call us a taxi to the train station, as it was 8:20am and we didn’t think we’d be able to flag one down that early. They said it would be a 20 minute wait, which wasn’t ideal (our train was at 9am) but we didn’t have any other choice- it would have taken a lot longer to walk. The taxi arrived after 14 minutes which we thought was a good sign, but it turns out he was a taxi driver from hell. Okay, maybe not from hell, but from a very annoying frustrating place. He put our bags in the boot, and seemed to have a hard ... read more

Actually left the apartment at a reasonable time this morning- 8:50am! We saw a nice looking cafe on our first day and since it’s our last day in this area we decided to go there for breakfast. It’s a cute little cafe called Zouzou, and it was quite nice but my GOODNESS food in Europe is expensive. It was €5,5 ($8.60) for a chai latte, and €8 ($12.60) for two poached eggs and some bread. After breakfast we headed off to a random station and hopped on a subway to Versailles!! (Also, the subways here are double decker...I hate Brisbane). We got to Versailles and headed with about 100 hundred other tourists to the Palace. On first appearance, the Palace didn’t actually look too amazing. Half of it was covered in a fake mesh image of ... read more

Had a massive walking day today, although we again started off late. Because of a late night last night and because we’d only planned to do two things today we didn’t set an alarm, and we thought our body clocks would wake us at about 9/9:30. Plot twist- I woke up at 10:30 and almost shrieked the apartment block and all its neighbours down. We had a quick breakfast (vegan yogurt- which we accidentally bought because we didn’t know the word “végétalian” on the pack meant vegan and not vegetarian- with granola) and eventually made it out at 11:50am. We walked down to the Louvre and waited in line for about an hour, until finally making it in to the most massive and crowded museum I’ve ever been in. The Louvre, whilst super stuffy and total ... read more

Beware; this is a long one. As the title suggests, today was our last day in Scotland. I’m really sad to be leaving such a beautiful country, especially without having had any haggis (not that I particularly wanted to) or experienced more traditional Scottish customs. We left trudi’s aunt’s place at around 10am and headed straight to Rosslyn Chapel with Bec, Taylor, trudi’s dad and her grandad. Rosslyn Chapel was beautiful! So old and delicately carved, and with so much history behind it. It was also the place where The Da Vinci Code was filmed, which would have been a lot cooler if I’d seen The Da Vinci Code. We spent about 45 minutes here before heading into the city to the Scottish Museum (sans Bec and Taylor to begin with, long story, no point explaining). ... read more

Had the most relaxing day today!! Woke up after a very comfortable sleep and headed to a continental breakfast, from which I had scrambled eggs, bacon, some sort of Scottish bread thing, fruit, yoghurt, and mini pastries. My plan was to fill up on breakfast so I wouldn’t have to buy lunch. It didn’t work. After breakfast Trudi, Bec, Taylor and I went for a walk into Peebles town, where we had a coffee at a really cute cafe. We walked back and Bec and I went for a swim in the big pool with the little cousins. We were in there from 12-2:30, and the only reason I got out was because I had a massage scheduled for 3pm! I had a full body massage for an hour and it was pure bliss. I’m not ... read more