Destination chocolate (By Claudia) Today we said our goodbyes to Paris as we embarked on our journey to Belgium. We arrived in Brussels wide eyed and excited to see where Riley and I were born and ready to recreate some memories from over 12 years ago! The narrow streets and new car did make for a little bit of stress on our way out of the train station but as soon as we saw the snacks in reception and our apartment that took up an entire floor, most of that stre...

First day of the New Year (by all of us). Paris was lovely today. We started with another tour on our hop-on-hop-off bus which was super cold on the top deck - but the only place to see all the sights. It's been 16 days of adventure so far and we are in pretty good shape! Today's highlight was walking through the Marais district away from the traffic where we could hear our own footsteps along the cobbled streets. Dinner again was yummy french bread with cheese...

Bonne annee! By Tracy Today we headed off to the Louvre along with several thousands of other tourists! The queues were enormous - a 4 hour wait if you didn't have a ticket - only 1/2 an hour for those of us who pre-purchased. Inside it was a squash of pushing and shoving and not exactly the right atmosphere to take in the spectacular art... And so onto crepes, baguettes and chocolate waffles for a late lunch and a trip back to the apartment to find a second wi...

Zombie En Paris (by Riley and Claudia) this was the song that we heard 5 times over while we were on our open bus tour, stuck behind a taxi where the passenger had stopped to go to the toilet. Joined by a chorus of sirens from a near by fire truck and the local po-po, we tiki toured around Paris looking at all the "bold constructions" along the Seine. We then continued our tour passing by the Arc de triumph on our way to the Eiffel Tower. Soon we found ourselves ...

"Departure time... Its anybodies guess at this stage!" by Claudia. This is a direct quote from the train driver yesterday. We've had a couple of delays and frustrations over the last few days which have shown some lapses in customer service (and mum introducing us to the "art" of complaining..). but we have finally made it to France where we successfully navigated the metro, found our apartment and have even been food shopping. Dad has practiced his French at ...