We’ve just returned from our 4 day holiday in Paris. Our trip was wonderful – it’s only a shame we couldn’t stay longer! We managed to miss the French transport strikes which started just after we left.
Paris is both beautiful and romantic – a perfect place to visit on our anniversary. I found Paris to be a city steeped in history, cultured and refined but also bustling and alive! During our 4 days we visited plenty of the city and enjoyed all of it 🙂
I’m pretty sure that we’re living in Ireland these days. I hear funny accents when I step out the door every day, the streets are dirty and it’s starting to get pretty cold when I would normally be expected summer to start. Despite all of this, the postal system doesn’t seem to have caught up with the fact that we live in Europe now.
Twice in the last month, Kat has ordered things from US online stores and when the package has arrived it’s had a NZ Post, Auckland sticker on the front. Despite the address being clearly marked as “Dublin, Ireland” and the package arriving here in Ireland relatively promptly it appears to have travelled through Auckland on its way here!
Our trip to Luxembourg started at 4:30am on Saturday morning with the screeching tones of Kat’s cellphone alarm rousing us from what had been a comfortable slumber. By 5:15 after a quick shower and some food, we were leaving the house towards Dublin airport. It turned out to be a very very popular weekend for travel! Even at 6am in the morning the check-in area of Dublin airport was jam packed. The queues for the two security screening points were both 100m (literally) long, snaking back and forth against each other up and down the length of the departure hall. Luckily they were moving fairly rapidly and it only took up just over 30 minutes to get through security and begin the 10 minute walk to our gate. Dublin airport’s passenger volumes have doubled to 20M in the past 10 years and the need for an expanded terminal (coming in 2010) is plainly evident.
For the last few days we have enjoyed the company of Craig, Tom and Brendon (Cathy). The guys have been traveling around the UK and made a 4 day trip over to Ireland to see us (and the rest of Ireland too). It was fun to show them around Dublin and spend some time hanging out with other kiwis. ‘Hotel Brown’ just managed to accommodate everyone, although Cathy had to sleep on the couch.
On Sunday I found myself basking in a sunny afternoon, watching a game of croquet being played on the lawn by men in top hats and tails. As you might guess, we were not in Dublin anymore. We were in Cambridge, England for the wedding of Sam and Zoe Jansen (Sam is a friend of Matt’s from Waikato Uni). It was a fun weekend, really great to be able to attend the wedding and to catch up with some Kiwis over here.
I arrived home safely from New York on Friday morning, my flight was slightly delayed due to a traffic jam on the runway at Newark Airport but the pilot seemed to make up the delay fairly quickly once we were in the air. I flew back to Dublin on Continental which was far ahead of Aer Lingus in terms of the flight experience, however both of them still fall well below the standard set by Air New Zealand!
I’ve been in New York just over 24hrs now. First impressions are favourable.
I’m here for a training course which is being held in the Empire State Building. We’re only on the 7th floor unfortunately, so no free views for me. The building has far far far too many lifts, it took just over 10 minutes this morning to get to the right lift, and then the right floor, and that doesn’t include the time it took to get through the metal detector, x-ray machine, etc, etc.
The best photos from the weekends road trip are now ready for your viewing. I’ve broken them into four separate galleries for ease of use.
Don’t forget to check out Mark & Gill’s photos too for a different perspective on the trip.
We had a great time the last 7 days as my parents (Mark & Gill) were staying with us for a short stop-over on their world-trip. I took Monday and Tuesday off work, so we hired a car and did a pretty quick road trip around Southern Ireland.
Mum & Dad have all the details in their write up of the trip, so I’ll direct you to there for now. We took heaps of photos, the scenery was very beautiful. Once we’ve got them all sorted out I’ll upload them. To keep you going until then, I’ve stayed up well past my bedtime, (good thing Google has flexible hours, I think I’ll sleep in tommorrow) creating a map to show you where we’ve been.
I’ve been hearing rumours that there have been complaints in some quarters regarding the lack of updates to this blog over the past weeks. Please rest assured that it’s not due to any lack of desire on our part, but rather due to the fact that we’ve been somewhat out of touch after we moved out of the Google apartment and had to wait for Internet to be connected at our new abode.