NOT PACKED YET

Well today is Monday and tomorrow evening we fly off to Europe with our first destination Paris, where we shall stay and explore for 7 days, before heading off for the rest of our European holiday.

As of this morning my suitcases were still empty.

A few Sundays ago Allison and I enjoyed a relaxing mother-daughter day at the Eagle Farm markets.  We both purchased some glitzy sandals, and I also bought a lovely necklace.
Last Saturday night I went to wear the necklace out to dinner, and felt like a Christmas tree.  But I guess I will take it.

I have gathered my little netbook computer, camera and batteries, Kobo (for reading on the plane) and Ipod, as well as all the necessary power leads for each of these.  We have purchased the universal plug for Europe and another adaptor with the 2USB ports as well as an ordinary power plug.  As Barry now has an Ipad, this holiday I will not have to share my netbook.




My Eletronics

For a few weeks I have had a small pile of clothes ready, but I will still need to add to this.  I guess the easiest thing is to lay everything out and decide what to take.  Some hours later I have finished packing the large suitcase and of course forgot my toiletry bag, but I am sure there will be hole somewhere to fill. 

Au Revoir from Brisbane.   

   

LUCKY FIND

This week I was sorting and getting together old paperback novels and various other books no longer required and I was taking them to my local library for the community bookstore.  The community bookstore is for local groups to help raise a little money and the books are very reasonably priced. 

My lucky find came about when there was one book which I had only read about 50 pages. One of those books I just couldn't get interested in and had been sitting on the top of the giveaway collection for some months.  Before I put it in the discard box I asked my husband if he wanted to read it, and, I was just thumbing through the pages when on page 92 I found $150.00.  Now why would I have $150.00 in this book, and the only explanation is that my son's board money and I was possibly reading the book at the time.   Talk about a lucky find and imagine the surprise someone may have had if I hadn't been flicking though the pages.

This instantly took me back many years before, when I was helping my in-laws pack up the house for their big move to a new unit in a retirement village.  During the week Dad-in-law was supposed to go through his spare cupboard and throw out anything that wasn't important.  To me this was to throw out all his old tax returns dating back to the 60's, and stuff that hadn't seen the light of day for many years.  This was difficult task for him to do, so on one the many Saturdays, my daughter and I started cleaning out the old cupboard.  We came across a shoe box with some old stuff and papers, but under the papers there was a $1000.00.  Obviously he didn't get very far with this task although he said he had finished what he needed to do.  When I asked him if he wanted to the old shoe box, he said that he will just make sure there wasn't anything in it he may want to keep.   My daughter and I watched as he proceeded to go through this box, and to his surprise on looking at the contents said that he didn't think he would throw out the box.  He had completely forgotten about the money which had been put away for any emergency which may occur 
  
Many years later my mum-in-law who was beyond caring for herself went into a nursing home.  I had decided to pack her shoes without the boxes and lucky I did as I found money hidden in a shoe box underneath the shoes which were still nicely wrapped in their tissue paper.  From then on everything was searched thoroughly for any other hidden treasures. 
I still have all the 60th wedding anniversary cards as well as Mum-in-law's 90th birthday cards.  Will I go through them just in case something has been hidden.  

AN EUROPEAN ADVENTURE

Although I haven't finished my holiday stories from Tripping USA in 2013 (which is now 12 months ago), over the last 6 months we have started planning our next overseas holiday.

This will be our first time in Europe - visiting the countries of France, Germany, Czech Republic, Austria and Hungary.  As it will be autumn when we are there, the changing colours of the landscape will be nice to see, and hopefully make for some pleasing photography.  

When we leave Brisbane in September this year our first 7 nights will be spent in Paris.  At the same time Barry has 2 friends (they are doing a walking tour of France), will be there so we will catch up with them one night for dinner.  I really enjoy French food and I am looking forward to tasting all the wonderful cuisine and visiting local patisseries.  I think we had both better stay on our exercise regime.  Before, during and after.

We have booked a Battlefields tour for 4 days which visits the Western Front of World War 1. Some of the sites we will be going to are Flanders, Ypres Salient and the Somme.  These areas were major battlefields for young Australian soldiers as well as many allies and thousands of these brave men lost their lives.  I originally had no interest in doing this tour, but after seeing the ANZAC broadcast from Villers-Bretonneux and reading a little more information about the Western Front I have become increasingly interested and see this as a different experience. 

We return to Paris for 1 night, then intend catching a train to Reims, in the champagne region where we will stay for 3 nights. 

City of Reims (Google Images)

We will do a champagne tour and after reading the tourist bureau information Reims has alot to offer.  From here we will take the train, crossing the French-German border for our next destination of Stuggart.  As it happens Barry has found 2 things of interest in Stuggart.  A visit to the Porsche factory as well as the Mercedes Benz museum.  At the same time on the Saturday the beer festival starts so we opted to stay an extra night to enjoy these festivities.    


From Stuggart we travel to Prague which is part train, part bus travel and from all internet inquiries the scenery looks amazing.  We have a few spare days in Prague before meeting our river cruise tour. We intend hiring a car and head out to the country to other interesting tourist destinations and Barry is hoping to get to the factory where his glider came from.  As long as he doesn't want to buy a new one. 

Our river cruise on the Danbue River is for 10 days and will be one of the many highlights of this European holiday.  The tour starts in Prague but we board our floating hotel at Nuremberg visiting numerous towns on the way before disembarking in Budapest, where we have a few extra days to explore, then plan on going to Salzburg and if time permits Bratislava, before returning to Vienna to make our way home via Dubai for 2 nights.  In Dubai we have booked to do the Dune Safari dinner which has been recommended and I am looking forward to that as well.