Glacier Failure... Back on the Road

Unfortunately, this morning we had bad news. The weather at the glacier was too windy for the helicopter to land safely so no glacier hike for us.  While this was terribly sad, we knew that the tours get cancelled frequently for weather so it was a risk we knew we were taking.  The weather is just so finicky that they don't make the cancellation decision until 30 minutes before departure so it's hard to plan for.  Ultimately, safety first!  We contemplated staying another night and trying to do the glacier hike the next day but ultimately decided that it wasn't worth the risk of it getting cancelled again. Plus, what were we going to do all day in town? Literally, nothing. Before leaving, we did decide to go to the base of the glacier to get a picture. Unfortunately, we found that there wasn't that much to see. Hence, the need for the helicopter. 

On the road again...

This morning we got up bright and early and flew into Queenstown. We needed to pick up our rental car and hit the road to get to Franz Josef glacier. We booked our rental car online but upon arriving, we quickly learned that we must have gone with a serious mom and pop business without realizing it. There wasn't a counter like there was for Budget or Avis and we had no idea where to go. We borrowed people's phones but eventually we were told to just sit by a courtesy phone hoping someone would call us back.   Knowing that was a terrible plan (do courtesy phones even take calls?  What if someone was using the phone?  There's probably not call waiting.), but not having any clue what else to do, we took a seat near the phone.  Randomly though, a man suddenly appeared 5 minutes later and said and had our car. He was driving our rental so we drove about 5 minutes away from the airport to his "office" and where we were to meet him to return the car. Interesting. Once we drove away, he basically walked off into oblivion. Strange.

The rental car office- We're to meet him to do the car return.  He walked off in the distance behind Will with a bucket full of keys and some pens and papers, his portable "office." 

After getting the car, we immediately hit the road to Franz Josef where we would be staying the night to do a glacier hike the next morning.  We hoped to stop somewhere to eat first but it was immediately time to get up the first big mountain. Driving to the glacier is not for the faint of heart and I was definitely white knuckling it the entire time and screaming for Will to slow down so we didn't drive off a cliff. There were lots of windy roads and it was giving me anxiety. Once we passed the first big mountain, we stopped at the first place that had food because we were starving. It was the most adorable cafe with delicious sandwiches and baked goods.

 

After that, it was time to hit the road again!  Good thing we stopped when we did because for most of the entire way to the Glacier, there was nothing. Honestly I couldn't believe how little there was. No gas stations, nothing. We did make a stop at the Blue Pools Walk though. It was right off the main highway and only a 30 min walk. Sadly, it wasn't quite the same blue I saw from pictures online (maybe due to the cloudy day) but it was still pretty cool nonetheless. 

Waitomo: The Lost World

This morning we woke up and ate breakfast near our hotel in Ponsonby before hitting the road to Waitomo. The drive to Waitomo was about 2 hours long and we passed lots and lots of farmland. There were tons of cows and sheep and tiny little towns but most of Auckland and New Zealand is pretty secluded.

Kiwi breakfast: corn fritters, bacon, avocado, sour cream, & tomato salsa- yum!

We got to Waitomo early so we had lunch.  We had pretty low expectations of food since the little town is pretty remote but we actually have been surprised and pleased with the quality of food everywhere in New Zealand thus far. We had lunch at this adorable little Huhu cafe and then headed to our excursion.

For our activity for the day, we were doing the 4-hour Lost World excursion. First we drove about 20 mins to to a big farm where we got suited up. Then we hiked about 10 minutes to the entrance of the Lost World cave. Looking down was pretty scary!  Luckily no one else signed up for our time frame so it was basically a private tour of just me, Will, and our guide, Chris. After getting all of our gear checked, it was time for the abseil down: 300 meters (about 33 floors down).  It was so fun and not at all scary except for the first time you get out over the ledge. It was pretty awesome!

Kia Ora Auckland!

Initially we had a 12 hour layover in Houston before heading to Auckland.  Normally I hate long layovers but since my family is in Houston, it was going to work out great. We had a plan to have lunch with my grandma, go wakeboarding for the day, and then do dinner with my family. We'd head to the airport and be exhausted and ready to sleep!  Unfortunately our morning flight to Houston got cancelled/rescheduled (silver lining: more time to pack- which we always need!) and we didn't have time to leave the airport to see the fam. Instead, we had a quick 2 hours so we just had dinner at the airport.

Leading up to today's flight, I had been tracking our seat selection. I love gambling with our seat choices and we decided to pick both aisle seats of a 4 seater in the center of the plane.  We lucked out and no one chose the two seats in the middle!  Hooray!  Having those two extra seats made the 14 hr flight to Auckland a breeze!  Honestly, easiest flight ever!  Will and I could take turns and lay down to sleep. While Will's legs had to hang off a bit, I was able to lay down with legs fully extended and that, partnered with Air New Zealand's great movie selection, the flight went by so quickly! 

After getting into Auckland, we picked up our rental car (pink piece of junk!) and hung around downtown.  While at the rental office, we saw a world map which initially surprised me a whole bunch.  Talk about perspective!  Will was initially a little nervous about driving on the opposite side of the road but he got a hang of it!

Bonjour Paris! So nice to see you again...

Will & I have both been to Paris before so we had already gotten all of the siteseeing out of the way during out past trips.
*If you want more info on that, look for old posts under the "Paris" label.

We considered going to some new places via day trips like Mont St. Michel but ultimately, we used this time to just relax and enjoy the city. While we revisited some tourist spots just to take a new quick pic, we spent most of the time eating, shopping, exploring neighborhoods and doing more eating!  The only main difference was the time of year we went.  Since I'm a teacher, we typically travel in the dead of summer where Paris (and most places) are in the midst of their busiest and hottest time of the year.  It was pretty amazing to get to go over Thanksgiving and during the fall.  We both commented several times at how great it was not to be sweaty and have your hair in a ponytail dripping from the heat and humidity.  We found that we actually liked wearing jackets and fall clothes.  Also, since it is towards the end of November, it's officially Christmas season and everything was so fun!  They have tons of fun Christmas markets everywhere and there are lots of festive lights and Christmas decor.  We loved it and highly recommend going to Paris this time of year! Since there's nothing super noteworthy to remember in terms of where to go, I'm combining our entire 4 days in Paris in one MEGA post with lots of pictures and more simple captions. Prepare yourself!

Our AirBnB was tiny but in the best location in Marais!  You just go out the big blue doors and they were tons of restaurants, high end stores, ice cream places, etc.  It was the perfect location near the metro but also walking distance to almost everything!  There was even a huge Paris subway map on the wallpaper which made for helpful planning. :)

 

 

 

First, some revisits of some of the famous sites...

 Notre-Dame Cathedral

 Sainte Chapelle Chapel

 

The Eiffel Tower

Sacre-Coeur Basilica

 

Let's Get Cooking!

Today we started the day by checking out of our riad and leaving the medina!  It's interesting because when you're in the medina, it's like you're in another world and you get to experience Marrakesh how it traditionally is.  However, the second your leave the medina walls, you're in a normal, modernish city.  There are Starbucks, McDonalds, cars, congested streets, and people going to and from work.  As a tourist, I don't really see why you would want to spend much time outside of the medina as it is a city but not a particularly interesting one.  Anyways, today we made a pit stop before going to the airport.  We took a Moroccan cooking class at the Amal Women's Training Center.  This place is really cool!  It is a training center to help disenfranchised women (like single mothers) train for jobs in the hospitality/hotel industry by teaching them how to cook, be a waitress, clean, etc. so they can get a job in a local riad.  The women practice cooking and they sell the food to local schools for their lunch and there's even a restaurant in the city that allow the women to practice what they're learning.  We didn't get a chance to go to the restaurant but by taking a cooking class here, the profits offset the costs to run the place.  It was originally started by a Swiss non-profit who loaned the Amal Center money to get them up and running.  Fortunately, the loan was paid back in full and now they're a self-sustaining center.

 

Seaside at Essaouira

This morning we decided to get out of Marrakesh and go on a day trip.  I had read online that Essaouira was a cool little beach town and it wasn't too far out of the way so we decided to check it out.  Most of the way there was just open, flat land.  However, on the route we passed a bunch of argan trees which produce nuts that make argan oil (the same oil in hair and beauty products).  The craziest thing about these argan trees is that these goats like to hang out in them.  They're not put in the tree by anyone or anything, they just like to climb up there and... hang out?!  It was pretty silly looking!

About half way through we stopped at an argan oil cooperative where these local woman help create products from the argan tree.  It was pretty neat because you could see them grind up the argan nuts to get all the oil out to make various food and cosmetic products.

After that, we pressed on to Essaouira.  It was a cute but sleepy little seaside down where there was a small beach and some cute cafes, restaurants, and shops.  We decided to eat a seafood lunch before walking around and taking pictures and exploring the little shops.

Getting Lost in the Souks

We were up bright eyed and bushy tailed to get a start on the day and this city.  However, last night, I was awoken by some definitely unexpected but beautiful singing!  I think it was some local Muslims singing their morning prayers (pardon my ignorance of whatever it is actually called) but it was so loud but pretty.  It felt like the entire town was singing together.  Definitely a fun experience of being in a riad in the medina rather than a big hotel chain outside of the walls but it was really cool!  I was actually smiling from being woken up in the middle of the night!

 Anyways, the main appeal of coming to Marakkech was the souks.  The souks are basically the rows and rows of shops selling all kinds of fun stuff.  The medina doesn't have any real roads/cars but rather so many little alleys and walkways that only accommodate foot traffic or a small moped.  Each of these stalls in the souks sell are kinds of stuff like pottery, leather shoes, fun ceramic tiles/mosaics.  The alleys are like a maze and since there are no streets or signs or anything, you can easily get lost.  Luckily for us, I wanted to!  It was such a great time and everything looked incredible.  Will said he felt like he was on an old movie set and it was true.  So neat!  I especially loved all the Moroccan metal lamps but unfortunately that wasn't going to fit into our luggage.  We lucked out with the most amazing weather too!

 

       

Marrakech or Marrakesh?

I follow travel deal sites all the time but usually all of the good deals are during the school year which is one of the reasons a teacher schedule can stink.  While I do have holidays and the summer off, those times are usually the most expensive and the hottest times of year to travel.  Finally though, an amazing travel deal worked out for us!  Will and I aren't super big into Thanksgiving so the holiday break, plus two personal days, wrapped around two weekends gave us over a week to head to Paris!

Being as we've both been to Paris before, we realized that maybe we didn't need such a long time there.  We brainstormed cheap flights from Paris and my French class experience made me think of Morocco and BINGO, we had a side trip!  Flights to Marrakech were cheap from Paris and Morocco was always been interesting to me so it was an easy decision.

Today was a travel day.  We originally got our deal to Paris ($430 roundtrip! And on AirFrance who had the most chic safety video and macarons for dessert!) as roundtrip from DC so today we flew to Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport and then took a bus to the Orly airport to catch our flight to Marrakech.  While at the airport, we got snacks from a little convenience store and even though it was a tiny store, their bread was fresh and delicious and paired with proscuitto and brie, made for a great airport snack!

It was just a 2 hour flight and we had arrived in Marrakech!  We got picked up by a driver from our hotel because we had read that it's pretty much impossible to find hotels from inside the Medina because they can only drop you off so far in as there are not really roads within the medina walls.  What we read was right!  If we did not have a driver to follow, we would've never found our hotel.

Au revoir Montreal!

Today was our last day in Montreal!  Luckily we accomplished everything on our to do list so today was a lazy day. We slept in and leisurely packed up our stuff. After getting everything ready to go, we headed to the Underground City to check it out. Basically it is a huge "mall" of sorts underground and is connected to certain subway stops and some office buildings. It covers a large part of downtown and has a range from nicer brand name stores to random other shops and eateries. It is apparently more busy during the cold winter where no one wants to be walking out and about in the freezing weather. It wasn't anything too exciting but it was worth checking out.

 Next we went to the Halles du Gare which is the area around the train station. Here there are all kinds of fun food stalls and one of them is Boulangerie Premiere Moisson where we ate lunch. This bakery is a famous bakery in Montreal that is famous for their fresh bread and other baked goods. The original store is in another part of Montreal but now they have several outposts. Will and I got a sandwich and some desserts to share and it was delicious!  After that we got another bagel, this time from another famous bagel shop, called Fairmont. I'm definitely going to miss these Canadian bagels!!