Hi everyone and Merry Christmas! Sorry for the lack of updates lately- but as most of you will know, Kate and I have started our Contiki from London travelling around Europe, and haven't had much spare time (or internet access) to update our page, and weren't able to access the internet very well where we were staying.We arrived to a very cold London on Monday the 17th, where I quickly realised my plan to wear shorts wasn't very clever, as it was about 3 or 4 degrees outside! We managed to figure out the tube, and get on the line to Piccadilly Circus. At the airport station we got on an empty tube with our huge bags thinking, " This isn't too bad" soon to discover that at every station as we got closer to London more and more people packed on, to the point that just about every area of the carriage was filled with some part of a person. We made it to our stop to discover we had to ascend about three flights of stairs to actually make it to the surface, Kate got a bit stuck half way up with her suitcase, but luckily with the help of a nice local, she managed to drag it the rest of the way up. We met Amanda (who we were staying with) at her work in Haymarket, and while waiting for her to finish work we had a (cold and tired) look around at Trafalgar Square, Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. We caught the tube home with Amanda to Kilburn, where she lives with her partner Russell and two English flatmates. Of course we had to make the obligatory stop at the pub on the way there, for our first pint of British beer (or shandy in Kate's case). After this we dragged our suitcases the rest of the way home and settled in for a good long sleep.We spent our first week doing some sightseeing, and saw Tower Bridge, the Tower of London and St Paul's cathedral and Buckingham Place, to name a few (check out our photos!), and spent some time shopping on Oxford Street for scarves, gloves and other essential items of warm clothing. The city had a great atmosphere, and almost all the buildings were beautifully decorated for Christmas. We had a great time staying with Amanda and Russell, and travelling about, and managed to figure out the public transport system pretty easily, except last Friday, when we had gone into town for drinks with friends from New Zealand who now live in London, and made our way to the tube station only to find we could only make it part of the way on our train, then got sent out to the street about 1AM in the freezing cold, and needing to go on a mission to find a taxi home (which we did, about half and hour and minor hypothermia later!).We set off on Sunday the 23rd on the first leg of our Contiki, south to Dover past the white cliffs, then onto the ferry to Calais. We had a long drive through the north of France down towards Paris. Our hotel was on the north side of Paris, and we then went on a night tour past all of the main sights of the city- the Louvre, the Paris Opera House (the inspiration for the Phantom of the Opera), Notre dame Cathedral, the Arc du Triomphe, down the Champs Elysee, the Grand Palace, a range of museums, over the Seine, and of course to the Eiffel tower. The whole city was light up spectacularly for Christmas, and the EiffelTower's lights had a special glittering display on the hour for the time of year.The next day we went sightseeing in Paris, and started out by going all the way to the top of the Eiffel tower, then up to the Arc du Triomphe, walked down the Champs Elysee (and saw the Peugeot concept car store) - in return I waited while Kate went shopping at one of the world's largest cosmestics store! We then caught the metro underground to Notre Dame Cathedral, followed by the Louvre, where we saw the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo and other priceless pieces of art. That night we went to the Moulin Rouge cabaret, and had a great dinner and an amazing show with dancing, singing, acrobatics and comedy. After the show we went to a midnight church service at Sacre Cour Cathedral which was a once in a lifetime experience.Today as I write this we have just crossed the border into Switzerland, after seeing frost covered French countryside and a number of beautiful little villages.

Will post another update once we have some more down time while we are travelling (as our Contiki bus has power points!)