Across the English Channel

Hullo From London!

Well I'm back in grey London and very releived to hear english speaking people everywhere!

The last few days in France were very good. I really liked Annecy and it was fantatsic to be staying in a family home as opposed to a hostel! In the few days I was at Annecy my opinion of France changed yet again. Annecy wasn't just a collection of grey builings as I had seen in Paris and Caen. It was surrounded by unbelievable mountains and a stunning lake. Plus I was blessed with fantastic weather. The size of the mountains blew me away. Ive never seen anything like it. Annecy is on the border of Switzerland, Italy and France and at some points I felt like was in The Sound Of Music! It was very cool to be wearing a t-shirt and skirt in the sun but to look up and be surrounded by snow capped mountains.

I picked up laryngitis from somewhere which meant that I completely lost my voice for a few days. Here is one major positive about getting this in France - since I couldn't speak French anyway I didn't need to use my voice. It was pretty horrible being sick in a foreign country though. Thank goodness Ive come back to London to stay with a doctor. He's fixing me up as we speak!

The train trip home from France was relatively uneventful - no breakdowns, strikes or long periods of waiting! The most eventful thing that happened was me completeing my first ever suduko. I was quite proud of myself as ve never been able to do it but after acquiring a kids version I seemed to do ok.
So for the next few days in london I've borrowed some siteseeing walk cards of Mo's. They are pretty cool. Each card has a different city walk on it and takes you around some cool places. Yesterday I explored Soho with one of Sal's flatmates. I really liked Soho. It was a little like Newtown with lots of funky bars and shops in old narrow streets. I also had a look through Chinatown where I may as well have been in Chinatown in Sydney. Had a couple of pints at the Bear and Staff before moving onto an aptly named bar called Smoke.

Its Sal's farewell tonight & karaoke is on the cards! Watch out! This will be my first overseas karaoke session and Im not too ure if London is ready for the outbusrt. I hear that people are already queing up for the event and a rendition of Living on a Prayer is going to be absolutely necessary.
I head to Ireland on Monday which should be quite cool. Im meeting up with Barry Andersons (Bing Lee creative director) son. I'm quite looking forward to it - Ive only met him once before but he is very much like his Dad from what I remember just not as old and cranky ;) Darcy has also been living and working in Dublin for 12 months so knows his way around. Should spend 3-4 days travelling then back to Dublin to meet Evin and LJ's brothers and sisters and friends.
Ive worked out how to get my photos online so here is the link! Ive labelled most of them but was getting sick of being behind the computer so some arent labelled as yet!
http://au.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/lscassar/my_photos

Well I must go to warm up my vocal chords - I dont want to disappoint particulalrly oafter the bout of laryngitis. Also off the Portebello road today. I think Ill have to leave the credit cards at home!!!

Miss you all & keep the emails coming!

xx Loz

ps some of you are on this email for the first time - I realised that half of the names Id copied across didnt actually copy so Im sorry for not contacting you sooner!