On 27/12/02 (exactly a year after my leaving Australia), I at long last made it to France. Despite managing to forget the pin numbers for both my Australian bank accounts, the week started off well, arriving in Paris to a delightful 13 degrees (and I don’t mean that sarcastically - Denmark was, at the time, around the minus 5 mark). Caught the train to Saint Nazaire, Brittany, where I stayed with Pierre, along with Tine & Chino (from Denmark). We stayed for the week in Pierre’s father’s apartment, which was situated right near the beach & harbour, with a close to 365 degree view. Had an incredibly relaxing week; walking, eating brie & baguette, drinking cider & practicing making that French nasal sound. Tried to refresh some of my French using a book that had an interesting conversation about how somebody’s grandparents were coming over on the weeekend, so they had to wash the living room walls (naturally... that’d be the obvious thing to do -?) And this was after having just been reading a Danish culture book which discussed how Danes don’t like to wear sexy clothing & will most often just wear jogging clothes or raincoats. How have I been here for almost a year & not noticed this?
New Years was excellent. We had a party at Pierre’s, during which we ate lots of good food & drank a lot. Unfortunately, my drinking came to an abrupt halt when I realised that I had developed the same alcohol related rash-like thing on my face as the one I got after my 8 day drinking spree before leaving Australia. It was probably for the best.
On 03/01/03, I left for Paris, where I stayed for 1 night & did nothing notable. Glimpsed the Eiffel Tower (which I found quite ugly & unimpressive) & Notre Dame, but hastily retreated from both due to masses of tourists. On 03/01/01, I visited Jim Morrison’s grave, which unbeknownst to me, was also a popular tourist attraction. The rest of my day’s plans for a long walk around Paris were spoilt by a sudden snow storm which caught me off-guard & saturated me in a matter of minutes. However, the worst (& far far worse at that) was still to come. Due to snow, my plane that evening was cancelled. I was offered a possible seat on a flight 13hrs later - if indeed that flight wansn’t cancelled as well. And so, I spent an exciting night camped out on the airport floor, being reminded of the Roskile Festival as I pathetically sat on the ground clutching a bottle of cider amongst the masses of bodies. Luckily, I did make it onto the plane the next morning, after forcing my way through the hundreds of other unfortunates whose flights had also been cancelled.

And here, to completely change the subject, is a nice quote from the Sydney Morning Herald, apparently in retaliation to The Copengahen Post's slagging off of Prince Frederik's Australian fiance, Mary:

"What we want to know is whether this Prince Fred character is good
enough for our Mary, a hard-working, down-to-earth eastern suburbs girl.
Here is a man who picks up women in Sydney bars by baring his hairless
chest at them. Here is a man better known for his tattoos, his chain
smoking, his diving naked into pools in French palaces and his dating of
wannabe pop stars than he is for his princely behaviour. We can only
hope he shapes up in time for the wedding."

Yep, sounds like a Dane to me. Thanks for the quote Marion - much appreciated.

Me being lazy again... here's a report from Colin instead:
Morning Everybody....

How's everyone going?, I hope you all had good
Christmas New Year thingy parties and such.....

Its got rather cold here, not really surprising
really, but there you go, It snowed on the 2nd, and a
bit more since then as well, so now its very white in
places, and very filthy and brown and slushy in
others. Lots of fun for riding around in, speciallly
when I pinch Elena's mountain bike. My 25 year old
ladies bike doesn't hold on the slush quite as well as
her big fat tires....still, in a way its more fun on
my bike coz theres a bit more sliding.....All the
lakes and such are frozen here too, which is cool.
There's a soccer field near us which is very poorly
drained, so is always covered in water, which is now
frozen, so people go skating on it, not now though
coz its covered in a foot of snow so you can't see
where the ice is.......

anyhoo, other than staying inside, I'm not up to much
at the moment............looking forward to traveling
around soon ,then coming home. Still not sure exactly
when I'll have a party.....that dependsa bit on you Mr
Watson, and when you're going of to the wild west, let
me know what your plans are, and assuming that Mr
Watson ignores my request like he did last time, maybe
Mr Scott or Mr Whitford or anyone else who sees him
might give him a gentle reminder......

OK Seeyallater

the Dread Pirate Rogerson
Lord of the High Seas
Queen of Australia

P.S. There have been certain parties questioning my
claim to the queenshipness of Australia, anyone else
who has a problem with it may wish to join Mr Allen in
challenging me to a dual at the abovementioned party.

thanks for fixing my web page Hilton! I just love the cutsie little footprints & the bit about me being well nice.