Monday November 8th 2010
Oxford 

On Monday it was FREEEEEZING. Samme took me out to Bicester Village, where all the designer labels have discount stores. Though sadly, even at discount prices they were too expensive for us! We got really hungry and wanted to have lunch at Pret our at Bicester village but they told us it would be a 40 minute wait! So we got the bus back to Oxford town and found a cool looking gourmet burger place. on closer inspection it turned out to be a Kiwi franchise! We decided we definitely had to have lunch there and got excited when we saw L&P on the menu! We both had satay chicken burgers and a can of L&P. we then did a little more looking around shops and then some more chillaxing in the evening. 

Sunday November 7th 2010 
Oxford

Sunday involved wandering around Oxford, relaxing, shopping, eating Squares and playing with Imy and Harry.  In the evening when all the girls returned to the school they had a HUGE fireworks display. the biggest privately funded display i have ever seen for sure! 

Saturday November 6th 2010
London-Oxford 

In the morning we had a yummy cooked english breakfast at our hotel then packed up our bags and left them in the luggage hold to go shopping. We exhausted ourselves on Oxford St. I spent a lot of money and got lots of awesome things. It was fun to go shopping again after so long saving money for this trip! We also planned to find some Banksy’s as samme had given me a location guidebook, but we sadly ran out of time. :( we got the bus to Oxford and settled in at Cherwell House. I was amazed by the school and highly jealous of the HUGE tv in the common room. we just chilled for the rest of the night.

Friday November 5th 2010
Paris-London 

Lucky for us our flights out of Paris were at a reasonable hour and we managed to get seats for the 3 of us together at the back of the plane. When we arrived at the airport Samme and I said goodbye to Hannah and caught a bus to Victoria Station where we met up with Chris. We checked in at our hotel then headed out to Oxford St for some shopping! We didn’t have much time but I needed a dress for the show! Finally found one after dragging Chris around lots of shops, so we headed to the arcade in Westminster cos Chris knew of an awesome photo booth. It was pouring with rain when we got off the tube, so we got DRENCHED heading to the arcade. which made for some awesome photos…

We then had mcdonalds for dinner, rushed back to our hotel to get changed for the show, then headed out again to the Dominion Theatre to see We Will Rock You! The show was AMAZING and well worth it. Of course we were exhausted by the end of it so headed back to our hotel, said goodbye to Chris and went to sleeeeeep. 

Thursday November 4th 2010
Paris 

On Thursday we had a sleep in after the extreme amount of sight seeing we’d done yesterday.Once we were up and ready we went to the Notre Dame, another place Samme and i were very excited to see after the infamous gorgeous photo Mum took of us when we were kids there. 

It was very peaceful and beautiful inside. I lit a candle for Belinda and Uncle Bruce. We got split up wandering around and I eventually found Samme, but we couldn’t find Hannah at all! thank god for cellphones. we soon found her outside where the sun had come out for the first time on our trip! It didnt last long but it was great.

After the Notre Dame we headed back to the Sacre Coeur for some more photos and souvenirs. We got all the postcards we needed and I got a red beret :) Once we’d finished looking around up there, we went to visit the Moulin Rouge, which was surprisingly close to our hotel! Although, i don’t know why we were surprised it was so close because our hotel was in the red light district. We had a good laugh at a lot of the signs in the shop windows!

We then went back to our hotel to write postcards and relax some more, then went to the post office to send them. We went back to our hotel until dinner time and watched our favourite Martine again. 

For our last dinner we headed back to Le Select seeing as we loved it so much the first time! We splashed out and got dessert too, seeing as it was our last night. samme and I had Creme Brulee and hannah had a delicious looking chocolate mousse. We headed back to our hotel exhausted yet again.

Wednesday November 3rd 2010
Paris 

On Wednesday we went to the Eiffel Tower! Samme and I were especially excited to visit it again after our trip with mum and dad 11 years ago. As we got there, and were accosted by gypsies trying to sell us things, it started to rain and we decided we didnt want to go up in the rain.

So we went to take photos first, then the rain stopped so we decided the weather wasn’t going to be any less grey tomorrow and we might as well go up. Yet again, our British passports got us cheaper entry (woo!) and we headed up. Sadly the top floor is only open on weekends, but the 2nd floor was still incredibly high up!

We spent quite a while up there taking tons of photos and checking out the view. We also took part in a “fun interactive exhibit” which involved putting on glasses with a mirror on the nose that you look down on as you wander around a track. We are still not sure what the point of it was!

We were quite pleased when we looked down and saw that a big line had formed during the time we’d been up there, was nice to know we missed out on a line and breezed on through after all the waiting we did at the Vatican!

When we’d had enough we went down again and had a quick snack break. Then went to try find the Statue of Liberty. We didn’t quite make it though, but we ended up walking over a bridge that was used in Inception! Pretty cool. It also gave us a great spot for pictures of the Eiffel Tower. We decided to head to the Arc de Triomphe next.

And once again our handy British passports got us a discount. This time we got in FREE because of them. Very cool. The view from the top was great because we could see the Eiffel Tower and the Sacre Coeur and tons of other awesome sights.

After we’d had a good look and taken a few photos we went down to head down the Champs Elysees. I don’t remember much about the Champs Elysees from our last trip there, probably because I was too young to be amazed by window shopping. By this stage we were very hungry so stopped for some lunch before we window shopped. We had croque monsieurs for lunch at an awesome little restaurant right on the Champs Elysees. Felt very awesome. And we experienced some unexpected politeness from the people at the table next to us who put their cigarettes out when Hannah started coughing. After lunch we window shopped and went to Laduree!

After hearing about it through Gossip Girl we were pretty excited. Hannah had been last time she was in Paris and told us the macarons were amazing, and she was not wrong! We got two each. I had a chocolate one and a lemon one and they were AMAZING! I want to go back to Paris just to get more of them. sooo good.

After some more window shopping we headed back to our hotel, stopping at a supermarket on the way to get supplies to make ham and cheese sandwiches for dinner (and to get pain au chocolats for breakfast because the breakfast at our hotel was €7! ridiculous) We chillaxed for a bit in our hotel and found an awesome french game show on TV that we got quite into (go Martine!). 

After dinner we headed out again to the Louvre! Once again, thanks to our British passports, it was FREE for us. We had a big look around, and obviously the highlight of the evening was seeing the Mona Lisa. After we’d had enough looking around the inside we went and took photos of the gorgeous pyramid entrance. Then, exhausted again, we headed back to our hotel for a big sleep.

Tuesday November 2nd 2010
Rome-Paris 

On Tuesday we got up at about 3:30am and walked to Termini station to catch our bus. After my awesome direction skills from the day before i was kind of worried we wouldn’t get there in time, but we turned out to be fine, and some policemen in a patrol car stopped us along the way just to check we were alright and knew where we were going. We caught our 4:50am Terravision bus to the airport and, before we went through security we remembered we had a few orange juice boxes to drink. So we downed them quickly, then, once we were through security, went to line up at our gate, so by the time we got on the plane we REALLY needed the bathroom. Luckily for us (not) we were told that our plane was going to be late leaving so we had to beg the air hostess to let us use the bathroom while we were still on the runway. so theres a tip for you, never down a litre of orange juice before getting on a flight.. yet another blonde moment for us!! So after our plane left late, we arrrived in Paris late then jumped on a coach from Beauvais to Porte Maillot at the edge of the city. Then we got on the metro (after, yay!, another queue for the ticket machine) and went to Pigalle, the metro station near our hotel, to meet up with Hannah! 

We were too early to check into our hotel so we left our bags there and wandered up to the Sacre Coeur, and took a look at all the souvenir shops nearby. When we finally were able to check into our hotel we discovered that the beds were tiny! Hilariously tiny! We settled in then headed to Galeries Lafayette for some shopping and to check out the awesome xmas display. All the walking we had done left us exhausted so we headed back to the hotel to rest for a bit then went to find a restaurant for dinner. Hannah had a craving for French onion soup so we found a place called Le Select and all had soup, Hannah french onion and me and samme tomato :) very yummy! 

Unfortunately i didn’t take my camera with me on our wanderings so the photo of Samme and Hannah on their stupidly small bed is the only one i have for this day!