Travels in December

Its finally here ... 4/5 years planning we are going....
Departed NZ and arrived in London 31st Nov to a chilly 6 degrees. Amy & Chaz met us at the airport and tubed us via the underground home to chaz's place, a bit of R & R a few zzzz'ss and then of to a Hangi at the Redback - a long day. Spent 10 days of frantically finding and purchasing "Hugo" the home we will share for a year. Found 'Hugo' in Kent and bought her from a fab NZ family returning from 6 months in EU. How cool to have the money return to NZ!
Did the touristy double decker tour thru the streets of central London (recommended) took about 4 hrs. ended with a ferry trip up the Thames back to Westminster Abbey. The London Eye is impressive.
Headed of on the trail towards El Campello in Hugo on the 10th Dec. a cold but sunny ferry trip across the channel from Dover to Calais. Then a fast drive throught France to get to the Villa for the 13th Dec. First nite stop in Rheims/ second nite stop in Narbonne ( after a chilly snowy drive through Lyon)/ third nite stop by the sea just south of Valencia and then onto El Campello and our villa for the month. Had a peaceful week to ourselves before the party began with family, friends and some new aquaintances. The first lot arrived on the 20th and then a steady stream
rolled on to New Years eve when we had 23 stop for the nite. A quiet xmas with mostly immediate family. New Years eve however was a different story. Dress up was the theme for the night - come as you would want to be for 2009, some strange people around. !!!! The nite started sedately as you would expect and grew louder into the wee hours of the mornin. last to bed at 8.00am - impressive considering the amount of alcohol consumed. Several countries were represented for the nite - 2 x Aussies/ 3 x Irish/ 1 x French Canadian/ 5 x would be Pommie-Kiwis(those with British passports) and of course 12 x Kiwis. All the above had to perform their own national anthem. The nite started sedately and grew louder during the course of the evening as one would expect. Of course the haka was performed several times during the evening , however I only remember the first - funny that. Twas a good nite had by all and although I didn't spend much of the following day vertical it sounded rather quiet throughout the villa on New Years day. Sadly several of our guests left on New Years day.