History.

So can anyone like Facebook this to Elena or something for me? I don't know how Facebook works but I thought I would make people do things for me, like slaves. Only click on it so it is bigger... slave.



I have never eaten a bagel. They look gross.

English?

Today is the first day of the holidays. Today is, therefore, the first day of studying.



...Drawing counts as study.



Simba doesn't look like Simba when he has glasses and a beard!

I need more music...

This is what two and a half thousand songs in two and a half days looks like.

--Caitlin

Numbers are Fun!

Doesn't everyone love maths jokes?

Outrageous!

And then there was that time my brother turned evil and tried to kill me. I call THAT one "The Time My Brother Turned Evil and Tried to Kill Me"

Unleash the Batbutt!

Look at him go

Possibly one of the greatest moments of television history.

I mean, Christian Bale couldn't do this.

And he could certainly never pull off the costume, either.

--Caitlin

Ow.

My legs and arms hurt from rockclimbing. My back hurts from drawing (how does this work? I DON'T EVEN KNOW) I am a walking ball of pain and I have some party tonight and some concert tomorrow night and all I want to do is lie on the couch and do nothing.
Buuuuuuuhhhhhhhhh
--Emma

Maybe he is a lion.

Dear everyone:



I am submitting it for House Art and Craft. Just thought I should give you a heads up so you'll know how insignificant all YOUR entries are.

--Emma

I hate 'Under the Sea'.

Damn you, little mermaid! Damn you to hell!

Never want to go back there again. Ever.

--Caitlin

You Spoony Bard!

Yes! In your face, Zeromus! 

That's what you get for making me travel down to the centre of the moon- you get a face full of Meteor.

 --Caitlin

They've been stolen!

Woo! Just finished watching D.N.Angel! Finally!

...

Except for the fact that I'm missing the last two episodes. Damn. Can anyone help with that?

 --Caitlin

Fush 'n Chups

Hide the vomit stains, clean the beer cans off the front lawn and pretend you never had that bitchin' party, because we're back from NZ and ready to confuse you for another while, at least until we kill each other in a well-meaning but nonsensical manner.

Looks good, doesn't it? Want to bathe in it, don't you? WELL YOU CAN'T IT'S A MILLION DEGREES CELSIUS

While you were all having a nice, long sleep-in after Lorne, we were getting up aaround 3 o'clock Saturday morning, having to be at the airport at 5:15. Emma didn't lose anything this time, it was quite awesome. We even found ourselves a little Peach kart to accompany us on our travels. We raced it across the airport; perhaps then was when Mrs J started to have doubts. Or perhaps it was later, when we demanded she listen to a recording of what Caitlin dubbed as "a cat being drowned by a baby." We shall never know.

Mrs J seeks refuge in a fush 'n chup store.

After a brief time looking around Auckland, we headed to Rotorua, having to deal with fitting two double basses at the back of the bus and the fact that the airport people broke Caitlin's cello case, which wasn't even hers. We did some fun stuff and laid down some funky beats and got off the bus at the Kingsgate Hotel, where we realised that New Zealand smells, and where Ash realised that being stuck in a room with both of us for 6 nights was perhaps not so great. Extend your sympathies to poor Ash, peoples, she had to put up with many a soft-toy battle.

Do New Zealanders do this often enough to warrant a sign? It would not surprise me.

On Sunday, we sight-saw (is that a verb?) around Rotorua and discovered Mrs Hewison's previously unknown love for corn, which transcended all boundaries of race and nationality. We also discovered that Western Rambo is actually a very funny movie, and that watching Sweeney Todd twice in one day can have serious consequences. Somewhere along the way we actually performed some things, but it is possible that the smell acts as a powerful drug, as I remember nothing. However, as I am Emma, this is quite normal.

Uncle Sam was right!

Monday we left Rotorua (much to the delight of all involved; the smell was something most foul) and headed for Hamilton. During the week, we'd normally have a couple of performances at schools during the day, then something fun at night, before returning to our tiny little box in the caravan park for the night, where Ash would sit outside and whittle, and we would fend off attacks from giant mosquitos, have midnight see-sawing expeditions, and freak out Swedish people by singing Wicked louder than is humanely possible. We got to see a NZ version of High School Musical, complete with a totally weak version of I See Red; we got to go bowling (where everyone was beaten by Emily, despite the severe handicap of not actually playing) and we even got to go frolicking in various parks and playgrounds. Caged children asked us for our autographs and Emma got a double bass bow to the head in the middle of a piece. It was also discovered that elevators are death traps and that pajamas tucked into boots with a beret is just about the Hot New Style; Caitlin should not be allowed to touch a musical instrument again for the safety of the entire planet, though she does make a mighty fine alarm clock - by the time you turn it off, you're laughing too hard to go back to sleep.

Rambo in the TV guide. Clearly marked in the synopsis is: "In Thailand, John Rambo joins a group of human rights missionaries." You will be pleased to know that we went through the entire guide with the hotel pen, replacing the word "John" with "Western"

By the end of the tour Emma couldn't feel her right forearm and Caitlin was having breathing difficulties, and both went home with half the other's suitcase. We watched Zac Efron in a corridor, we watched Kung Fu Hustle, we watched half an episode of The Mighty Boosh and went through the airport singing "Duhn duhn daaaaah.... Peacock Dreams." We all drank lemonaaaaaaade... The End

APB

Anyone have a copy of the Lion King on DVD? It's urgent. Don't make us march on Disneyland in desperation.

The prodigal son has returned!

Hooray! Apollo's back!

The christmas present my parents sent me while I was in France has finished its journey and returned home. It took more than two months, but oh well.

In other news, the master Mozart is a repititious little fellow.

--Caitlin

Oh, Sunkist...

I am going to post this here before I talk myself out of it.

EDIT: Wow, uh, blogger really seems to hate this picture. Or at least seems set on making it as gigantic as possible. Assuming that no-one wants a close-up of a foot and some Sunkist, I've gotten rid of it and here's the link instead. http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk9/land_of_junk/OhSunkist.jpg

Merry Pete-mas, Nicola.

Faaaaaaster!

Well everyone, I did it. But now I have a question for you all - Did anyone else find the last episode of Death Note immeasurably hilarious?

RE: That Matt Guy That I Was Bugging Everyone About All Last Night, I looked him up on Wikipedia and apparently he's like L's 3rd-in-line successor or something, like, after Mello and Near. He likes video games and probably pina coladas and getting caught in the rain... OH WELL HE DIED.

Smoking kills, kids.

It's dangerous to go alone! Take this!

Get Funky! He's Rasta!

 --Caitlin

Gratuitous Butt Shot #34

I am highly amused at the amount of times Channel Ten can show close-ups of Andrew Macleod's shorts.
--Emma

Prosecutor Edgeworth Chooses Chicken

Charlie Chapple-in and Winston Pearhill, the vaudeville act of the century, invite you to turn over a new leaf... of justice!

QUICKLY, WE MUST ACT NOW, BEFORE DOWNTOWN TOKYO IS DESTROYED BY COMRADE PRINGLE, WITH HIS LASER EYE BEAMS.

THE LUNAR WHALE SHALL EAT US ALL!

NOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOM.

So bored.

And this is what happens when you let me and Caitlin sit together during a boring speech, and when you let my sketchbook into Further Maths afterwards.




Here's a fun fact: In the original sketch Mrs. Scanlon looked very much like the illegitimate love child of Mr. Hanekoma and Joshua. Try not to think about the logistics of that one too much.


I don't know why I drew this and then foisted it upon you guys when I hate internet memes so much. I'll delete it later when I'm not so desperate for things to do. Before Caitlin sees it and is all like "Do this again and I'll tell the world about that picture of Scanlon you keep in your wallet"

But it's OK, Scanny. No-one will ever know of our forbidden love.

--Emma

And here we go again

Just what you always wanted. More photos.

Check out all the white sand and blue sea you guys missed out on. And all the canoe. Canoe canoe canoe?

The burying that didn't quite work out due to my unfortunate breathing habit. I can't be bothered rotating it. Turn your head.

I will give a million dollars to whoever can guess who this is supposed to be.

Awesome hat.

Helping Elena practice being a free spirit for House Swimming.

Devon tries to cover up at the Open. While wearing a tennis ball hat.

Having 5 people on one guitar is not the easy way out, apparently. It also appears to freak Elena out. Although maybe that was CGI Ozzie Osbourne.

STUPID BLOGGER

That was a message from Caitlin; Blogger wasn't letting her upload photos. She's sent me a few to post which are downstairs at the moment; I'll stick them up later. For the time being, I'm going to be lazy and just post a few photos from House Swimming. You have NO IDEA how hard these were to get up here, there's a problem with the folder, which for some reason won't let me move/delete it. Not even my dad can fix it; that's how bad it is.

Sim and Elena try on every costume at once

Pacmen. Pacwomen? Be careful, one of them is a leper.

Tetra. I mean, er, genies voiced by Robin Williams, and occasionally Dan Castellanetta.

Backstroke! Woooooooooo


One of these days I am going to steal your sunglasses, Jess. Seriously.

The first march of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. This is what King Kong would be like if Eric Carle wrote it.

Let's have a big hand for feet (with-out yer shoes on!)

Costuming during the spare. Also, proof of Marnie wagging. Look at her, eating her watermelon when she should be at physics. Shame.

My vote goes to Nicola's suggestion for Locksley's next costumes "Can you go as whitegoods? Please dress as a fridge"
House swimming was awesome fun. Seriously, we should be in Year 12 more often.

U R MR GAY

MY CATS ARE SICK

CLAIMED BY BOOGIE FEVER

THE ONLY CURE IS THE JUICE OF THE JUN-JUN FRUIT, FOUND ONLY IN DEEPEST SIBERIA

WITHOUT IT, THEY SHALL PERISH AND I SHALL BE FORCED TO DANCE ALONE FOREVERMORE

IS THERE NO HOPE FOR MY CATS? SHALL THEY BE FORCED TO SUFFER THE ETERNAL TORTURE OF THE ACCURSED ONES?

ONLY TIME WILL TELL.....

SHALL THE HYLIAN SHIELD DEFEND US?

Pho-toss!

So I thought I should post some photos or something. But most of my photos have taken up perpetual habitation in the memory card of my camera and are refusing to move, so you just can't have them. Seriously, they've got wigwams in a little circle and a Chief Shaman. You don't wanna mess with them.

At Disneyland! Mathilde, Penguin, Juliette, Penguin, Penguin.

Mathilde and Solveig, the adorable baby

Me, Louis and Juliette at Montmartre

The photo of Amelie in the restaurant from Amelie

Photos courtesy of Juliette

And! A vague not-held-back-by-15-minutes-internet-time-at-an-airport summary of the last few days of the 5 weeks! Aren't you pleased? If you're not, you should be. Turn that frown upside down. Alternatively, turn it 90 degrees, and you'll have a right parenthesis!

That's a smile, not an upside down frown!

Better.

First of all, plane flight update: We finally got to watch Sin City, and our reaction at the end was something like this - ???
Why is this so? I dunno. Was it the yellow man chasing Jessica Alba? Was it the plots that did not relate as far as we could see? Was it Not Matt Damon running around on rooftops killing red ladies for no adequately explained reason? Was it the guys who didn't die even though they had gun barrels sticking out of their head? Was it the fact that Elijah Wood ate hookers in a barn? Yeah, I think that may have contributed a little.
It was testament to how bizarre the film was that I didn't even blink at the last one. Oh, but I did laugh because he looked like Harry Potter. You know, evil satanic Harry Potter.

And the rest of the plane trip is blank for me, possibly because that is getting into "Have not slept in 22 hours" territory. I remember Italian Talon and quite a lot of glaring, the reason for which I cannot recall. We landed, we went through customs, we marvelled at the guys in the line behind us in boardies and thongs and singlet tops. We kept singing GCN Rainbow Road. Normal stuff.

Hell, that plane trip was nine hours and Sin City went for 2. What on earth did we do? That's going to bug me for ages now. Oh well. Onto... Wednesday?

The Chateau was full of allll the paintings we got in History, including the "Why the long face, Marie Antoinette?" "The peasants are revolting!" paintings. The guards must have thought I was crazy giggling to myself when I saw these, but, whatever, they get to sit in a giant-ass castle all day so that is their comeuppance. And then we went shopping. Shopping involving strange comic books, French Alice Munro, and the Best Thing Ever for one euro, which came with the World's Hugest Bag, which sent us into hysterics every five seconds, causing more French people to think we were crazy. And we bought chocolate. And then we went to see French Twilight, getting very confused by the ads ("Oh, this is that Largo Winch thing, it's like a cross between James Bond and Alex Rider. Gee it really looks like Terminator. See look, right there, Largo Winch is the Terminator. They're just copying this whole plot off Terminator! Oh, wait, it is Terminator") and the movie ("So has it started yet or is this an ad for the live-action Bambi?") and also getting highly distressed by my ringtone (she told me to turn it off. So what do I do? I say "I hope it doesn't, listen to how annoying it is" and then I forget to turn it off. And then I get a call. In the middle of the movie). I got really late home, but it was OK because we were going to get pizza. Juliette then decided she didn't want pizza, so we went to the Chinese place next door, Mathilde telling me that "If my dad asks, we didn't get pizza because you don't have Chinese food in Australia and you wanted to taste it." So I ate Chinese for the first time in my entire life. Cough.

Juliette's dad on the way to the airport spent the entire time telling me off about how I didn't immerse myself enough because I talked to my friends sometimes on MSN in English. The power of the remark was just a teensy bit lost because of the fact that he was speaking to me in English, like he always did (especially when Juliette wasn't looking). Oh well. If I gained nothing language-wise like he thinks, now at least I have a french SIM card that calls me at 5 every morning without fail to tell me how to call France. I think perhaps France is having separation issues. I'm sorry, honey, I'm married to the sea.

Miss you Juliette :)

Flying south for the winter!

We're totally in Singapore now and struggling immensely with qwerty keyboards. The asterisk does not have its own key! It's blasphemy!
We both had to get up at 6:15 this morning to meet at the airport at nine. And now it is 1:15pm Paris time (8:10 Singapore time). And we haven't slept a bit.
On the flight:
We concerned people. Emma especially. I talk too loud...
Watched X-Men for the shots of Hugh Jackman in stupid tight-fitting singlet tops. And Scrubs, My Name is Earl, The Simpsons, and tried to watch Sin City but failed.
Spent about half an hour in hysterics over The Kraken, and, er... saliva?
Drew on some converse canverse.
Discussed camel hats
Yesterday I (Emma) came back from meeting up with Caitlin (French Twilight!) and found Juliette in a neck brace from acrosport (acrobatics/gymnastics). Evidently I cannot leave her alone for a day, even if it is to go and buy a Hylian Shield. We heart Hylian Shield.
And I (still Emma) totally haven't lost anything yet. Oh, except for my passport, and the tickets right after I got them... I found them later though. Oh, and my sanity. Arguably we both lost that a long time ago though. Oh well. It makes things funnier.
Prepare yourselves, we're almost home. Go hide in the bunkers. Save the children!
BTW (Caitlin here) I totally got my Brownie yesterday. Mission complete.
--Emma and Caitlin

Self-Explanatory

Click and then click again and it gets to its proper size. I'm not used to such a small screen, pixel size kinda went out the window.

Stop asking.

Seriously.

I have Snowflakes in my Eyes

You better all be enjoying your holidays, cause it's back to school day in France. And isn't it lovely, the day we go back, it starts to full on snow. If there's one thing worse than leaving the house in the dark to go to school, it's leaving the house in the dark and the snow. Just hope I don't break a leg or something.

Sorry for not posting for so long (I'm sure you're all dying to know what I'm up to anyway), but it was hard to get on a computer during the holidays. It's in Marine's room, and she was working most of the time. I can't believe how much holiday homework they were given.

Anyways, last week we went into the Louvre. It was awesome, we were walking around for hours and still didn't see the whole thing. Afterwards we went out for dinner to a restaurant in Paris. It was, like, 10 pm and I was starving. The menus were weird, they were printed in english on the back, and down the bottom they had the "win of the day". I wonder if they even really get that many english customers. We had crepes with nutella for desert, man were they good.

I must say that Emma's family seems to eat very differently to mine. We have never had crepes for dinner (or even at all, at home), and no caramel either. And half the time we have fruit for dessert as well. That being said, yesterday we had the Galette du Roi, which is this cake, with a little thingie inside. Whoever gets the thingie in their slice is the king or queen, and they get to wear a paper crown. The little boy in the family, Jean-Edouard, was so excited about it, he kept asking everyone if they'd finished their dinner yet, so we could start the cake.

Apart from trips to various places around Versailles and Paris, most of my holidays were spent reading and playing Wii. I've now read the first three Harry Potters in french. I can't get over the fact that Fawkes the Phoenix (that's his name, right?) is called Fumseck. It cracks me up as much as that Super Mario Galaxy thing. Yes, Emma, I know it's dumb. I spent yesterday playing like ten rounds of Wii bowling with Jean-Edouard, because he was trying to get up enough points to be at the Pro level. As it turns out, I seem to have a knack for the hula hoop game on Wii Fit. Which is probably for the best, I need to work off all the french chocolates I've been eating. Their grandparents gave me a box of them for christmas, they're so good. I've also been trying to help them play Wii boxing, but I'm not sure how to properly explain how to dodge. It's hard to talk with Jean-Edouard, because if I'm saying something that's only vaguely correct, it's harder for him to guess what I'm trying to say.

Well, there's only three days left, and then we're heading home. I know, just as you were enjoying being well shot of us, too. But if we stay here much longer, I actually think we'll see another ice age.
--Caitlin

It's a world of lau-ghter...

Disnélond!
That is how they pronounce it here. We (Me, Juliette, Mathilde and their friend Phillipe) finally got there despite the snow on Friday, the metro accident blocking the route today and the Noticeable Lack of Bus.

But, before that, I shall just state for the record that sushi (yes, maki, Juliette) tastes nowhere near as bad as I thought it would. It actually tastes pretty good. We had Japanese last night, and we got served the maki by a Japanese lady (Asian count = 6 now!) in little wooden boats. Very cool.

So! Disneyland!

We went of Space Mountain twice, and the Indiana Jones ride (on which we put our hands in the air on all the downhill bits until we realised they were crap. And now I think I have frostbite on my ungloved hand) and It's a Small World, which cracked me up so hard. The freaky dolls! The annoying song! The aborigine hitting the dingo on the head with a boomerang! Steve Irwin!
Evidently the makers of the ride never learnt from Naomi Robson that dressing things up as Steve Irwin is Not Okay.
We took pictures with like 20 Disney characters in costumes as well, but not Donald, because Donald had a bodyguard, an angry British woman who jumped in front of him like she was taking a bullet everytime anyone got too close, yelling "GET BACK" in cockney french and english like we were fat people at boot camp and Donald was chocolate. I think she made some little kids cry. All they wanted was Donald's autograph!
I was going to buy my brother an ugly Goofy (here called "Dingo") hat but then I saw an even uglier one. So now his Christmas present is a 'coon hat, for whenever he feels like looking at home in a log cabin in early America. With pilgrims. On a prairie.

Breaking news!
Yesterday the two (one?) of us met up with the express purpose of eating Tim Tams. It is sunny, it is 4 o'clock, we have the entire of Paris at our disposal! So what do we do? We put Vegemite on a crèpe with a phone card.
Mmm.

--Emma

Emma+Juliette= ♥

Emma, I loooooove you (l)
&don't delete that post

Or,i'll kill you

I like to move it...

You thought I'd forgotten, Sim. But I keep my promises. Even if there was a slight technical problem of Flash not working off my USB anymore.

YOUR MAGNIFICENT PICTURE

Happy birthday!

Don't worry, I have your proper picture all drawn out and ready to put into Flash when I get it working again.

Last night we had CREPES for "dinner" as Juliette's aunt, uncle and three little cousins were over. The two eldest were about the same age as Little Caitlin, and they sat in my room for hours asking me questions and not-so-subtly hinting that they wanted my Australian money. And the littlest one took all my valuables and dismantled/hid them in various ways before taking the pot pourri and spreading it in the corridor. Surely this is why the sports textbook tells us that corridors are a source of danger. Little kids speaking French is like the most adorable thing ever though.
We were going to go to Disneyworld today but when we woke up it was mega-snowing. So no Disney for me until Sunday. It had better not be mega-snowing Sunday. Instead we went to a cinema, and saw one of 'em gosh-darned fillumajigs Mr. Hutchison's always talking about.

Australia had stupid session times (the word for session here is séance, which I must admit had me slightly concerned for a while until I figured it out) so we went to see Madagascar 2. Before the film started we went outside and ran into one of Juliette's friends. The conversation went something like "Hey, what are you doing here, COME AND SEE MADAGASCAR WITH US" which he agreed to. Then we ran into another of her friends and had the same conversation. He did not wish to come and see Madagascar with us. Man was that film such a Lion King rip. If Dreamworks had have made Lion King jokes it would have made the Lion Kingness more acceptable, but all was quiet on the Western Front. I saw the trailer to Despereaux and The Half-Blood Prince in French. That's, er, Despereaux and The Half-Blood Prince. Not the two together. That would be a disturbing film.

I badly want to go see French Twilight.

Cham-paggin?

It's been a while since I last posted so this post is going to be long, but will not include Year In Review like Caitlin Nimoy over there because I am lazy. Luckily for you I have forgotten stuff. Again. If you're not used to it by now...

VAGUE SUMMARY OF SOME DAYS

On Monday we met up with Juliette's "aeroplane friend" Louis at Montmartre. We had lunch in the restaurant Deux Moulins, which was in Amelie. And boy are they capitalising on it. Lunch for the three of us cost 140 Australian. And I just had badly microwaved vegetable "casserole." Someone really needs to teach them that pears are not a vegetable. Afterwards we went back to the apartment and played Interactive Qui Veut Gagner Le Million (Who wants to be a Millionaire?) and when that kept stuffing up we watched half of the remake of The Amityville Horror. Now Juliette and I really want to watch the rest but we can't find it. But I totally know the twist.
I went to two museums, Quai Branly, a museum of tribal history, and... another one, which was showing an exhibition of paintings by Anton van Dyck. The Another Museum is one of those old mansions from the Ye Olde Days that audioguides describe as "subtle and refined" but are covered in enough gold leaf and gigantic paintings by Venetian gods-of-art to pay the US Defense budget for a year. On the way back from Quai Branly I bought a packet of green tongue peas and 5 carrots. Mmm. And it snowed too. FRANCE IS TWO UP ON YOU, JESSICA CHARLESWORTH.
Yesterday we went to an ice rink which we later found out was a plastic rink, and no amount of salt baths will ever clear us of the shame. Quotes aside, the ice was synthetic and even the people who knew how to skate were having trouble, so we only stayed about 5 minutes. I didn't fall over though!

For New Years we went to an awesome party at Juliette's friend's house. And god, if Mrs. Smale would have had a field day at the last party, she would have exploded at this one. Actually physically exploded. But I really do not like the taste of alcohol (And it makes you thirsty! What is the point of a drink that makes you thirsty?) so I had my awesome cool rave party glass of water. And Pringles! People kept throwing lightswitch raves downstairs. Lots of fun. It was absolutely freezing cold though; whoever's idea it was to make people wear dresses to parties in effing EUROPE was an idiot. Ye Olde Dressmakers, I'm looking at you. And also whoever invented my stupid, stupid black shoes should probably get shot too. Juliette and her sister looked like friggin' supermodels though.

Being Australian starts the most in-ter-esting conversations:

(English)"Oh, you're Australian? So do you speak really good English, or...?"

"Oh, you're Australian? So what language does you speak? Canadian?"

(English)"Hey, could you take a photo for us? I love America!"
"She's Australian, she understands french"
(More English)"Oh, Australian? I love Barack Obama! Barack Obama is my god!"

And, everyone's favourite drunk french guy who sat down next to me and consistently started edging closer and closer until he eventually had his head on my shoulder. Extract from conversation:
Me: "But I don't get jetlag, so it's OK"
Him: "Don't get what?"
Me: "Jetlag"
Him: "What?"
Me: "Jetlag"
Him: "Jetlad"
Me: "No, jetlag"
Him: "Jetlag."
Me: "Yes."
Him: "What?"
Me: "JETLAG"
Him: "Jetlag?"
Me: "JETLAG!"
Him: "Oh, jetlag! Why didn't you say so?"
Me: "I did. Lots."
Him: "I'm sorry, I'm a bit drunk"

We all got shepherded outside at 5 to midnight for the actual ticking over, but they didn't do a countdown, only showered everyone in champagne. This I was not expecting at all and I happened to be standing in just the right spot to get the majority of it all over me. I was texting my family to say Happy New Year at the time and my text went something along the lines of "Happy French New Year... f***, I have champagne in my EYE"
I've taken a myspace picture of my morning-after hair with the camera on my phone and I'll upload it when I get back. It is quite disgusting.

Speaking of disgusting, I really, really pity whoever had to clean up afterwards.

At about one o'clock I started to get really tired (I was up half the night before, too) which was fixed for about an hour by a phone call from Caitlin, for which I had to lock myself in a bathroom to be able to hear. Halfway through some guy came in and threw purple up in the sink. There were guys playing guitar downstairs which we all listened to, and I closed my eyes to listen like I often do but 10 seconds later had someone patting me on the face telling me in English to "Wake up, you." I told them the proper phrase was "Wake up, Jeff." From then on I played with my phone whenever I started to get tired, which worked to a degree. There were lots of people smoking in the room though. My clothes smell like grandmas.

More things about France I have noticed. You are probably sick of these, but TOO BAD, because my New Year's resolution was that you all have to do what I say.

1. Patriotism. History here is the history of France. Once there was a map of Italy on the board but only for 5 seconds and then it was back to the map of France. People have the Declaration of the Rights of Man hung in their bathroom. Drunk people go on tirades against other countries.
2. Never dance with someone who has a cigarette. I have a burn on my arm and it hurts :(
3. They aaallll do stuff for New Years. No-one stays home to watch the fireworks like half of Australia does.
4. The French have good taste in english music. You don't hear Hotel California, the Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys etc. being played at raves here.
   
5. There is a concert on TV every New Years Day with the Viennese Philharmonic playing lots of Strauss and Radetsky and stuff and little boys dressed up like total tools doing ballet. One of the guys credited in the... er... credits... was called "Will Willerton." This is the world's second best name, the first being Mr. Shenanigans.

--Emma

A World in White Gets Underway

Greetings from the past! It's still 2008 here. All of you 2009 people are just jumping the gun. Ah, 2008, we shall miss you. You were a year of many funny things, which I shall not talk about for ages and ages and ages, because there were a lot of them. But there were things like these:

But why am I telling you these things? You were all there for them. I should probably bring some fresh news.

Okay, after all the massive Christmas shopping and feasting was over, we went into the Grand Chateau de Versailles. I've been into the park like four times now, it's so massive. But this time we were seeing the main bit. Man, were those people rich. Every ceiling is painted with some mythological figure, there's a massive chandelier in every room, everything is painted in gold leaf, it's insane. Right now, there's also an art exhibition there of this dude, Jeff Koons, who does all these weird statues. Like this, for example.That is a porcelain statue of Michael Jackson and his monkey, in the middle of the Grand Chateau de Versailles. The majority of Versaillians hate the exhibition. I can see where they're coming from, giant stautes of pink balloon dogs don't really match the decor.As I mentioned last time, I went to the Eiffel Tower. Apparently, at this time of year, and in this part of the country, the temperature is usually around 5-10 degrees. It is extremely rare for it to be as cold as it is now, where it is consistently between about -2 and 3 degrees. Lucky us. It is also extremely lucky that we decided to buy tickets that only let you use the stairs of the Eiffel Tower, and not the elevator, as the tickets were cheaper and the line was shorter. So we climbed all the 668 odd steps to the second storey. It was just about the coldest I've ever been. Especially since the sun was setting. Pretty, though. But it was too cold to keep climbing, so we snuck onto the elevator going down. We planned to pretend to be Finnish if they checked our tickets. Not my idea. Luckily they didn't.
We also went to see Australia the other day. Without subtitles, I didn't quite get the entire plot, I was just muchly amused to watch David Wenham and Hugh Jackman talk, with french coming out. Also, the number of times people kept syaing "Mrs Boss" with a french accent was funny. And the french voice-over lady trying to imitate Nicole Kidman trying to sing 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow'. Oh, David Wenham, why you gotta be so shifty? It would've been nice to hear some good old Strine, but oh well.

The kids here got a Wii for Christmas. Some friends lent them some games, too. I come halfway around the world, and what do I do? I play Brawl.

We're going off to a NYE party tonight in Paris, man, it's going to be so freaking cold. But who knows, maybe they'll have brownies.
--Caitlin