Paris is just what I expected it to be. Which is a good thing! It's very beautiful. Lots of little streets and shops, pretty apartment buildings and so on! I love it. I love everywhere we've been to eek! The best thing about travelling is that every single city, even the ones we went to in the U.S. which were just like a few hours apart, is totally unique. But what's more important is that despite visiting all these beautiful, unique places, Dunedin is STILL a winter for me. These places we visit are great but I think living in New Zealand makes you have a slight more negative view about everywhere else. I mean like the first things we notice when we arrive in a new city is "ergh, there's a lot of rubbish", "there's homeless people everywhere, why doesn't anyone help them?" and so on. It reminds us a thousand times a day how lucky we are.

Today we arrived in Paris at about 6am local time. We were, as usual, very exhausted! The flight left very late and only went for 2h50 so it wasn't really long enough for a good snooze once the plane was up in the sky. I don't know if I would really recommend Icelandair. They weren't 'bad', but nothing they did was worth pointing out. It was kind of lame that you had to 'buy' headphones, and most of their TV screens didn't even work - none of them even managed to turn on until halfway through the flight.

When we arrived in Paris we had a very stressful time figuring out how to get to our hostel! We had to catch different trains and metros. We had to catch a tram within the airport, then catch the RER B train or something to the Gard du Nord, and then change to Metro Line 5 to arrive in Place De La Republique. It was very confusing for an English speaking couple who have only had two hours sleep! Eventually we made it about two hours later haha - And were absolutely starving. We couldn't check in until 2pm, but we left our bags and went for a wee stroll. We headed to a boulangerie on Rue du Falbourg and I used my French for the first time :-) It was exciting. I ordered two croissants! We had a nap for a few hours at check in time, but were woken up by the fire alarms. They went off soon enough but by then we were already awake. So we went for a big walk to check out the local area. We saw some cool places such as the Notre Dame, hotel de ville and Pont de L'Archeveche,which is absolutely covered in padlocks with couple's names written on! Very romantic :)

We also bought some pain au chocolats, yumyumyum. And saw lots of old fancy buildings everywhere such as the big court place. Paris is beautiful because there's a lots of little tiny streets, lots of cobbled roads and so on. I love hearing and seeing French everywhere. It just makes being in a foreign country that little bit more foreign, if that makes sense!

The weirdest thing about being in Paris is that on one hand, I am closer to 'home' than I have been since I left. As, for those who don't know, I am originally from the U.K! But then on the other hand, I am the furthest away from home than I have ever been - because it's the furthest away I've been from New Zealand since I moved there! It's very hard for my brain to comprehend. I could literally take a two hour train journey and be in England from here.

Tomorrow and the day after Matt and I plan on going for big walks. We are going to walk back to Notre Dame, check out the Pantheon, the musee du louvre, tour Eiffel, champs elysees, arc de triomphe etoile, and all those kind of super famous attractions. Celia, I know you would tell me off for trying to get too much done in such a short time, but I promise you we will do it in a leisurely and romantic manner haha! We cover a lot in a short time because fortunately we love walking around! My foot was quite bad this morning but after my nap it seemed a lot better! I really don't feel like I've explored a place until I spent a ridiculous amount of time walking around it! It's so much better than catching a subway or a bus because you can look at things for as long or as little as you want, take time to soak it in - take lots of photos - or just totally dismiss it if you want. It also means you can see all the little secret pedestrian areas, look in shops and so on!

Oh yeah, this is the last time Matt and I need to change time zones for ages! Paris is in the same time zone as Warsaw. I don't know how since they're still pretty far away, so I assume Warsaw gets dark VERY early during the winter. So that's really reassuring because changing time zones is the lamest thing ever. Especially if you're heading east. No one likes less sleep!

Tip of the Day: Carry babywipes in your bag wherever you go! It's a very cheap and convenient way to freshen up :) I carry babywipes around all the time, especially when we have a long bus ride or have to catch a plane!

P.s. Matt enjoyed his whale steak! I had a yummy salad with figs.. And then we shared a traditional Icelandic dessert called Skyr which is apparently like cream cheese, but it was yummy and sweet, served with strawberry sorbet and lots of berries!

P.p.s. we have a nice roomie from Dubai who left chocolates on our bed for us when we were napping :) I love fellow travellers!