Laundry Day

Yup, today is definitely laundry day. I figure if I wash everything today, it will last me until I get home again and can do laundry for free there :) Le sigh...nothing much going on over here except for laundry today. I met up with my friend Belinda again, she's still here. She spent two weeks in Berlin so we had some good stuff to share about that place. Tonight we're going to buy some stuff to make minestrone soup!! Yay!! She's kinda looking after me and my sickness a bit. We shall cook together and have healing soup tonight! That shall be very good I think. The good news is that I don't seem to have an infection of any kind, no bright yellow stuff coming out of my nose or lungs, so that's a plus as well. I'm sure most of you didnt' neet to hear that last part, but I know that my parents and Dez are worried about just how sick I am - the answer, not so sick I can't get up and meander about my day. So yeah, I thought I'd include a few more details about the last few days of my contiki tour again.

France was beautiful. Did you know that the city of Paris is completely planned and designed to be beautiful?? After it was flattened between the two world wars, a designer was hired to design the city from scratch to be beautiful and pleasing to the eye. That's why everything is so lovely there. It didn't happen by accident like Prague (still the most beautiful city I've been to). Anyways, not the most important detail, but an interesting one nonetheless. Our last night in France we all went out to a Parisian dinner and a Cabaret. That's right, a Cabaret. I have never been to one of those but it was fantastic. What I failed to mention before was the significance of the weather that night. I don't think I mentioned the weather on my trip really at all. I must say, our weather was very nearly perfect the entire time. We had beautiful cloudless days, days with puffy white clouds and nice breezes, days that were grey but you were thankful for a break from the heat, perfect perfect weather...that is until the last night in Paris. We had to walk from the place we dined at to the Cabaret, and as soon as we stepped outside it began to drizzle a little bit. The girls all started to worry about their hair and makeup and such (we got a little dolled up for our last night in Paris), and apparently that slow drizzle is the kind of rain Aussies are used to. I said to Ray (a fellow Canadian from Vancouver) that the drizzle was nothing, it wasn't truly raining out until you spent 2 min outside and got completely soaked. Well, I really shouldn't have said anything apparently. It started to pour rain!! I mean pour!!! We were all soaked to the skin by the time we made it to the Cabaret!! The girls were all screaming and demanding the boys start removing coats and shirts to protect their precious hair!! It was hilarious!! I couldn't stop laughing as we ran down the street, with no possible way to stay out of the rain with the girls are screaming and trying to run fast in heels on cobblestone streets. Mean of me I know, but I really couldnt' stop laughing. It's a good thing I'm not a girly girl and could care less if I got rained on and it "ruined my hair" Couldn't complain really. In 18 days it was the first ugly weather we'd had, we all went through it together, and really, they all needed to just let it go and laugh at themselves. I sure did!! Come to think of it, some of them probably didn't like me too much will all my laughing at them. There were a few other times when I laughed at their expense. Like when one of my fellow Canadians asked where I got moose meat from as she had never seen it in the supermarket, to which I quite bluntly replied that my dad "shot it and we ate it". Stupid questions get stupid answers and a good laugh. Or like when one of the "group of 8" as we called them (a group of friends that were on tour together who were pretty anti-social to the 42 other people on the bus), asked a very stupid question. We were down in a valley, looking up at the Swiss alps on a beautiful cloudless morning. Looking up at the snowcaps, you could see gusts of snow being blown from the sides of the mountain. It was gorgeous. Until one of the group of eight asks, "is it snowing up there!?" to which I turned and asked "Do you see any clouds?" I burst out laughing...wow we had some great blond moments on tour. Anyways, I think that's about all for now. I have to get doing the laundry anyways. More to come later as I have not much to do with my time except play on the internet. Love and miss you all, will be home quite soon.

Hugs, Mel
PS-anyone wishing to meet and greet at my house when I get back are more than welcome to. We should get back from the airport around 9 or 9:30pm on June 28 (that's a thursday), so if you want to come say hi and have some appetizers, feel free. But please do call my mom to let her know if you're coming, cuz she's making the appies and would appreciate a head count before she starts getting ready. For those who have forgotten my home number as I haven't been there to call for 2 months it's 564-7330. Hope some of you can make it!!