The last big stop of our trip was Paris.  We had 3 nights booked and a long list of things we wanted to see.  So with those ambitions, we set off from Munich by train. 

After an uneventful trip, we arrived in Paris where my french immediately got a a workout while we tried to find our way through the subway system to the Eiffel tower (near where our hotel was).  I'm sure my french teachers would be shocked at my grammar, but it's not like I'm getting to use it much in New Zealand these days....

So, hotel found and luggage dumped,  We headed off for a walk around the neighbourhood and quickly found ourselves at the Eiffel tower where the photo frenzy began.  I've seen it a million times on tv and in pictures, but it just doesn't compare. That thing is maaassive and impressive.  We didn't go up it that evening but walked around some more, negotiating the crowds and souvenir sellers.  It was  a beautiful summer evening and I decided that I'm a fan of Paris.

Insert Richard's coke story here.  He has told everyone he knows that he paid 7 euros for a coke that evening in a restaurant.  Thats like $15 NZ.  Crazy.

The next day we headed off to Notre Dame in the morning.  I have to say, this was probably the low point for me.  We had seen some fantastic cathedrals in Italy, and while Notre Dame was very nice as well, it was a but underwhelming after the others.  A big part of that could have been the hundreds of tourists inside, along with the souvenir vending machines.  In the cathedral.  But the final straw for me was as we were walking around the back section of the church, we looked towards the middle and saw that there was a funeral going on.  And people were taking pictures of it.... not impressed.

After Notre Dame, we walked through some of the Latin district and came to the Pantheon.  This made up for Notre Dame I think.  It was a beautiful large building that houses the tombs of many of France's most notable people of the past, including Marie and Pierre Curie, Alexander Dumas, Victor Hugo etc etc.  I was also very impressed by the pendulum that hung from the dome.  As it swings, the path it takes changes as the earth turns.  There are markings below it that allows you to read the time of the day by where it is swinging.  I geeked out a little bit there.

In the afternoon, we took a boat tour along the Sienne River.  It last about an hour and went past more old and famous buildings than I could ever remember.  Another beautiful evening in Paris.  We managed to stay awake that night long enough to go back to the Eiffel tower to see it lit up at night.  It was a whole different site to see.

The next day we got up early to get to the Louvre before it got too busy.  We were pleased that it wasn't totally packed, although there were definitely a lot more people in the Italian painting section, but who can blame them?  We saw the Mona Lisa there and then went off to scuptures to see the Venus de Milo.  With those two biggies checked off the list, we wandered around the museum for a couple hours until we had had our fill of art.  I also really liked the renaissance tapetries.

From the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe doesn't look that far away.  It is.  We walked for a million years.  Our aim was to walk through the Champs Elysee which is the big boutique shopping area.  We passed all sorts of $2000 hand bags and such from all the big designers.  Eventually we made it to the Arc de Triomphe which was very nice.  There is an everlasting flame there as well, for the unknown soldier. 

A nana nap was in order after all of that.  We had a leisurely dinner and a relaxing evening.  For our last day in Paris, we went back to the Eiffel tower...again... but this time it was to actually go up it.  It was a spectacular view from the top.  Richard was pretty convinced that it was swaying but don't believe him....

And so, that was it.  We went off to the airport and flew back to Germany to have one last evening with my parents and Karen's parents.  My mum made us an awesome turkey dinner to send us off.  mmmm belated Christmas dinner.

I wish I could say that the trip home was uneventful but we had a couple tense moments.  The next morning my mum drove us to catch the train to Frankfurt.  Through a series of unfortunate events, and owing to no one person alone,  we missed the train.  And the 2 after that.  We had the military on com (aka my dad from his office) trying to figure out what train we could make (oh and how to get to the train statin) and we managed to make the last one that had a shot of getting us to the flight in time.  We then had my brother on the line feeding us info on the airport so we could run straight to the right counters. Stress stress but we managed to rock on up to the gate at the airport juuuust as they started to board. Phew!  

So it was on to Singapore where we had a 15 hour stopover.  Most of that was spent chilling at Richard's aunt and uncle's place, with one last trip to Chinatown and dinner out with Richard's cousin Andrew at a sushi restaurant, which was really nice. We both even tried raw sword fish. Then it was back onto a plane and on to New Zealand.

We were exhausted by the time we got home and it is sooooo cold here right now!  What a shame that vacations have to end ;-)  But we had a great 3 weeks that just flew by.  Guess I better get onto figuring out the next one!

So thanks for reading along.  I hope you enjoyed!