Paris

Believe it or not, this is Paris. My dad visited me in London in April and so for his birthday I got us tickets on the Eurostar to Paris for three nights.

I have to say, April was a perfect time to visit, it wasn't too hot and spring was approaching so the parks were absolutely brimming with beautiful flowers.

Dad, as you can see, was enarmoured with France's vehicles.

Despite being afraid of heights Dad braved it up the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower (my second time up the tower which is really bordering on greedy for me) .We also visited the Sacre Couer, Moulin Rouge, Champs de Elysee, the Louvre and Notre Dame.

In Montmartre one of the French buskers began playing a Finn brother's song which was rather hilarious and appropriate at the same time.

Paris is one of the few cities in the world that I could return to again, and again, and again.

Barcelona

This is what I love about alleyways. You find cute boutiques (L) and you find the soul of a city (R).

Mel and I were very, very hungover on this day (we had spent the previous night in Ibiza). We spent several hours sleeping in our air conditioned room after getting off our flight and then set out for a long, long walk around Barcelona's streets.

After this photo was taken, a few paces away, a guy on a bike sped past an elderly woman and ripped the necklace off her neck.

Later, Mel and I went and got a sandwich from a local bakery and sat in a small square and people watched.

New Zealand

Put simply, this is my favorite place in the world. The only way I can describe it is that that when I'm at this beach my heart is happy.

Sydney

Evidence of my inability to sit still- going home for a two week holiday in New Zealand also involved a weekend trip to Sydney to see my little brother. I hadn't been to Sydney before.

Within half an hour of stepping off the plane Mark drove us to Bondi Beach.

I cannot exaggerate enough the pure exquisitness of seeing blue skies and beautiful beaches. I decided I was moving to Sydney about five minutes before this photo was taken.

Madrid

This is Cine Dore, an old theatre run beside Spain's national film library. My assignment was to go and take a few photos, maybe grab some pamphlets. It took me about half an hour to find the place and it was situated behind a high road in a somewhat suburban area which is always a pleasure to visit in another country (see if the grass is really greener).

Sadly, by the time I found the place I realised it wasn't open until 5.30pm. Still not realising I was actually visiting a theatre , I came back after a few glasses of vino tinto at a nearby cafe, to find a looong queue snaked around the building. Out of morbid curiosity I too queued up, not believing that this many people had come to see a library. And of course they hadn't. The filmoteque sold tickets to evening screenings of old films for two euro. Sensing a bargain of course I paid, only to find I was watching a Russian film with Spanish subtitles.

I ended up falling asleep (the wine had done me over), and only woke because my own snoring was so loud.

In my defense, sightseeing all day is really tiring.

Edinburgh

If there is anything I miss about New Zealand it's my best friends and wide open spaces.

This is Georgie and I at Loch Ness, after about six hours of driving through Scotlands's Highlands. Our tour guide was the bus driver and apparantely an unofficial radio DJ as he commentated the very minuate of our driving experience through the countryside, laughed at his own jokes and played Scottish music for the whole 12 hour tour. No silences allowed.

This is before Georgie and I took off on an unbeaten path around the lake (can you tell we're New Zealanders?) in search of Nessie.

If we look tired it's because we went to bed at 2am to rise two hours later for our flight. Luckily the beautiful weather had the endorphins kicking.

Vienna

Despite being a frequent traveller and a frequent writer, I very rarely collaborate the two. Rifling through my blog I've realised I don't actually write about any of my trips. In actual fact, I think I've subconsciously decided that writing about the minutae of travelling and exploring is boring. Which is ridiculous.

Tonight I ran a hot bath and bought two pieces of reading material with me- Lonely Planet's 'Tales from Nowhere' ( a collection of short stories). And the diary I kept while I travelled around the U.S and Europe last year.

Lonely Planet stayed on the floor.

So here is my challenge- pick a favorite photo from each of my trips and explain it to you. Not in a Times section , this is where we went, this is what we ate and this is how much it cost kind of way, but hopefully in a way that sets the scene and sums up what I love about exploring.

Here goes.

Oven mitts- embarassing unprepared travellers since Winter 2011. This is what I think of when I look at this picture. So my friend Renee, from Chicago, travelled with me to Vienna in late November this year. Renee tried explaining the temperature to me, but she was talking Farenheit so I failed to grasp that 30 degrees Farenheit was ZERO DEGREES.

So I had a small heart attack on our Easy Jet flight when the pilot introduced Vienna to us and I realised that it was going to be a cold, possibly snowy weekend. These mittens were a desperate purchase from H&M at Stephanzplatz which is the main shopping area in Vienna. I purchased the most obnoxious, warm looking mitts I could find.

Nevermind the fact that I had Edward Scissorhand type situations for a few days as I tried to pick things up with my mitts.

After this photo was taken Renee and I braved the cold through the swankier area where rich husbands were taking their fur-clad wives to buy jewellery at Tiffany and handbags at Chanel. To be fair, this trip was mostly about eating and each small walk or sightseeing venture was immediately intertwined with a trip to a cafe where almost every single waiter wore a suit and strudel and chocolate cake were lunch. So we went to a cafe after this and had baileys coffees and cake.