Adventures in Europe.

Norway can stay. While we've been travelling about we've been jokingly talking about bits of the world that we like and bits we think we could do without. Pretty much everywhere we've been can stay in our re-modelled world.

Norway was stunning. Tromsø was truly breathtaking. In the three nights that we were there we made friends with taxi drivers, Norweigan kids TV stars (and their film crew), went dog sledding, saw the Northern lights, went to the hospital, rode in a one-horse open sleigh (hey!), tobogganed at night, ate many random sausages and sat in what must be the only Irish pub that didn't serve Guiness.

The taxi drivers in Norway were wonderfully friendly. Our first taxi driver told us about the region as he took us to our hotel. Our second taxi driver asked us what had posessed us to come in the middle of Winter to the Arctic (in no uncertain terms) and our last taxi driver taught us some Norweigan on the way to the airport.

We were pretty lucky with the weather for our dogsledding. It snowed a fair bit initially but cleared up enough for us to catch the Northern Lights briefly. I say we were lucky because there were a couple of girls there on a Northern Light safari on the same night as we went sledding and they didn't get to see the Lights. The three of us felt a bit bad about being so heavy and making the poor twelve gorgeous huskies tow us around for 10km but we were advised that they were in training for a 1600km race. We still felt bad. After we thanked the dogs for hauling us about the hills we retired to a traditional-ish tent and had a rather rich reindeer soup. Gene maintains that his had a red nose. It was delicious, much like the chocolate cake at the end.

The horse sleigh ride was slow and fun and our host was friendly and informative. His wife told us folk tales of the relationship between the Vikings and the Northern Lights while we ate a home-cooked lamb stew. Dinner was followed with a fortified home-made wine with home-baked cinnamon cake. It was delicious. We passed the evening talking to the aforementioned film crew and TV personality as they had been filming an episode where the presenter overcomes his fear of horses. They were a great bunch and lots of fun. Then we were joined by a group of six Chinese government officials. My Chinese could do with some work... The Northern Lights were pretty faint that night but the company made up for it.

I should probably explain why we went to the hospital. Nick had what we termed Arctic Measles. The hospital was the only place we could get a doctor to see him so that's the first place we went in went Tromsø. Doctor said he'd be fine and it was just a reaction to a virus not chicken pox. We were happy about that.

After three days of freezing in the Artic we returned to Oslo overnight before flying back to Paris where we would split up for a few days.

Paris was a bit of an adventure considering I was there for less that three hours. When we landed at Charles De Gaulle we ended up in terminal 1 which doesn't have a train station there. On top of that it took us 20 minutes to exit the terminal and about as long to get to the station and buy tickets. By the time we got on the train I was meant to be checking into the Eurostar terminal to get my train to London. We made it to Gare du Nord 20 minutes before my train was meant to depart. I managed to sprint through the station and board the train 10 minutes before departure. Nothing like a run through a French train station to kick start a holiday!

Turns out that Gene & Nick had a similarly exciting day when our Eurail pass got pilfered out of Gene's pocket, they couldn't find the car hire place and it was a 15€ taxi ride from the station and it was snowing too hard for them to drive to St Flour where the cottage was so they had to stay in a hotel overnight. 25th January was a good day.

I arrived in London and headed to the tiny studio apartment that I'd rented for my stay. The apartment is in South Kensington near the Glouster Road station and while being slightly smaller than my bedroom at home was perfectly located for supplies and transport. The only down side was that 2 of the three lines that go to my station are closed for maintenance this weekend.

My first night was unexciting as I crashed out in bed at 8pm. My second day involved walking around the area and discovering that the lovely Italian place that according to Gene and Nick served the only decent coffee in England closed down. That evening I caught up with some of the gang from Doha for drinks and food in an Irish pub was a bit of a labarinth. After eating we walked to Trafalgar Square and then went to another pub before heading off home our separate ways.

Today being my last day I went to the Camden Markets. A goth, punk heaven in terms of clothing it was probably a good thing I hadn't gone there while I was on the hunt for a skirt earlier in the trip. There were a few amazing stalls there but just watching the people was great fun.

I took three trains to try and get to the National Theatre to pick up some things for Nick but it turns out the one day the bookshop is closed is Sunday. So I watched the London Eye for a bit before jumping on a train to head home. Tonight I'm catching up with Joe which I'm really looking forward to and then it's back home to finish packing so that I can make my train for France tomorrow to meet up with Gene and Nick again!

Turns out there's a new Tom Stoppard play on in the West End that I totally missed. I knew I should have dragged myself out on my first night instead of giving in to my fatigue!

Anyhow, it's been great seeing people and seeing more of London. I'm looking forward to a restful week and a half in St Flour now before we start the journey back home.