That man is a bad hat.

* *! Ugh. We really should just stop hanging out. But a dawn duel is easily arranged, it's not dawn until like 10 o'clock.

So I'm on holidays now... again! Juliette still has two days of solid tests though, that go for about 3 or 4 hours each. Poor Juliette.

YESTERDAY!
The history teacher stopped me after school and asked me what my first name was. I told her, and she stood there for a while looking confused, and then said "As in Emmanuelle?" I said no, just Emma, and she looked even more confused, then asked me the origins of the name. I said I thought it was Irish, which is not true. It seemed to keep her happy. I used the word "mec" (slang for "guy") while talking to Juliette's dad, and he said "that's slang. It's like you say in Australia, 'fox'. Do you say that in Australia, 'Come here, fox'?" pronouncing 'fox' with a strong American accent, like 'fawks'. No. No-one in Australia tells people to come here fox.
I am down to my last packet of Tim Tams, which I have promised to Caitlin and so won't open yet. Tim Tams are awesome comfort food. Juliette has conceded "one point to Melbourne" for our delicious biscuits, but still says that Paris is better because it has hot guys.

TODAY!
So this being our day off and Katharine's last few days, we went out touristing and getting lost on public transport. I was supposed to call her when I got to her house in the morning, but:-
1. Public phones don't take coins, only phone cards.
2. I went and bought a phone card but it wouldn't work.
3. I tried to ask someone about this but she was South African and didn't know. She was nice though.
4. Tried again and couldn't get international dialing to work.
5. Turns out you need a different phone card for international calls even if the phone is 50 metres away which it was.
6. I was so desperate I went and bought a SIM card.
7. The little jingle the phone plays when you turn it on makes me laugh, so I turned it on and off many times.
8. A nice lady voice on the phone told me how to do international dialing.
9. Still couldn't get Katharine's number to work. Went home to try.
10. Finally figured it out two hours after I was supposed to meet Katharine, by trying to remember what Caitlin'd told me on the plane.
Katharine's frenchie's mum told her that yesterday there was a bomb threat on the Metro and that some lines were closed, so we took buses everywhere, which are much slower and more confusing. We went to see Notre Dame and tried to figure out how the people up the top got there but got distracted. I had the world's hugest crépe for lunch, during which Katharine pronounced loudly (full of Parisians was this café) "French people really piss me off... Oh, crap". We kept getting approached by strangers who would say things like "Hello ladies, how are you? *eyebrow wiggle*" and "Latin? LATIN?" Afterwards, we spent forever on a bus plotting things, more forever looking in shops, and about an hour running along the Seine looking for the bridge that Madeleine fell off and got saved by Genevieve. We found it, too.

And you will totally never guess who I ran into. But no seriously. Guess.

On the way back we decided to walk for a couple of ks because the buses were being incredibly slow because of all the traffic. After seeing inordinate amounts of gendarmerie and national police all day, and arriving in a street where we were getting warned away from the Metro by randoms and everyone in the street seemed to be standing still and talking on mobiles, we were getting kinda creeped out. Sure enough, the Metro station was surrounded by riot police and there were about 30 armoured vans with lights and sirens out the front labeled National Security. Woo bomb threat. On a happier note we decided that this is appropriate subject for Katharine to mention to her parents when she shows them her 600 dollar phone bill. "Hey mum and dad, there was a bomb threat right near us today, PHONE BILL, but aren't you glad I'm safe?"

Also, my camera keeps screwing up, which is just great for touristing, you see. And my cold is miraculously better. I think my body must have used up its snot reserves yesterday when I went through almost an entire box of tissues.

--Emma