So it's New Year's Day, and I hope you all had a great night, and that 2012 is a great year for you all! We spent the night at a house party, and wandered into the streets at midnight to let off a few fireworks and see what everyone else was doing. I understand now why they are banned in (most of) Australia - lots of drunk people throwing burning balls of exploding gunpowder everywhere - it was a miracle no-one got hurt, though an ambulance did turn up next to us. A few cars and windows in the street were probably also feeling a bit sore in the morning. The smell, the mess, and the noise was almost uncomfortable - poor dogs would have nowhere to run - but it was fun though!
After a long and slow start to the morning I'm still sitting here in my pyjamas and finally uploading the rest of the holiday pics from the summer. This is part 3 of my parents European trip: Part 1 started after the wedding in Germany and Switzerland. After leaving us in Basel they flew to Rome to begin a 10 day bus tour of Italy, which they absolutely loved and was the highlight of their trip. I meanwhile went to work, which I absolutely didn't! The only stress for my parents came at the very end, when thanks to a general strike in Rome they were delayed by half a day, missing a connection in Oslo, and having to a very short sleep in an airport hotel before arriving the next morning in Bergen just in time to start the tour. Tired, stressed, and wet due to the atrocious storms, we were still able to do a quick "Norway in a Nutshell" tour of the fjords on trains, buses and ferries.
We then flew to Stockholm for few days, ate some herring,
and pretended to be Eskimos - getting the entire northern cultures thing wrong,
and then the Viking invasion raged on to Paris, the last stop before going home. Here we enjoyed the daily ritual of a Parisienne breakfast, coffee, croissants, and bagels(!). After Thai in Sweden, and Chinese in Germany, German in France wasn't so unusual...
Pics on Picasa:
https://picasaweb.google.com/105955852697062837044/FamilyEuropeanHolidayPt2NorwStockhParis?authuser=0&feat=directlink
