Jan 07

We are back in the UK now and got back on the 23rd. We had been planning to suprise our families for xmas and had the ferry booked 6 weeks before! We wanted to stay longer but we had spent far too much money so needed to come back fairly soon & thought it may as well have been for xmas. We stayed in Brighton on the 23rd & brought a couple of presents for each other & then went to my parents for xmas eve & Matt's parents on xmas day. The only problem with it being a suprise is that we didn't have any presents to open! We hadn't been updating the blog for the last couple of weeks to try and keep it more of a secret so that our parents couldn't see that we are nearly home but I am going to update it all now & add some more pictures on.

We spent a couple of days in Strasbourg for the xmas markets & brought lots of nice presents. There were several markets all with different stuff & lots of nice food & hot wine. The nicest market was the Romanian one & we brought a few things & also watched a traditional Romanian show with singing & dancing. It made me wish that we had gone to Romania as I really wanted to go there but Matt wouldn't let me as he said it would have been too far to drive & we would have had to have gone back on ourselves! But we are hoping to do another Europe trip in the future to got to the other Eastern European countries like Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Bulgaria & also Greece, Turkey & Southern Italy.

In Strasbourg we had a go on an outdoor ice rink which was really fun & neither of us fell over which was good! We also had a meal at an Indian Restaurant which wasn't that great as both of our meals were pureed and tasted & looked like baby food! There were lots of events going on like singing & also one odd man dressed up in ladies clothes with make up & a pair of socks down his pants doing some strange mime dance who was scaring all the kids! The xmas lights were really nice aswell.

From Strasbourg we went through Luxembourg but we didn't have any campsites in good places & the one we stayed at was in the middle of nowhere, I thought it was nice to have a rest for a couple of days as we had been really busy but Matt started to get a bit bored. We did have one problem at the campsite as we got stuck in the mud & had to be pulled out with a tractor so we got to use our tow rope we had brought before the trip. We also topped up with some cheap petrol for 65p a litre which was as cheap as Poland & the other Eastern countries which was nice.

Next we drove to Belgium & stopped at a campsite inbetween Brussels, Antwerp & Gent. We spent four days on a nice campsite with a nice lady who gave us a pitch for 10 euros a night with free electric instead of 15 euros a night with metered electric. We stayed four nights & she offered us a night for free aswell but we didn't take it as we wanted to move on. We spent most of the 4 days around the campsite & walking out to the nearby Lake Donkmeer. We decided that the area would be a very nice place to live as it was quiet with a nice lake & nearby to all the major cities. We liked Belgium as a whole as it was all very nice & all the people were friendly. We took the train to Gent & spent a lovely day there looking around. They also had a xmas market & some nice shops. We went to the castle as it was raining & cheap & that was fairly interesting as it had a torture museum inside. We had a meal out at a nice & cheap Vegan restaurant which was very nice & very busy. By this time we had to eat out all the time as we had run out of gas & they do not seem to have camping gaz in Belgium. We didn't make it to Antwerp as we were tired of getting the train to places & wanted to move on the the next campsite which was right near Bruges & we weren't interested in Brussels.

The campsite in Bruges was quite nice & very close to the city centre. We hired bikes for 10 euros for 4 days which was good value & cycled into town each day. We spent most of the time just wandering around. They had a good xmas market & an ice rink aswell but we didn't go on the ice rink as the surface was really bad & looked like snow rather than ice & it was really expensive. There were loads of nice chocolate shops in Bruges & we went to a chocolate museum which was interesting. We had a bit of trouble finding food as although we had the location of several vegetarian restaurants from the Tourist information office we couldn't find any of them. We had one meal at an Irish Pub which was nice as it had a fire & one of chips from a street stall plus a few waffles & hot wine! We also had two meals from Pizza Hut one at the restaurant and one take away due to a lack of anything else to eat.

From Bruges we drove the short drive to Calais (We would recommend getting the ferry to Calais & going to Bruges or anywhere in Belgium as nowhere is very far to drive from Calais) We did some shopping in the Hypermarket mainly for alcohol & cheese for presents & the went to the ferry port where we spent an afternoon & evening reading & wrapping up presents. After I had wrapped them all up I then started worrying that we were going to be stopped by customs on the way back & that they would want all the presents opened! As it turned out they didn't but we were checked at immigration control on the France side who checked for people in the boot! We had a good nights sleep at the ferry port & got the ferry with ease. The journey was only an hour and a half but was very stressful as everyone was speaking English. It has been a lot nicer the past few months as we haven't been able to understand conversations & it is easier to switch off & ignore what people are saying around you, but when we were on the ferry it was like we had been deaf & now could hear again and it was very loud & there were lots of obnoxious people.

We got back in England at about 10am & then drove to Brighton which took a really long time as it was all A road rather than motorway. We got to Brighton at about 2 & then had a shower & headed out for some shopping. We caught the bus from up the road into town & separated so I could get Matt a present! We met up & had dinner at a veggie fast food place where we had falafel & then went to the pier & played at the amusements on the 2p machines & then headed back to go to bed! We really like Brighton & if the campsite wasn't so expensive we would go back again soon but it cost £27 for a night which was more expensive than any other campsite on the whole trip. It was partly due to it being xmas but it also cost us £6 more as we aren't a member of the caravan club.

We are going to be around for about 6 months or so to earn some more money for our next trip which will be a round the world trip starting in Central America but we haven't decided the exact route as yet.