Egypt!!!!

 My aunt Florence and I leave for Egypt on Saturday and I thought I would post our schedule for those that are interested. I am super excited about this trip

First we get into Luxor on Saturday (omg! a week!!!) at midnight, get the visas and then go in a convoy to the ship, A welcome on the ship then off to the land of sleep

Day 2 Luxor-Thebes- visit Thebes, the valley of the kings  and Medinet Habou.stop for photos in front of  les Colosses de Memnon. Go down the nile to Edfou,

Day 3 At Edfou visit the temple of Horus and then leave to travel down the river to Kom Ombo and visit the temple of  Sobek. Navigation to  Assouan.

Day 4- Visit the temple of Philae and then go by special boat around the island of Elephantine . There is a special lights show that you can do, don't know if we will yet.

Day 5- Taking a bus to Abou Simbel temple, spend the morning there then the afternoon on the nile going up to Luxor.

Day 6- Visit the temples of Luxor and Karnack , another sounds and light show optional

Day 7- Cairo-  go by plane to Cairo Vist the pyramids, the Sphinx, Cairo museum.

Day 8- to the airport, we leave really early must be around 2am as we get to France at 615.

So as you can see very hectic schedule but I am so psyched. Im brushing up on my arabic, just simple gretting also outfits to wear ie being a muslim country its good to respect their values, not too much exposed skin ect ect, also the art of haggling must be learnt. Iv read and also saw a hidden camera show on cruise ships, and when going to a gift shop a lot of the time you haggle with the person as to how much you pay. My friend who went to Morroco said it is the same thing over there and has given me some good tips, they key is to act confident,

London and the end of work

London was amazing. Of course being London it was cold and miserable for the day that I chose to go sightseeing but that did not dampen my enthusiasm for what I saw.

I stayed at my cousins place, it was great. Especially hearing stories about my parents when they were younger. Easter day was spent wallking around redhill which is outside London and going to the village in which the film the Holiday starring Cameron Diaz was filmed. It was a quaint english village and very cute.

The next day was raining and wet , I went into London by train to see the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, The London eye and Big Ben. I went on one of those hop on and off bus tours. It was fun, would of been even better if it had not been raining. The tower of london was huge!. Not suprising considering it has served as a royal residence, fortress and jail. So many people of note have been executed that, some of the most famous being Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard -two of Henry 8ths Queens. You can see the site where they were executed and also the chapel in which they are buried but not take pictures. Apparently every May Day (the day Anne Boleyn was arrested) someone places a rose on her grave.
 

I then did a river cruise from the tower to Westiminster in which you go past the London Eye, I did not go into the church as you had to pay quite a bit. I did take pictures from the outside and also saw Big Ben. It was very cool.

The next day I went with Harry to the British Museum, it was amazing and so big, there was so much to see that we did not cover all of it. The Egyptian part was especially nice. I also saw Buckingham Palace which was cool. I then went back to France to get ready for the last days of teaching.

I have finished teaching and I must saw thank goodness, on the second to last day with my final class at one of my schools I just wanted ti to be over! the kids were just not listning or caring and it was so annoying. My other classes were well behaved however and gave me lots of pictures.

I have booked Egypt and leave in approxinatly two weeks...exciting!!!

Nuts and Bolts

Hard to believe that I only have 2and a bit weeks of work left. Where has the time gone? This last term has been draining, my CMs are doing english evaluations so been preparing them for that also trying to come up with fun and interesting lessons for my students. Games work well...but not when they end in a kid tripping over his shoe laces and hitting the floor (he was fine) and as the teacher said, A good example of why you should tie up your laces but still not something you want to happen in your classes.

In terms of blogging, I have neglected this blog but to be honest it is so much easier to write mass emails and update my facebook, still that is no excuse.

Future plans include Egypt (currently organising) looks like it will be a 8 day cruise at this point at the start of May, very excited.

London this weekend I am so excited about this.....foreign money to add to my travel journal is also a bonus. One of the things i love about Europe and what I will miss is the ease of travel to different countries.

Going back to life in New Zealand is going to be an interesting experience

Rome

I went to Rome for the holidays. It was amazing, all that I expected it to be. I went with Ali an assistant from near Paris. We visited
The Colloseum
The Roman Forum
The Spanish Steps
The Vatican
The Sistine Chapel
The Pantheon
The Trevi Fountain.

My favourite was the Colloseum it was so impressive, one of the hostels told us not to go inside. Well they were mistaken. The inside is even better than the outside. There are of course a lot of people but we went early. The sistine chapel was great, no pictures were allowed but I sneaked one in ( not a very good one ) . The funniest thing about Rome was when we were walking towards the Vatican and there are people on the sidewalk trying to sell you things and well they suddenly all started yelling and bolted, we were a bit perplexed but then saw there were police so obviously it was illegal to do this. We also saw a cool Cello player and went to a cool bar on our last night were we drunkenly tried to practice our Italian.

I can't sing...

When I was in primary/ intermediate and even high school I was in the chior. Looking back on it I wonder why my parents encouraged me in this because the fact is I can't sing. I am doing body parts with my students this week and thus the "head shoulders knees and toes " song comes out. For the first class I did not bring my laptop thinking to sing it accopela . I sing it once to show them and the kids cracked up, admittadly so did I when I heard my voice as I hit some notes. The next lessons I smarted up and brought my laptop
On a high note (no pun intended lol) the kids love the song especially the actions

Snow

After what can only be suprised as spring weather. ( blossoms appearing on trees) winter has finally arrived. Yesterday was freezing cold, I spent the day working which went well and then went to an assistants house for dinner. I woke up to snow...it has continued to snow all day and it seems that Digne has ground to a halt because of it. Here is a picture from my bedroom window


Two weekends ago I went to le chemain de fer de l'ubaye basically its a railroad that was never finished. All that was left to put down were the tracks but then WWII happened so it was never finished it was really interesting and fun to walk through the tunnels. I was going to post pictures here but blogger is being annying so here is the link to my facebook album

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150523595384340.382948.686699339&type=3

I am going to the movies tonight with my cousin Donifan. As much as I love the novelty of snow from my window I am sure going outside will be a totally different experience

My bucket list

I have a bucket list of places I want to go and things I want to do with my life and by the end of my trip most of my bucket list will have been filled

So here is my bucket list
1) Finish uni (done)

2) Get a great job (I have had many great jobs ,sadly none of them permanenet (grr fixed term contracts)

3)Travel ( currently doing this now)

4)Improve my French (living in France I think it's a given that this one has been met, according to mum I am now fluent!

5) Go to Rome (I just booked tickets to go in Febuary the other day!!!)

6) Go to Egypt (if all goes to plan I will be in Egypt for my birthday)

7) Live on my own/ gain independance(I think moving to a different country and flatting counts) It could be hard going back to living with the parentals.

Basically by the time I get back to NZ I will have completed my bucket list (Here is hoping that something major does not happen in Egypt ).


So as you can see by the time I get back to New Zealand I will have bascally completed my bucketlist

Today I went shopping, its the sales today. I brought this cute little dress (that was not on sale!) and a shirt that was. I also brought toilet paper. Have I mentioned that most of the toilet paper in France is pink!!!. Kaia and I went out for drinks last night and we both ordered a glass of red wine, its the same price as a hot chocolate which made us laugh. I am having a great time sampling the wines here in France. I have discouvered that I like red wine more than white but I also love Rose.