A Look into Paris

Hello audience, and welcome to a new post! As you read in the last post, I had to opportunity to go to Lake District and Paris with my family.
So lets take a little look at what Paris has to offer, and how amazing it is.

I want to start off by saying that I don't think I have ever felt so much of a tourist before. I was wearing shorts, a t-shirt, sunglasses and this huge backpack on my back. Then had to travel about 2 hours trying to find our apartment. I think we got quite a lot of stares.
Arriving in Paris was great, and as we flew in I got to take a look from above. It looked very dry and barren and there was quite a bit of pollution hanging in the air.

Our appartment was located in a very central part of Paris, and was very easy to get around to the different places. It was quite interesting to see the transition into the centre of Paris, as the outskirts were very run down and not very appealing at all.
I have never seen so many people in my life. You can be walking around and there is just this constant stream of people that walk past you. Each person is different, and its quite something to think that each person plays a part in the economy, and has a specific job to do in order for the country to be run.

We booked a bus tour which followed a tourist route around the city. There were 50 stops and all of them where by top places for tourists and with a slogan of " Hop on, hop off" nothing sounded better.
We managed to see : The Eiffel tower, Versailles, Notre Dame, Louve, Arc de Triomphe, Sacré-Coeur, Champs-Elysées, Place de la Concorde, Opéra de Paris Garnier, Pont Neuf, Moulin Rouge. And well I could go on forever. It was a wonderful experience, and I got to see quite a lot.

One thing I dont think that I'll ever forget is walking around with bags of sandwiches, and just stopping and eating them on the side of the road, it was quite a well how do I put it - New Experience - definitely learnt how to travel and safe money.

Another amazing experience was the fact that we got to see the Eiffel Tower at night. At 8 o clock on the hour the whole tower starts flashing for about 5 minutes, and you just stand there in awe marvelling at the fact that people had built that in previous centuries with technologies far limited then what we have today.

Versailles was huge, the biggest thing I have ever seen. To get into it, we had to stand in a line that took about an hour and a half, and curved up and down, up and down.
It was sweltering hot and just a pain in the butt. But we eventually got through, and I was pretty impressed that I got to see a part of History that I learnt in school.
Everything in the palace was so decorative and big. The corridors were wide, the steps huge, the walls tall, and the ceilings very elaborate with fancy artwork painted all over.

Until next time!:)

A Catch up - Lake District, Paris and more

Hello everyone.
Firstly I want to apologize for the lack of posts. I see that my last one is on the 24th of February, and have decided that so little posts cannot do. So let me share with you what has been happening up in the land of the UK in the past couple of weeks.
I might have to do it in separate posts spanned over a few days - simply because there is so much to tell, and if I suddenly rambled on at once in one huge post that will take like 5 hours to read it might become quite boring for you.

So it has been the Easter holidays, and I have been looking forward to these holidays for quite a while. My family came up from South Africa to spend 2 weeks with me.
On the first few days we went around exploring Stamford, and I got to show them where I have been and will be spending my life for the next year.
They were pretty amazed at the town and to see what I had been raving about.
We went to Burghley house among others. And this house is massive. It was built to honour Queen Elizabeth 1. And was built by William Cecil the treasurer. It is much more interesting to read about it here.

After 2 days in Stamford we headed up to the Lake District.
It was about a 6 hour drive. But as luck has it, it took us pretty much the whole day. The traffic going up was appalling, and we happened to drive through a massive accident that had the roads congested. We then had to be redirected and found out that that path was also congested with like minded people.
It was such a mission, and after leaving at about 9 in the morning we finally arrived at about 6 pm.

The Lake District is amazing! I don't really know other words to describe it. Driving up we passed through countless fields, sheep and quaint little villages.
It is peaceful, relaxing, quiet, and a brilliant getaway.
We had a 'home base' which was like a resort surrounded by nothing. From there we went out to all the different towns.
Each day we went and explored new towns and got to see new things. I was blown away at how old the towns were and how quiet everything was. So unlike city life.
We went for walks and here is a picture of the type of views that we saw.

 The types of towns we went to were all snuggled and nestled away behind the mountains. And we often had to drive over steep passes to get to our destination.

That town is called Ambleside, and reminded me a lot like a Swiss town. Perfect it there was a light snow fall over the houses.

It was a great time to catch up with the family and just have a chilled out time.

I can't tell you how many sheep there were. Everywhere you looked there were sheep. And it was lambing season so we got see see some baby lambs.
Ah you just want to make them your little pets. But the saying is true, all babies lose their cuteness when they grow up:)

My next post will be a bit more detailed about Paris.
Hope you all had a blessed Easter