My Paris trip - in point form

Monday 9th- Arrived in Paris at 1:30pm, taxi to hotel Ibis, lunch at Café Folstrum which faces the roundabout at Place de la Bastille.- Metro-ed to Place de la Concorde. Lots of pictures at the fountain and the obelisk.- Walked along the Champs Elysées and bought way too many souvenir thingoes.- Arc de Triomphe where, because it was Easter I think, they were having some sort of ceremony around the Tomb of the Unkown Soldier. Didn't climb the Arc coz mum wasn't up to it but already done it before so no big deal.- Eiffel Tower, where we waited in line for about 45 mins when they decided to close the top floor due to too many poeple so we decided to come back the next day.- Crossed the Seine to the Trocadero. Lots of pics of the fountain and a fantastic view of the Tower all lit up and sparkly - pretty.- Metro-ed back to Place de la Bastille, grabbed food and walked back to the hotel.Tuesday 10th- Got up rather late, left hotel around midday. Lunch at a nearby café.- Eiffel Tower. Waited in line for abour an hour forty-five before going up to thesecond floor and another 10 before heading to the top floor. Up there for about 30mins then waited another 20mins to get back down. Sheesh. Worth it though.- Early dinner then back to hotel to change.- Taxied to a tourist office where we took a guided bus tour around Paris and were dropped off at the Moulin Rouge. We saw the show Féerie which was FANTASTIC and got a ride back to the hotel which the tourist people. I bought a program for the show.- It was about 2:00am by the time we got back, ordered a lasagne coz after finishing the complementary bottle of champagne between the two of us at the show we were rather hungry. Got to bed around 3am.Wednesday 11th- Once again got up late. Wanted to get the bateau-bus to Ile de la Cité but ended up walking - not far and beautiful day.- Notre Dame, amazing cathedrale, absolutely huge. We went into the treasury - so much money goes into the place and there are still collection boxes around. If only one of those "relics" we sold to a museum, you'd have enough money to run a small country.- Lunch at a nearby café - The Quasimodo Café, heh.- Louvre Museum. Lots of photos around the building and the Glass Pyramid.- Saw the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo amoung lots of other things, walked the entire Grand Gallerie. I wanna read The DaVinci Code again now :)- After 2 hours had only walked two out of three wings and only one floor. Mum was complaining about saw feet but we walked the entire Ancient Egypt collection before leaving.- Dinner at a different restaurant at Place de la Bastille and then back to the hotel.Thursday 12th- Checked out at eleven.- Lunch at the same café from Tuesday morning.- Wondered a few shops then back to the hotel to pick up our luggage.- Taxied to Gare de Lyon for the three hour train ride back to Nîmes.Final Conclusion - I LOVE PARIS.

Me speak English goodly... yah

I am extremely spacy. I live in my head so much it is kind of scary. No 'JD in Scrubs' type running monologue but just random thoughts and fantasies which have nothing at all to do with reality. The freaky thing is that half of my unformed thoughts and scenarios running around my head are now in French. And I can't remember if certain memories happened in or if funny conversations were said in French or English.My mother is over here visiting and it's great to have her here but it has brought into stark relief that my English is getting really REALLY bad. I always prided myself on being rather well spoken and having a good grasp of vocabularly and grammar but now I search for words that I know I know but can only think of in French.Annoying.On a complete side note - listening to Fanny speak English to my mother is endlessly amusing.

Of police interactions and family visits

I went to the police station last Thursday. I wasn't initially inclined to take the incident all that seriously but the principal of my school did and considering the area we're in I have to agree that she was and is right. I walk upa not too tall but extremely steep hill to get to one of my three schools where I work. There was a guy following me and I didn't worry about him too much because 1) there are always people wondering up and down this hill because 2) the bus in this particular part of Nîmes runs about once every two hours. Like I said, didn't worry about the dude too much until he decided to grab my arse. And I'm not talking a slight slap, I mean he followed me all the way up the hill and when we got to an intersection he grabbed the back of my shirt with one hand and my arse with the other. Well, me being me I spun around and wacked the guy. Aimed for the head but he was taller than I expected and I hit him in the shouler. I also yelled a VERY loud "fuck off". The guy actually seemed rather surprised. Being French all he said was "ooh la" and walked off in the other direction. I dunno if he was surprised by my hitting him or my obviously un-French expletive.I told my teachers about it and they insisted on calling the cops coz we're a primary school, and there is a middle school and senoir school in the area too and weird guys following school girls is not cool. So after school I had to go to the Commissariat to make a formal complaint and describe the guy even though I only really got a glimpse of his profile. I went back to that school today and kept an eye out but no sight of creepy-old-guy. He was easily almost 50. Beurk (that's French for yuck - I'm not kidding).So in better news last Saturday was St Patricks and the local Irish pub was THE place to be! I still don't like beer no matter how many times someone says "just try it". Although I must say Guinness is better than normal beer. It was a decent drinking night if not that much of a dancing night. I crashed at Kiran's place and made my slow way back to my place in the morning. Nothing much else has happened during the week. Going out with Nico and maybe Yannick next week. Those guys are so fun and my French is getting so good, although Nico does like to try his English out and after explaining what 'bootyliscious' and also 'Fergieliscious' means he has decided his new name is Nicoliscious lol.My mummy arrives in France on Wednesday morning. Yay. She stays three weeks and I'm so excited. Can't wait to see her. Of course that does mean that this weekend is gonna be spent cleaning the place up. But I've managed to get a very sore throat and slight cold just before she arrives didn't I? Gah. Oh well it's worth it.Til next time kiddiesPS I now have a MySpace for my Aussie buddies and a Facebook for my American buddies and one South African. I'm totally rocking the cyberspace!!

yay for procrastination

YoLong time no decent update.I have half an hour - probabaly a little more coz recréation is always a bit late. I went over to Montpellier the other day and I just had to tell you guys about the pub we visited there.Fanny, Nico, Yannick and I headed over there a Sunday evening with the intention of having dinner there and going ice-skating. I liked this idea coz everytime I go out with them on a Sunday we end up home late and I have to get up at 6:30am Monday mornings so Caryn doesn't like lateSunday nights. Had dinner at a nice restaurant there called La Cuba but half way through we realised that, being Sunday and in the south of France everything is closed on a Sunday or closes really early, that the ice-skating rink had already closed. Fanny suggested going to a "bar de dance" which is like a nightclub but opens earlier and closes earlier so you don't have to wait around til midnight before it gets any good. Nico suggested a bar called The Australian so of course I was all up to see what this place would look like.It was hilarious. There were Aussie flags up all over the walls. I big-ass map of Australia. Lots of "wallaby/kangaroo/wombat crossing" signs. Right in the middle of the dance floor was your typical outback dunny complete with sign. The toilets were for Sheilas and Blokes and they even had VBs in the fridge. Although they ruined it by having shitloads of Fosters in there too. All the Americans have asked me if we all drink Fosters in Australia. Apparently the slogan over there is "Fosters - Australian for beer". I told them no one drinks that stuff - it's mostly for exporting purposes. Anyway the music was good and the cocktails were excellent. It wasn't on the menu but I got them to make me Black Russians which I had been missing before then. Can barelyfind Kahlua anywhere in this damb country, and vokda and lemonade just gets boring after a while. Needless to say Caryn didn't get much sleep that night before school the next day. At least I wasn't hungover. Mondays are my longest days with my most hated classes - I don't think I could take being hungover too. So yeah the bar was cool and it was good timing because it was the Sunday just after Australia Day so I kind of got to do some Australia Day celebrating. Nice sence of continuity.First day back at school today after the "winter holidays". Meh. Been fine so far except the annoying teacher still annoys me; go figure. I have to make a really huge update soon, about not only Italy and my birthday but actually go into a bit of detail about my trip to the Cote d'Azur too - Nice, Marseille, etc. But it's long, and I keep putting it off and the more I put it off, the more time passes, more things happen and the the long post slowly gets even longer. It's a horrid cycle.Yeah so its 10:30 and recréation should be over soon (read: in about ten mintues when the teacher gets up and calls the kids in, strange sometimes not having automated cells) so I should probably go get my shit together for class. I plan to write again soon, prob in a few chunks, about my other trips just to keep people updated on my oh so terribly interesting life.Ah I hear kids...

FEAR ME!!!!

He he he I just had to share this with people...What Japanese creature are you?Whoooo weee!!! Youre a loud, boisterous burly ogre!. You are one of the guardians to the gates of Buddhist hell dimensions. You like to smash and bash and eat and make loud noises (which don't necessarily come from your mouth). You love the taste of flesh and battle. But deep down, you're soft hearted and wonder why people just don't understand that it's your nature. Perhaps abstaining from fights with the local wild beasts will let the humans see that you can be a good ogre that smells like flowers... NOT!LOL I'm a demon hehehehttp://www.quizilla.com/users/Ahavah/quizzes/What%20Japanese%20Creature%20are%20you?/

Special post for a special person

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TIMMY!!!You're 22 now. You're so old.

Hope e...

Hope everyone is having a good new year so far. Just finished the first week back at school - always fun. Reveiw and teaching the older kids numbers to 100 which, naturally, lead to reading a clock. I had no idea it would be so difficult to explain the concept of AM and PM. In the end I just got the teacher to explain for me. All in all it was a good first week back.Timmy, it's5 days til your birthday - and you know what it means riiiiiight ... it's 12 days until MY birthday, which we all know if far more important. I hope everyone at least says a livejournal happy birthday. If not I'll be terribly upset and just have to drink a whole lot of alcohol and cry myself to sleep.Brown, you're all morons because you guys say "naroodo" and not naruto.Leighbo, I think the French are just ahead in their dubbs because they have more practise. They dub EVERYTHING. They even dub over songs in the movies sometimes. Weird. South Park in French is particularly amusing.BTW boys do yourselves a favour and check out a relatively new anime called Karas. I'm fairly certain there is only 6 eps. Cool storyline, freaking awesome animation. Reminds me of the soldiers and weapons Leigh used to draw back in highschool. Check it out.Dinner time now. Whoo. Caryn is totally learning to cook well. I rock-END COMMUNICATION-