Cold!

Not outside, but inside!

We went to Coventry yesterday with Mike from work to watch his brother play ice hockey. It was (obviously) pretty cold in the ice rink but we went and got hot chocolates after the 2nd period to warm us up and they were sooo good (even if they were out of a vending machine).

The game was pretty fun to watch and i even started remembering some of the rules from playing playstation icehockey, but it was mostly amusing just watching them smashing each other into the walls all over the place. The team we were supporting lost 4-0 but it was a fun night out.

Photos

Finally i have managed to upload and sort some of the 300 odd photos we took in Paris, so they are all in our Picassa now and i'm going to try to convince jeremy to link some into the paris blogs too, so if you want to re-read the paris stories with pictures you might be able to!!! maybe!!!

It is really good to have our own computer at home now. i have put all 1051 photos we have taken since we left onto it and am really pleased with how they have all turned out. the screen on the camera shows them looking kinda crappy but then on the computer some are so nice. there is definatley some that i'll earmark to get blown up when we gt back to NZ.

We have been pretty busy the last few days and working quite long shifts. which willbe really good for our bank account, getting paid monthly is taking a bit of getting used to!!!

On saturday night there was a huge wedding on at the hotel which we both worked in the bar. it was really hectic but was great fun at the same time. all the people that we work with are great and now that we kinda know what we're doing its going well. but are feeling pretty tired cos we both worked on sunday also (me till 11pm) then went out partying with our friends for Jodie and Jeff's leaving do, and had to work on monday!!!

We wwen to Stratford for the Party, which was really funny and quite a lot of drinks were had by all but suprisingly few hangovers at work on monday, lots of tired faces tho!!!

I've just started learning how to do the receptionist job as well. at the moment its going pretty well (today was my second shift) but there are tonnes of things to learn and to remember!!! so i'm learning heaps and finding out the answers to loads of questions that guests ask so thats good. Its keeping my sleep deprived mind sharp!!!!! hehe

toodle oo

Love Gem

Yay!

Yay! We have our laptop now!

Also, here is our Paris Wordle


The most noticeable word group is "beautiful amazing city"

l'anniversaire à Paris..... le Louvre and so on...

On Monday we spent the whole day in the Louvre museum, o my gosh that place is sooo massive!!!!! its unbelievable how much stuff they have there.

we decided that a good idea would be to get the audio guide cos all the labels of all the things were in french so if we wanted to know what we were looking at we'd need something in English!!! the audio guide was one of those fancy multimedia ones which was cool it had a couple of guided tours on it. we started with the 'masterpieces tour' which took us around the most famous pieces of the museum and told us all about them. we saw the Venus de milo and the mona lisa again and also the Victory of Samothrace and others and it told us about the architecture of the building too cos it was originally a royal palace.

we looked through the large scale paintings (by large they mean really large like whole wall sized!!!) and after that we looked around the antiquities collection and saw tonnes of Egyptian things and Greek and roman stuff. and around some of the Napoleonic apartments (more gold everywhere) there was so much and we were exhausted by late afternoon so we headed home! the museum was amazing but its just so big, we thought the British museum was big but we actually made a dent in that we could go back to the louvre tonnes of times and still not see everything.

The next day was our last in Paris... :( sadly. We took a boat cruise down the Seine River and looked at all the sights from a different angle. The bridges are so beautiful we got off at the Eiffel tower and had our lunch in the shade of the gardens beneath it. and took more photos of it!!! (by the way not long now till we get out laptop and can put up some of these photos i keep going on about!!!!)

We cruised back to Notre Dame and walked up to the Pantheon which is a huge big domed church that throughout history has been used for both religious and civil purposes and is not actually a church anymore. Lots of famous historical people are buried here including Victor Hugo (author of the Hunchback of Notre Dame). we were lucky enough to be just in time to join a tour up to the towers and the outside of the dome so we climbed some more stairs and had another view of this beautiful city.

and that was all there was time for, we went back for our luggage (its so great not having to carry round everything you own on your back!!) and caught the euro star back to London. (which caught fire two days later and closed the tunnel for a few days, lucky timing us!!!)

Overall it was an amazing trip, Paris is a city filled with beauty and for us it was such a romantic way to spend our anniversary. The most memorable bits for me were - The Eiffel Tower, the food and climbing so many steps to get views of the city from everywhere we went. :)


So now we're back in Warwick and working hard again, but still enjoying ourselves. We went out for a few drinks on Monday night. I have discovered 'cider black' apparently what all the students drink, which is cider with blackcurrant cordial in it, mmm tastes mostly like sugar!!!

Much love to all
Gem and Jez

l'anniversaire à Paris..... La Tour Eiffel

Sunday was our actual anniversary the 7th of September, one whole year!!! WOW

We decided to have a leisurley day and had our breakfast delivered to our room!!!! yay for room service!

Then we headded into the city to have a look through the Musee national de l'Orangerie, an art museum which contains some of Monet's waterlilly paintings. They were absolutly beautiful and very worth seeing. There were two large oval rooms each with four of Monet's huge waterlilly painitngs. It was quite an experience to see them displayed in such a way. We also saw some other impressionist paintings by famous artists.

We then relaxed by the fountain in Jardin des Tuileries, and ate the most massive icecreams which were two flavours of soft serve mixed together, mmmmmmmm

This evening we dined in the resturant on the first floor of the Eiffel Tower!!!! which Jeremy was very proud to have booked over the phone in french!!

We arrived while it was still light and took heaps of photos of the tower from the national theatre which has the best view. Close up it is the most amazing building and really huge, Jeremy was suprised about the colour of it (its kinda dull brown), he was expecting it to be more copper-ey, not to be painted. we got to skip the hour long queue cos of our dinner reservation and go straight up the lift to the first floor. We had a look around the view was beautiful, the river runs next to the tower and we could see all of the landmarks we had already visited.

Dinner was yummy and we had champane, it was very romantic especially as there was the most incredible sunset over the city which lit up the whole resturant in red and orange. we finished with super decadant mentling chocolate cake, mmmmmmm it was soo good!!! By the time we had eaten it was fully dark and all the lights in the city had come on and the tower had been lit up all blue.

we took the next lift up to the second floor for more views over the city, each time from a slightly higher angle. then took the next lift to the top floor. the lift went up and up and just kept going up, oh boy it was very high at the top and the lifts have windows so it was a wee bit scary!!!!!

The view from the top was so worth the wait in the queue and the scarness, we were so high that the wole of paris was laid out in every direction, the hill of Montmartre looked flat and it was a clear night so we could see for miles. it was so beautiful, the streets with the tall (6-7 story) treeaced houses looked like channels in the cityscape, it was really quite amazing. Absolutly beautiful, i cant really describe it and i cant get over it!!!

It was such a beautiful romantic evening, the perfect anniversary.

l'anniversaire à Paris..... Versailles

On Saturday we braved the crowds and took a trip out to Versailles. The palace of Louis XIV (there are so many Louis' its hard to keep track)and subsequent French royalty was HUGE!!!! and there was lots of gold everywhere!!! here we were very lucky to skip the queues as the line for tickets was massive, haha!!! the state apartments were beautifully furnished with old furnitaure and loads of beautiful paintings and sculptures, all very lavish. unfortunatly all the information was in french so we missed out a wee bit on understaning quite what was what. The best bit was the famous Hall of Mirrors which was a long light room with more gold and elaboratly framed mirrors along the interior wall so so it was all shiny and reflective. (not a very good description wait for the photos!!!)

The gardens however needed no translation. Again HUGE, and all set out in a formal style but on a very massive scale. To walk to the end of the Grand Canal would have taken an hour!!! and there was parkland beyond that!!! we decided to take a rowing boat out on the Canal for an hour which was fantastic fun, neither of us is particularly good at rowing but Jeremy is much better than me!!! It was a really lovely was to see the gardens and a beautiful view looking back at the palace

We walked further to the Grand Trianon which is part of the same grounds but really another palace where the royalty could come to get away from the court!! This was where Marie Antoinette spent a lot of time. More stunning interiours, each room had a different colour scheme!!! There were two sets of bridal parties having their photos taken on the porch and the gardens!!!

We left when it closed after relaxig in the sunshine in the gardens some more. (thats right sunshine, we had super weather!!!)

We came back into town and had dinner at a cafe on the corner of the street by our hotel, jeremy had an 'original saussage' which was a bit weird and an undefinable meat!!!

stay tuned
love G + J

l'anniversaire à Paris..... day one and two

Paris was AMAZING!!!
We has such a great time, did heaps of the touristy stuff and it was a great celebration for our first anniversary!!

Thats right we have now been married for one whole year!! I cant believe how quick the time has gone by, it seems like yesterday we were rushing round getting all organised for the wedding but at the same time it seems ages ago and we've done and seen so much and had such a great time this year!

So Paris...
We traveled by the Eurostar train through the channel tunnel, which was a really quick and easy way of getting there, we arrived about 11 in the morning and the first day we went and had a look around Montmartre. At the bottom of the steps to the Sacré Coeur there were heaps of guys selling string bracelets, which i got succered into getting one. i was just a bit too slow to say no and it was too late once the guy had tied all the knots... jeremy thinks i'm silly and a push over. ;)

we looked through the beautiful Sacré Coeur which looks out over the city from the top of the hill and even climbed to the top of the dome for spectacular views ( the first of many sets of stairs we climbed this trip!!!). As we came back down there was a man singing on the steps in front which was cool, he sang 'in the jungle' in french which was hilarious! we wandered around the wee streets and markets looking at all the amazing paintings that people were painting and selling on the roadside (not that we could afford any sadly cos they were lovely) and ate crepes which we ordered in halting french!!

we walked down to the Moulin Rouge thinking that we might go to see a show there but it was massively expensive so we settled for just looking through the window and we had dinner is a wee cafe somewhere!

the next morning we ate heaps at the buffet breakfast at the hotel (this was the best bit of the hotel mmm) there was heaps of food to choose from including croissants and rolls and ham and cheese as well as cereal and fruit. mmmm unlimited croissants!!!!


We had bought the Paris museum passes which meant that we didn't have to queue at most of the palaces we visited on the pass which was super. so day two took us to Notre Dame, splendidly huge and filled with tourists, included on our passes was the climb up the towers of the cathedral, even though it was raining the view was again amazing, paris is such a beautiful city, it seems very white and all the central city buildings are several stories high and the river running through the center is lovely. The Seine is much prettier than the Thames in London.
we had a look around the Crypte Archéologique du Parvis which is the archaeological remains of the original city of Paris under the square in front of Notre Dame!!!!
We then headed along to Sainte Chapelle. we had to queue for a bit here cos they had to security scan everyone cos its in the same place at the justice court!!! Sainte Chapelle has the most amazing stained glass windows ever, they go right the way around the upper story of the chapel, depicting most of the old testament and are so detailed. (I'll definitely put up some photos once we get our computer).

we wandered around the streets again in the afternoon looking at the beautiful bridges crossing the Seine, especially the Pont Alexalandre III which has golden statues on it, and the huge buildings. Like London they're very keen on their Gold everywhere in Paris!!! we ended up at the Musée du Louvre which is open late on friday nights so we poped in to look at the most famous things whilst it wasnt too busy. There was still a pretty big crowd around the Mona Lisa which was actually pretty small and not as amazing (to my uncultured eyes anyway)as a lot of the other paintings, some of which are huge!!!! The Venus de Milo was lovely though and worth the hype. how cool anyway to say we've been there and seen all these famous things!!


Later in the evening we went up the Arc de Triomphe to look at all the lights of Paris. The view was again amazing, the Eiffel tower was all lit up blue and looked so cool. we didnt manage to get any good pictures cos it was really windy so they all came out blurry but we tried anyway so have heaps of pictures of the Eiffel tower in the camera!! it was awesome watching the traffic negoiate its way around the roundabout which surrounds the Arc de Triomphe, there are no marked lanes but about four lanes worth of traffic!!! actually watching the traffic everywhere was pretty funny, drivers seem to change lanes with no warning and it all seems pretty chaotic, luckly we were walking or taking the metro!!!

Thats all for now, stay tuned for the next installment of our trip

Love Gem and Jez


PS Happy Birthday to Mum, Rosie, Zanny, Jo and Karyn for the beginning of September

Still no computer

Well still don't have a computer because the computer company decided to stop selling that particular model and so were out of stock. But we got a discount on a better computer and so we got it for the same price. Just have to wait longer for it and we won't get it before we go to Paris. Oh yes that's right, we're going to Paris tomorrow!!!

This limited internet time is getting annoying as we've getting more and more things to blog about so we're getting more and more behind.

As a quick update on the hotel, we're absolutely loving it here. The rest of the staff are really friendly and has a great family feel to the group. I'm getting the hang of the waitering now so hopefully I'll be able to remember some it when we get back from holiday. The living situation is great as we get all our food cooked for us at the hotel by the great chef's Jeff and Dave (who also live with us) so we haven't had to cook a single meal since we got here (awesome!). We got our first paycheck last week and it feels great to have a decent amount of pounds in the bank (yay!).

Anyway, as a side note I found this cool thing called Wordle. It creates a word cloud based on the word density of our last few posts. So the bigger the words, the more we've used them. The winning word is 'much' but I don't think we've really used it that 'much' have we? (haha). Also I'm ashamed that 'confused.So' has shown up as a word - I'll blame that one on Gem.

From Gem and Jez