Jet Set time is over ....

So June is over and therefore the the jet set month has finished :( no more waving of the passport until the autumn ...

I headed to Paris at the end of June for using the always empty station that is Ebbsfleet (don't get me started as to why they moved it from a well connected Kent station to one that doesn't have a direct domestic line connection; you need to bus it from a branch line! Good job I have an easily bribed sister & BIL living nearby) as the cost & time between plane and train wasn't really anything in it, particularly when you get straight into the heart of the Paris Metro network...

So after a speeding through the Kent & French Countryside I arrived at Gare du Nord to meet up with Sarah for a girlie break!!

We did lots of sight seeing (with added interest ... we'll remember the Tuillerie Garderns for Sarah doing her ankle in on a ickle trip hazard rather than the big wheel and gardens...). We loved the Mobilis (Ile de France travelcard) if only because we were both falling apart by the end of the trip!!

We headed out to Disneyland Paris on the Friday ... and yes the disney magic did rub off on us ... but not enough to feel the need to buy some minnie ears or a silly hat. We did note we saw two sets of minnie ears in Sephora (really girlie moment of the trip ... no way Dr T would stand for that level of girlieness!!) on the Champs Elysee fortunatley being worn by kids. We aren't the biggest rollercoaster fans but did Thunder Mountain & Crush's Coaster (which is really cool ... but annoyingly not on the fastpass sytem); loved the being a big kid fun of Buzz's laser blast (so much so we did it twice, I got to Level 3 both times!!) as well as a range of other rides, a couple of parades, wander around the Disney castle and most of the Lion King show.

We queued a lot ... and after the day at the Eiffel Tower we hated queues!! At Disney it was a lot of queuing but it was well organised with little chance of people jumping the queue so nobody jostled .. until Eiffel where we had some particularly annoying Spanish ladies who seemed to just want to push everyone forward, starting with us.... hence our patience was starting to fail by the time we got right to the top!! The view was good and we took lots of photos but realised why it had taken us both at least 15years to do it again!

Other highlights were the Museum of the Orangie (in the Tuilleries Gardens, Place de la Concorde end) which has Monet's Nymphaes (?sp) along with some more Monet, Renoir, Picasso and other similar artists, small but well formed. We walked the Champs Elysees and saw the roundabout that is the Arc de Triomphe. We loved Sacre Coeur more than Notre Dame (which feels even more of a tourist fest than I remember, Montmartre is touristy, but Sacre Coeur is a church first, tourist second... and you could tell from the actions of those visiting). We ate yummy French food (I managed to get snails & floating islands all in the same meal ... and then at Disney was unable to resist temptation with Churros in the Mexican restaurant).

So all in all a good trip to Paris, and a re-found love towards France, mainly with the food and the pace of life (the Pavement cafe coffee at the end of the trip off the Rue de Rivoli was lovely). Maybe not Paris, I feel some Loire Valley coming on with all the Chateau or maybe the Atlantic coast again... or just a hop over to Berck for old times sake.

So hopefully the next time I wave the passport, its at Heathrow before I get on my airmiles trip to DC ... again without Dr T (although the US speaks English, it not acceptable with Dr T) but I can do independent travel just fine ... it did it for years before we were together! Then the second girlie weekend of the year ... location to be confirmed!!!

Mind you today its all caught up with me .... I've just wanted to sleep all afternoon after getting up and having the mental workout that is church parade with new girls ...but they all behaved so well ... and so it was more which hymns next and what to read from what (we're talking a bit anglo-catholic here... and no helpful reading out which hymn number we're singing). So an early night and nowhere near as much housework as I should have done, got done, but 3 loads of washing managed to get done along with a washing up fest.