Joyeux Noel 2013

Paris at Christmas...  Must be romantic and festive...  Right?

Sadly for me, I was WELL hungover by the time we got on the train.  Twas the work Christmas do the night before, which I enjoyed slightly too much.  Oops.  Anyway, so we found ourselves on the Eurostar, one of us in a jumper with a reindeer on the front.  Nice.  Needless to say, I slept all the way there with my mouth open and didn't care one little bit.

After a quiet night of re-hydration via cranberry juice and bizarrely cold steak and a brief wander of the almost red light district where our apartment turned out to be, we set about ticking off the sites we'd missed in our first trip to gay Paree back in March 2012.

First up, Notre Dame.  Another gorgeous cathedral...  I had to drag my tired, sorry behind around as Kyle set what seemed to be a furious pace.  Meanie.

We found that bridge where people attach padlocks of eternal love.  There were thousands of them - the only conclusion to draw, in the immortal words of Hugh Grant, is that, actually, love really is all around.

After that, there was another mightily long yet aesthetically pleasing walk down to Napoleon's completely well proportioned tomb.  He didn't have small man syndrome at all.  Nope!  Europe's arguably smallest dictator now lies in the below.

Such reservation

It was a beautiful day, so what else should we do but walk some more?  So we wandered back through the Trocadero Gardens up to the Palais de Chaillot for a view le Tour Eiffel as dusk started to fall.  The Gardens were lined with Christmas Markets, but we were unenthused.  The memory of our Dusseldorf fail was still very fresh and, besides, chowing down on bratwurst while in France just doesn't seem right.  Even at Christmas.  But the view was difficult to beat.

Second favourite hunk of metal

After that, we found an amazing restaurant down the road called L'Apibo for a five course chef's tasting menu of complete deliciousness.  Thank goodness, too.  We had started to think you couldn't eat well in Paris.  But you can!  After all that walking, we deserved a decent meal.  And then more walking!



We went to check on Mary M before trundling back to the apartment for some sleep.

 

The next morning was another pearler.  Perfect for more walking - this time, after girding ourselves with some croissants and coffee, we meandered through the Tuileries Garden, where we stopped by a pond to rest and watch the birds (and maybe have a sneaky wee nap).

Not bad at all for "winter"

Then it was off down the Champs-Elysees to the Arc de triomphe.  Last time we were there it was a really grim day, so it was good to see it with its Sunday best on, so to speak.

Gorgeous.  The Arc's not bad, either.

Following that, there was only really time to head back, grab our stuff and make our way back to London.

Two weeks later, it was Christmas for real.  We were very fortunate to be adopted by the wider Von D clan for an amazing family feast and frivolity.  A thoroughly enjoyable end to another fab year. 

Lovely jubbly,
M&K xxx

Random Pre-Christmas Fun

Late last year, I was forced, kicking and screaming all the way, back into an (albeit haphazard and fair weather only) exercise regime.  The culprit?  One, Louise Yarrall.

I was signed up for a Pretty Muddy run to raise money for Breast Cancer Research - a worthy cause, as always.  As the name suggests, this race involves running, in mud.

Before

After

Since that went really well and was huge fun, Teams Reid and von Yarrall were then entered into a Santa Run through Battersea Park.  Yep, hundreds of people running while dressed as santa.  Good times!

Ready to race!

Warming up with some festive aerobics

We also paid a visit to the Harry Potter studios, which had been decked out for Christmas (i.e. covered in fake snow).  So cool!  It had all the sets, including the potions room, with self-stirring cauldrons, Griffindor common room etc etc and all the costumes, creatures and special effects.  Highly entertaining.

 

 

 

Just a "leetle" bit excited...

 

 

We had been excited by the prospect of trying Butterbeer...  but it turns out it was really sweet, really gritty, and really gross.  Oh well, put on a brave face!

 

Mmmm, butterbeer....

Is there time for one more trip before the year's end?  Yeah....  probably....

Au revoir!

M&K xxx

You Can't Win 'Em All

Last year, we had an amazing time in Vienna mooching around Christmas markets, eating Christmassy food, drinking Christmassy drinks, humming Christmassy songs and generally feeling Christmassy.  It was such a good time, we were inspired to try to repeat the fun with different surroundings.  Dusseldorf was recommended, not only for itself, but also it's proximity to Cologne, and so we booked some tickets for a weekend at the end of November.

And so began the epic fail.

We arrived on the Friday night and wandered down to the river front to start taking in the atmosphere.  We ate reibekuchen (similar to last year's kartoffelpoffel) with apple sauce and drank gluhwein.  We rode the, erm, Dusseldorf Eye while drinking gluhwein - very little skill required there, I might add.  All was going well and we fell asleep planning to hit Cologne the next day and then cover the rest of Dusseldorff on the Sunday.

On Saturday we navigated our way to the train station, managed to buy two tickets to Cologne from the confusing ticket machines and boarded a train.  As it pulled out of the station, Kyle started to investigate where exactly the Markets were...  What do you know?  They were due to start the next weekend....!  So we hopped off the train again at the first stop and headed back to D-town.

So the rest of Saturday was spent roaming the streets, drinking all the gluhwein (red and white, oh the variety) and eating all the reibekuchen.

Argh, this is so hard to write - the lameness intensified...

Mmmm, pensioner brekkie

We thought we could spend the Sunday rinsing and repeating Saturday's Plan B, but fate had other plans...  It turns out, the last Sunday in November, in Germany, is something-a-rather Day of the Dead.  The day where you stay home, be quiet and remember... the dead.  Needless to say, 98% of the shops were shut.  So we had brunch with some pensioners, ate ice cream in a closed shopping mall in the middle of winter and then went to the airport 2 hours early and "watched" the ABs play Ireland on our phones.

It is NEVER too cold for ice cream, especially when it is the ONLY thing to do

Boo.  Hiss.  Crappy.