Shirley and Mum were busy dragging their well loaded suitcases around Europe on a 3 month trip so we met up in Venice for a weekend (thanks Mum!). Venice was just as I remembered it only about 4 times more crowded, those little winding lanes just aren't made for tour groups of 40 people!
Then not long after Venice Joris and I popped down to Agen (near Bordeaux) to his fathers country house for another weekend away. It is a really nice old stone house, an old moulin (windmill) in fact. Very cute but 20 mins drive to the nearest supermarket. A very nice break from the hustle and bustle of Paris though.
Following Agen we headed to Prague for yet another weekend away (gotta love Easyjet!).
Andafter being woken at 4.30am by a girl walking into our 'private dorm' who was under the distinct impression that she was staying there too (reception had moved her bags and not told her that she was in a different room!) we decided that our backpacker hostel days might be coming to an end. Still, Prague was cold but lovely and we had a nice weekend of wandering around the town.
This left us with just enough time to fit in one last weekend away... Morocco. I've been dying to go and finally we got the chance, even if only for 3 days. So we popped off to Essaouira and enjoyed wandering around the medina, eating fish and crab right next to the fishmarkets and trying to find enough space amongst the 40 or so football fields (soccer to all the Aussies) on the beach to go for a walk.
After some fairly restrained shopping (given the quantity of handmade leather bags and shoes for sale I think I was very controlled!) we sadly left behind the sun and 23 degrees in Morocco and headed back to Paris where we were greeted by clouds and -1degree temperatures. Lovely.... However we didn't have to put up with the lovely Paris temperatures for much longer.
We hung around just long enough to enjoy New Year celebrations with Alex and Daniel and birthday celebrations with Adam and Holly before heading to Thailand (which is quickly becoming my home away from home) where we enjoyed a few hectic days in Bangkok before discovering beautiful Koh Tao. 
This gorgeous, not overdeveloped, island was a little piece of heaven... wish we could have stayed
longer. However Thailand was unfortunately just a stopover on the way back to Aus so 10 short days later we touched down in Sydney where I was greeted by my family and a garage full of boxes awaiting packing and sorting. So most of our short 3 day stay in Sydney was spent going through things I haven't seen in years, let alone used and culling and repacking in preparation for our move to Melbourne... yep, we're going to give life a little bit further down under a go. Joris got an Inter-company transfer from his Paris office to Melbourne so here we are. We're staying with friends at the moment, but think we might have located a flat (competition seems as fierce here as in Sydney, we've been turning up to inspections with around 20 - 50 other people each time), so once we lock down accommodation I'll be turning my focus to finding a job... again. If anyone knows of any opportunities or contacts in Melbourne please feel free to send them my way :)
