The Land of Frogs

Here is the long awaited two-month delayed blog. France, the land we were to discover over the Christmas and New Year. We (Rick, Me and Josie) were on a bit of a hunt for a white Christmas, so we made sure we headed to places that were reputed for having snow over the Christmas period. So Grenoble it was… the place that held the 1968 Winter Olympics – surely we would get some snow there. Nope, not a flake. In fact we did find some ice – some awesome ice-skating rinks, so we were soon trying some crazy manoeuvres with our growing confidence. There was some potentially dangerous situations when you take three over-confident adults, a giant rink of concrete-hard ice, hundreds of unpredictable young kids, and an innocent (yet very competitive) game of ice-tag. Yep, nothing a few band-aids won’t fix.

So next in our snow conquest – Annecy… where we would spend Xmas. Annecy is a small city that lies near the borders of Italy and Switzerland. It is very close to the French-Italian alps and has a beautiful lake. We stayed at a bed and breakfast, which was absolutely beautiful, and spent our days sleeping in, playing a new-discovered card game called Munchkin Impossible for hours, eating crepes at French café’s and doing more ice-skating (still no snow). So funny seeing Rick fall on his arse! But I must admit, we are mastering the skate backwards thing… oh yeah! We hired a car (very small) and I attempted to drive on the right hand side of the road all around France on highways that have speed limits of 130km/hr. That was interestinf for the first wee-while! We had a day trip to Chamonix which is home to the tallest mountain in Europe – Mt Blanc. We took the gondola up part of the way, and at last our conquest for snow was complete… kind of. The snow was minimal, as Europe had been going through some tough times in terms of snow… or lack of it. Some contribute it to GW (Global Warming) for those not up with the lingo. I on the other hand, know it was due to all of our sexy hot bodies being exposed to continental Europe again. Hot, so hot, we can melt the polar ice-caps! So after an attempt from me to make a giant snowman (it looked more like a small mushroom) we headed back to Annecy. We had Christmas in the B&B, it was very cold… but I set up a small Xmas tree Mum had sent over and we opened pressies. It was my first Christmas away from home, so a little sad not to see the family, but such a nice place to be for it.

Next stop was Lyon, and we were staying in a hostel right above the old town area. Beautiful little streets, many Christmas and New Year decorations up, huge ferris wheel, awesome old churches, good shopping, an incredible lack of internet café’s, and so many nice places to eat. We caught up with Bex (Cat’s friend who stayed in my house in Galway) who is currently living in Lyon. We went to some crazy little Afghanistani restaurant to bring in the New Year. We then went to this Night Club on the river and tried not to buy any ridiculously expensive drinks (€12 for one drink! That’s $24 NZ). Got to bed at about 4am and had to get up at about 5:30am to catch our trains. Rick had to head back to Grenoble to get his flight back to London, while me and Josie took the super-speedy train up to Paris.

We stayed at Bronya’s place (a friend of Josie’s) and slept as soon as we got there. We had a quick look at some of the touristy places around Paris – so amazing! Unfortunately I had my camera stolen from my jacket pocket around the Moulin Rouge… So lost every single photo that I had taken over our trip – and often I was the only one carrying a camera. So all the photos here are stolen from Josie’s camera. DAMN! Saw all the usual things, Eiffel Tower, Moulin Rouge, Arc de Triomphe, Musée du Louvre, Notre-Dame, Montmartre, Palace de la Bastille and more!
Paris is a must-see, and I still could go back and see more.

Then finally flew back to Ireland and back to work-work-work for a few weeks! I have decided to do a half marathon in Prague also. It is on March 24th, and I have convinced a few people from my work to come aswell… so should be good times in the Czech Republic! On a sadder note, I can not get sponsorship in Ireland and have to leave the country on April 11th. Next stop… who knows – probably see if I can get a visa for Italy! I would love to live in Firenze (Florence) in the Tuscany area of Italy – near Pisa etc. So I now have one month to get sorted, with one week of that in Prague. Fun times ahead!