Darin had a week's leave that he needed to take before the end of the year so we decided to visit Switzerland and Austria which are meant to still be nice during winter. We flew into Geneva on Friday night where we met Barry and took the train to Lausanne where Barry lives. We had a big night out in Lausanne on the Friday which unfortunately ended with somebody stealing Ellen's phone and iPod along with some money. We had a walk around Lausanne on the Saturday ...

We started our trip in Marrakech where we met the rest of our Travel Talk tour group. We spent some time walking around Djeema El Fna - the main square on Marrakech, bedazzled by the sights of monkeys, snake charmers, singers, fighters, games and more. We then had a long drive east across Morocco, over the Atlas Mountains before arrived at our campsite near Zagora in the Saharan dessert. We weren't exactly slumming it with our huge private tents (bigger than ou...

We took our first real leave since we arrived for a four day trip for Oktoberfest in Munich. We had a really early start on the Friday (4:30 am wake up) and flew from London into Stuttgart. There we met our Busabout group and tour leaders and jumped on a three hour bus to Munich. Once we arrived we had a walk around town before having our first stein at the famous Hofbrau beer hall. After Darin displayed his knowledge of German history and geography winning ten...

We missed NZ a little so we went to Edinburgh for the long weekend - Edinburgh during the fringe festival is a little like Wellington during sevens. There were people everywhere in costumes, the main street was closed off and there were even a few people more drunk than you would expect in the middle of the day. We stayed in an awesome hostel with loads of character and an amazing breakfast included. We found a great pub to watch the All Blacks lose to Austr...

A scorcher of a weekend was enjoyed in Paris with 32C both days. We still managed to check out all the sights with earlyish mornings meaning we could avoid the hot afternoons. We climbed the steps of the Eiffel Tower to the 2nd level to avoid the queue then took the lift to the top during the day and returned in the evening to see the tower all lit up - beautiful. We took a more direct approach to our visit to the Louvre and beelined specific items to vie...