lauren indrisie photography [aka lab 7 design]: friday 30 april 2010

we met everyone down in the foyer of the hotel and got our bags weighed and then we were off to paris! woohoo!
theres about 40 people on our tour, everyone we have met so far is really lovely, everyone seems really excited to be here, which is great.
our tour leader is hungarian, her name is Zsofi [say jofie], and she is hilarious! she is a stickler for everyone being back on the bus on time after breaks, with a threat that she will leave you behind, so its great, we have been on time the whole first day :) plus i kinda get the feeling you wouldnt want to upset her, she is so lovely and bubbly, id be scared of her if she got angry!
we headed to the white cliffs of dover and hopped on the ferry.

we hung out with this cool american guy john from philedelphia, hes the same age as us, hes quit his job and just travelling for a bit. he said we can go stay with him when we are in philly which is cool.
we headed up to the top deck and hung out up there and took photos of france as we approached, and met some other people from the tour. the guys started giving everyone nicknames, joseph is Hulk and john from philly is Big Daddy, everyone is really fun and friendly, i reckon this is gonna be a great trip :)
we headed off through paris and drove through the countryside, theres lots of yellow flowers in fields, dunno what they are, and we drove past the canadian memorial thing [kinda like the anzac thing for us]. Zsofi is full of knowledge, so we are getting to know so much history about where ever we are driving, although i was still quite tired, so not all of it has stuck in my brain.

we stopped off at the refreshment point, first french experience! we got some snacks for the bus, and i got this amazing subway type thing, but it was beautiful fluffy bread roll, with minced steak grilled with sauce and lettuce. 5 euros, but so worth it! Zsofi taught us a bit of basic french on the bus so we could at least say hi, bye, thankyou and do you speak english? the lady that served me asked me a huge question in french and i just repeated my order, and then this other girl working there, cracked out with perfect english, so if you try to speak french, they will help you out when you need it, which was nice.
we arrived at the campsite at 5pm. there are three other tours staying here at the moment. we are staying in two room cabins with their own bathrooms, although me and joseph have one to ourselves, hooray. they are basic, but warm, and the food is AWESOME! we had beautiful salads with roast chicken pieces and fresh bread. apparently the camp sites and places we stay get better as we go. its only a 15min drive with no traffic to the city from here, and we have instructions on how to catch public transport in and out if we want to go out and experience the night life, which is cool, but all i wanted to do was sleep!
but we had an exciting night planned! we did the ‘tour of illuminations’ we all hopped on the bus, and drove into paris, and saw all of the major sites. AMAZING.

Zsofi told us all the history, and we even has a special surprise stop, at a restaurant, we got a glass of REAL champagne, french cheeses and an escargot each to try.

then we were off again driving through paris, taking photos and learning about the history. its crazy to think it has been around for so long, the buildings are so old and beautiful, its so full of history, to think you are driving streets that royalty did. a big contrast form how young new zealand is!

Zsofi tricked us by getting us to look out the wrong window and then told us to look the other way, and we were back in front of the eiffel tower! then we drove right past it, so amazing and then she got gareth our driver to double park and we ran out and got photos in the square of the tower.