Paris, with the school.

Well this one was extremly different, just a completely different experience. First off though, thanks to Penny for the really nice comment on the last blog. Anywayz we left Sunday night at 9.30pm in a bus with only one seat each. Of course you've got 50 rowdy teens in a bus on a school trip, I mean did the profs really think we were going to sleep? We watched movies, ate junk food, threw the footy i brought around a bit and generally jsut disturbed the bus driver. Because it's law in France that a bus/truck must stop every 2-3 hours everyone would pile out for a smoke and drinks and food at the gas stations along the way. This was great as we had a small rugby match every two hours and got a bit of excersise. It also meant everyone woke up every 2-3 hours. I know I feel asleep around 4 in the morning and I was one of the first. We finally got there at 9 in the morning, got our bags into the hotel and had breakie which consisted of a bowl (yes a bowl, not a mug, not a cup, not a veyr large glass but a bowl) of hot chocolate, a crossant and some bread. Then it was off to some museum to see some painting which i think was called the Nymphes.

That arvo we had lunch in a park, chasing joggers and interviewing randoms cause someone had a fake mike. A really good moment was when the girl went up to a couple and asked to interview them and they replied with "sorry we're American we don't speak French". So the group called me in to translate, it was cool because it showed they had enough faith in me that i could easily translate in both languages, I don't know I guess that just showed me how much I've improved. I don't actually remember that afternoon but I think it was another museum somewhere which we did nothing but imitate the statues and take odd photos. I actually don't remember anything else in order except for the last night, so I'll just write about odd things that stand out in my memory.

Of course the Louvre stands out, I mean Mona Lisa took me forever to find, I may have walked past it abotu 4 times jsut because i couldn't see it due to the amount of people in front of it, also the fact that here it's called La Jaconde didn't help my cause. I eventually found it and it's actually pretty small and i'm not sure my but pretty spectacular. I also saw Milo and she's fair cool too. The other museums we saw included Musee D'Orsay which is like all monnet and van gough and those dudes, that was pretty cool and it was good when I recognised the painting however some you just got to think whether it was the painter or their 5 year old kid. I mean I know they pass it off as abstract but seriously one was just white, I reckon he just couldn't be bothered on a Friday afternoon. We also went to Musee Du quai Branly which is like all primitive arts which was cool when we got to the Aboriginal arts. I thank my parents for that trip to Central Australia and various school trips to aboriginal art gallerys because I could actually say a few things about the paintings and not make a fool of myself. After that was some mussium that sounded like Musee du Bonbon, which is translated into musium of lollies but it was more abstract futuristic art which mostly just gave me a head ache. Sadly after all the museums I have realised I will never be an art lover as I developed a tendency to pick apart paintings when the reasons I didn't like it were the reasons it was famous.

The next major part of the trip was the plays. Three all up; 1 was awful the other two were great. After the first play I thought maybe I wouldn't be much of a theatre person either; I slept for 2 hours of the 2.10hr play, much to my luck so did more than half the class and 2 of the 4 profs with us, hence no trouble ensured. I mean I no that was bad of me but I was really tired, it was late and the play was awful it was a Samuel Beckett play, Fin de Partie or something along those lines, Samuel Beckett's like huge but this was just 2 guys living in a dumpster, with lot's of angry rants and this one guy throwing jsut about everything against a tin wall, it was just awful. However the second one was Fantasio and I stayed awake for that one, very odd storyline but very clever and I enjoyed that one immensly. That one was at Commedie Francais (Melbourne's Playhouse however it's more like Broadway) Very famous and absolutely stunning theatre. The next one was a two man skit which looked dull to begin with but turned out to be hilariously funny and I am so glad my french is better so that I can understand it because it was just great.

And of the course the third and final part of Paris, which is without a doubt the most important part was the social aspect. 50 Kids in a Youth Hostel Seperate rooms spread over a large distance, as soon as lights went out the fun started. There was a group of Canadiens also staying in the same palce and they had the same lights out time as us: 11pm. At 11.30 once all the profs had finished expections, if you sat at your window and looked out over the courtyard, you'd see so many shadows sneaking around the edges, whisper and lots of giggles. Most nights people slept at about 3 or 4 and generally it wasn't in the right room, more often than not they'd left their keycards back in their own rooms so some interesting, ways of breaking into the rooms where developed. My rooms way of preference was through a 4 storey window, next door to ours then onto the roof of the hotel and down through the skylight. There were easier ways this was just the most amsuing to 3 16 yr old boys at 4 in the morning. We were also given a lot of 'Quartier Libre' (free time) quite often we were given maybe an hour before a show or just 30 mins while we waited for the other group, two times stood out for me the first was when we were given 2 hours, we all started at Jardin Du Luxembourg and were told to meet at the Louvre for lunch. O' I forgot to mention the Louvre has a shopping mall attatched, how many museums have shopping malls attatched? This became our favourite palce to eat as it had everything from Italien - Mexican - Chinese - Greasy Burgers. Anywayz yeh my group of 5 decided to walk it instead of taking the metro so we could hit the shops along the way (I'm not sure what the other groups did when they got there with another 1.40 hrs to go, probably more shopping) it was really cool just stopping in random small shops, buying small trunkets, mucking around in the Paris streets, just generally being over excited kids. The second time was the last night when at first we were given the option that afternoon of buying a Pique-Nique (how do you spell it in English?) or eating out at a restaurant on the Champs Elsyees, half the class went for the P-N the other for the restaurant, now as I thought I was pretty low on cash after the shopping spree that arvo I went for the P-N. After the show it turned out now of the restaurants would let us in (snobby parisian restaurants) so we were given free time for 3 hours from 8.30-11.30pm in paris to find dinner and to meet back at the Louvre. I went with about 10 others to Maccas (weirdly in France it's called Macdos) and we had the best night there. I had my disgusting P-N (Indian bread with various meats and salsa dip) and the rest had maccas, it was funny watching people get freaked out by my food including other tables, then we whipped out the music and got some dancing going, the favourite was Hugh Grant's dance in Love Actually one girl did a solo including the stairs part of which we used the Maccas' stairs, it had everyone in hysterics and nobody minded really, it was a good show. We then mucked around outside maccas and danced for cash (of which we got none) before finally trapsing back to the Louvre.

That night we drove home at 1 in the morning, no-one slept till 5 or 6 in the morning and then every1 slept untill we arrived back home at 12 midday. When I left for Paris, there was no snow where I'm living a lot about 200ms higher than me but now where I am. When i returned I can't go anywhere without getting dumped with snow, we ahve 40cms and it's been snowing since 3pm and it won't let up tonight. Tomorrow morning I'll clear the drive way and the steps. It's so cool, everythings white! Anywayz I need to sleep, no ridign tomorrow again due to snow and gyms closed so maybe a run or an ergo? We'll see, good luck to all ridign the scratch and pursuit today at Metros and Countrys and congrats to all in the sprint and 500m yesterday, some good results floated through, special congrats to Gracie Harry and Ferg for good times/medals. Sorry if others got good times and medals, I haven't heard much about the day just small things.

Anywayz ciao

Cal