An ice surprise

And, no, it isn't a gigantic scoop of hokey pokey icecream nor a 'nice' surprise. It is, or rather was but then again still is: the river Seine. My advice to you? Don't touch it. Don't even go near it because the steps are hazardously slippery. Just observe from a perfectly safe tourist-y distance and all will be well. Recall when Jack Dawson said: 'Anyway, I, uh, I fell through some thin ice; and I'm telling you, water that cold, like right down there... it hits you like a thousand knives stabbing you all over your body. You can't breathe. You can't think. At least, not about anything but the pain.' Yeah. So don't go dipping your hands in the river; Because it's true. But other than the bitterly agonizing winter chill of the water itself, cruising on (and not in) the Seine was actually rather nice. There'd been nothing but grey skies for the last few days and that morning the first parts of blue shone through the clouds like a bald baby growing its first tufts of fluffy hair. Eugh. Hideous synonym, but a beautiful sight.

We zoomed (okay; so we didn't really zoom, more like cruised at the speed of a broken armed paddler) past Mr Eiffel Tower again, tall and upright as always. I wonder how he must feel having such good posture. His mother must be so proud. Or father. I suppose Le Tour Eiffel was built by a man after all. Then, thanks to my friend the espresso machine, the prospect of toilets was seeming friendlier and friendlier. So off we went.

...wait. Is that a... coin machine barrier?!?!?!

No. Way. Who has to pay to answer nature's call??? That's like making people pay for air.

These people have obviously never seen 'Bridge to Terabithia': FREE THE PEE! FREE THE PEE! FREE THE PEE!

So, like kindly teenagers setting a good example; we may have scooted up and over said barrier with great gymnastic skill without reaching into our wallets at all :)

Then once we were happily refreshed and rich, ignoring the filthy looks from the law abiding Parisian citizens, we headed off to the Eiffel Tower. Note how I tried to make that sound ultra casual and chilaxed. In actual fact it wasn't really like that. More; 'WE'RE GOING TO THE EIFFEL TOWWWWWWWWERRR EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK. Yes but it's just a hunk of metal....AHHhhhh but it's PARRREEEEEEEEEEE!!! Hey, look! A bird! Two birds! Wow! Five hundred birds!' I think in total we saw ten billion pigeons in the city. We cheated and took the elevator up, up, up the tower. zzzzEEEEEeeeeooom! It was really amazing. Like Willy Wonka's great glass elevator I looked out of the window and in ten seconds saw the people become specks and the buildings become clovers and the elephants become kangaroos and the whos becoming whats as we magically shot to the sky. After a most exhilirating experience, one is really left quite speechless; with only the ability to make drastic understatements. 'Oh. That was fun.'
As far up as we could go, the view was indescribably epic. Just the sheer immensity of it all. When you look up at a beautifully clear, starry night and drink in the wonder of a universe so vast, you feel dizzy and want to lie down, if not for the fact that you probably already are. When you look down upon the enormous and beautiful city of love and can see every movement below and the landscape stretching out forever and ever and ever, knowing if you drop a coin from that height you could probably kill someone on the ground... it's a heavy, most amazing feeling to say the least.

Eventually the freezing cold and harsh wind got the better of us. We decided to find thirty and walk down the tower - definitely easier than walking up! Gravity is on our side, amigos! Then we hit the metro! Woohoo. I really like trains, and underground ones are even cooler. Too bad we had to spend most of the journey standing up, packed like sardines. The doors only open for twenty or so seconds as well... so we were a little paranoid about being left behind. And one thing about Parisian trains: they sound exactly like the Nazgul. So then we got off and started casually strolling down one of the most famous streets in the world. The Champs Elyseès is a busy street... and EXPENSIVE. Yeesh. Who pays 10 000 euros for a handbag anyway?!?! After buying meself a copy of Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone in French; I got approached by two crazy people who wanted me to buy a Louis Vuitton wallet for 'their family' (because stock rules wouldn't let them buy two) and gave me four hundred and fifty euros. FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY EUROS. Some people are completely deranged... bah, I went, scanned the store couldn't find it and was starting to feel highly suspicious so I just returned the cash and scooted off.

Later the street dancers came out and all the lights were justr WEEEEEE. Paris is so beautiful and alive at night. I like fairylights :D

LOOOOOOK!!! A CREPE! CRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPE!!!!!!

UP!

Sunday, some (unknown large number) ft in the air

I like take off. It feels like we’re flying. Which, of course, we are. VVVVOOOOOOMMMMWOOSHH. Woo. And now I’m off. Off on an ADVENTURE (“Adventure is out there!” says UP’s Ellie. And am I ever drawing inspiration from that charming picture today. I hear they’re calling it “En-Haut” in French. Though somehow that diminishes the two letter-one syllable novelty of it all). There’s something incredible refreshing about blank notebooks – in an encouraging and not mouth watering kind of way. Actually I almost didn’t get this on since we went over the weight limit (I will never scoff at heavy packers ever again. I’m telling you, I NEEDED all that stuff. And this is before mum threw out my pocket Anglais-Francais ­dictionary – my one last communication lifeline; leaving me to have to make do with my own wit and memory. Ha) but  we were really sneaky with carrying the bags (THINK LIGHT! LIGHT AS A FEATHER! LIGHT AS AIR!) so they looked like they were no effort at all. I thought the way I kept dropping them every fifteen or so metres would’ve given us away, but apparently not. Yippee.

Feeling like everything’s completely surreal – “Yep, I’ll have a glass of that tasty looking orange juice,” “Oh hello stranger I’ve never met before; yes how are you enjoying the flight? Yes, it’s pretty rad how we get pillows and blankets to mummify ourselves in everything...” But it’s cool. Drastically, indescribably cool. Especially since I’VE GOT THE WINDOW SEAT CHYEAH!!!!!!!!!!! The view flying through and above the clouds is absolutely amazing. Even I, one of the world’s least accomplished photographers couldn’t fail to capture at least some of its splendour. The fluffy puffy clouds like oversized bleached meringues and water like teeny diamonds. The last time I was on a flight I was too busy trying to sneak goes on my brother’s DS while he was snoozing to care about the fine weather. That and the fact that we were flying at some obnoxiously dark hour. 

Well I won’t be seeing anybody I know for a while, but as the nice lady at church whose name I’ve forgotten said: “Don’t waste time being homesick because you’ll be back home sooner than you know!” Or something like that. Of course it was far more impactful in her words but my memory fails like watery scrambled eggs. Bleugh. Well luckily I’ve got a super plane buddy with the coolest grin, clothes, ability to comprehend French and infectiously kind and friendly personality. Her name’s Schlink. Schlinky Schlinky Schlink :) Well, that’s my favourite part of her posh but really awesome name, anyway. Oooh, the menu’s here – now do I want chicken casserole or lamb curry? Hmm... I think I’m going to go with the first one so if I spill it I’ll only look like a walking cheese snowman and not a smelly orangutan. 

Hours later minus the 7 hour difference in which we might actually have travelled back in time. Which is pretty cool.

Really awake. So it turns out that switching time zones hasn’t cured my sucky ability to sleep on cue. Though how I’m supposed to sleep when the airplane is going WHHHHHHHHSSSSSHHHH beats me. Poking the little aeroplane icon on the screen in front isn’t going to make it go any faster and neither is staring enviously at Miss Schlink who’s slumbering peacefully, like Sleeping Beauty – blanket neatly tucked in, pillow dead centre, arms resting symmetrically by her side. I’d swear she was faking it, NO ONE sleeps that well, only she’s been at it for the last three or so hours and doesn’t respond to anything much and is breathing really deeply and – yeah, I’m bored. Though it’s actually good to have a TV that works this time after accidentally snapping the remote and somehow detaching it from its wire on the last flight. Not sure how that happened.

Well, on the other hand, the first landing was actually really cool. Minus the ear imploding, head splitting sick feeling I always get when we’re descending. But as we’re officially “unaccompanied minors” Miss Schlinky and I have been escorted around like VIPs all day, jumped pretty much every queue... and we got to sit in first class seats for the last half hour of the flight! But despite being considerably more comfortable in the luxurious reclining seats of the rich and famous who aren’t rich and famous enough to afford private jets; it was actually pretty isolated and weird. But no doubt t’was an experience to behold!

No window seat on this second flight but I’ve got another really nice plane buddy from Adelaide instead – Lovisa. Seriously. What is with everyone I sit next to today having ridiculously cool names?! Maybe I should really, officially change my name to Oblong McWicket just so one day I can have someone else going “woah...that’s neat” rather than “bah, only the hundredth one I’ve met.” But, hey, I guess Sarah’s not too bad. At least I can go incognito :) Lovisa and I had our own little celebration at the midpoint – 6 and a half hours – of the flight. You know a draining 13 hour flight is a real bonding experience when you find yourself madly partying (well, as much as you can in the confined seat area of economy class) and head banging like a freaky guitarist with someone you’ve known for less than the average school day... We even made peanut butter (oh yeah, try chopping salted plane – or is it plain? – nuts and adding them to the butter. Et voila, peanut butter!) and a song:

I THROW MY PEANUTS IN THE AIR SOMETIMES

SAYING YUMMO

FLY TO MY TUMMO

Come to think of it, Schlinky and I tried to write a rap about Russia during a tiny interval from her blissful sleep. Exactly how big is Russia anyway?? Every time I checked the flight details we were STILL flying over it, even though we were just skimming the edge and weren’t even flying through the fat part of the country. Actually I’ve wanted to visit Russia since I saw Anastasia when I was little. It’d be interesting. Only two awful lines into the attempted poetry, Miss Schlinky fell peacefully asleep again, leaving me in the dark oblivion of being seated between two sleeping plane buddies and not wanting to switch my light on to read for fear of waking one of them up with the RRRRAYYYYS. So instead I’m just squinting like a squid. Bloop, bloop, bloop. What sound does a squid make anyway? And where do watermelons grow? Never seen a watermelon tree before and I’m pretty sure they don’t grow underground so...?

I wonder how cold it’s going to be in dear Paris. Maybe, for once in my life, I’ll get to wear a humungous coat and not look like a sweating moron. Three and a half hours to go until landing. Now to find a means of occupation-ising oneself. LA LA LA.