Day 4
So we arrive at the France airport. the time is who knows. all i know is that it is early, very early! having virtually not slept on the flight i was quite tired, but oh well, another day! Coming out of the plane we notice the large amounts of conveyor belts evyerwhere! srsly! everything is like moving sidewalk or moving stairs! it's pretty cool. then i felt a dripping feeling allongmy leg. i looked down and there was juice dripping out of my bag! oh s**t i think to myself! i quickly open my bag to find one of the airline orange juices had popped in my bag! eveyrthing was basically soaked! my music was rendered useless! and my Potato Factory got a good soaking too! if only i wasn't into the whole don't waste thing! damn! I wipe down my bag and write out my customs form and line up to getmy bag. It took a very long time! i can tell you that! stupid french customs! then we find that alot of our stuff is broken! i mean! What the! Stupid UA! can't do a job right can they! Soon the busses arrive and we weave through crowds and up and down lifts. when getting on a lift i left my violin behind! good thing sum1 picked it up! then Mandy almost lost her bags! it was scary! but it was actually a kind lady who was from the school we were going to!
we get onto the lion busses and set out for the school. driving through Paris we spot the Eiffel tower and soon followed by " i saw it before tyou" type comments and many photos!
We arrive at our host school Blanche de Castille. arrviing there we find that we drive in a big circle, randomly.
we slowly and lethargically put our bags and suitcases away. then slowly lumber towards the gym. they announce that we are to sleep..... on the gym floor! pretty crazy! so... being the really amazingly buggered me.... i lie down on a friendly and most importantly comfortable mat and find that it is very noisy and there is lots of light!
aaahhhh!!!!
then i remeber my blindfold and earplugs! and as i place my beautiful investment on my body i slip into my own bubble world. and soon im dozing away!
we wake up and we have lunch and then we have a few decisions! to either go to the shopping center or play rugby.... being the rugby player i am.....i went to the shopping centre. One thing i can't get over on the way there is the big green bins they have for recycling. and they don't nething written in english! then they can't blame the tourists for screwing up they're recycling system! and how hard is it to write another sentence in english?!?!?!? maybe they did but i didn't notice! oh well.
so in the shopping centre i meat up with Hae and Jono.....and david... He drags us into a perfume shop to look for his "face cream" so whil we're in there why not look around! on the way out Hae sprays us with Aqua di Gio. It's a ncie frgrance! wouldn't mind buying it. Then we walk some more and end up in a clothing store! then a shoe store! then Printemps. France's David Jones. and we lose david. then we deicded to go to the other side of shopping to find an ice cream store! not only that a Hagen Daas ice cream store! omg it tasted soooo gooood! and there we met up with amy and harmonia. they decided to go look for a transformer for electronic stuff. to almost get ripped off by the french guys..... if it wasn't for Mr V and I! well tiem was running out.. then i rembered to get something! yes! i need to get the drink of drinks!
Orangina!
getting two cans i slowly ripped off the top and tasted the fruity orangy drink. The sensual real fruit taste hit my tongue! yeah! It was time to go... and usually in those situations people.... go. we get outside to see most of the group out, however edwina and co were still not out! we ended wating for an extra 20 mins. So we slowly walked back, i talked with Haein on the way back about stuff.
arriving back at the School we had a practise! YAY! if not for the amazing amounts of heat! woah! well after a toiling practise session we were to pack away quickly as we were ready to be taken home by our hosts! YAY! so we waited. and waited. and i was last person to be picked off the list!
it was scary! Amy and Alice had to go with one oif the maths teachers of the school! Well the mother picked me up and drove me home. Arriving home i met the rest of the family. They have 3 children, one older girl, two boys younger than me and a very little boy. The girl was Paulline and my main billet was Hwommard? Well the girl left to goto the music festival which I at the time thought was traditional music. Boy was i wrong! neway, wwe played soccer outside on their tennis court with their inflatable ball. it was fun! we played for ages. then went in for dinner whcih consisted of cheese, mashed potato and meat! it was great! Then i got my clothes on and left for the Music Fest.
On the way there we met up with my billets friends. two girls and 3 other guys. the girls were hot! when i told them i was form Sydney they started screaming and jumping around! :D hehehe. well i was forced to go into a catholic church. OMG! it was all dark and down the fornt there was A jesus hanging there in a the figure ofthe cross on a circle thing. it was creepy. then the organ started playing@ it was srsly quite a scary experience, especially with my anti-christ train of thoguht at the moment. Well we thought we should get a go on and started walking again towards the Festival. As we waled past a man playing on the pianola we clapped and cheered and we were greeted by a bow and a smile! arriving at the real music fest it was a totally different scene! many many people wearing black! and all the metla and rock music! Eveyrbody was wearing black and leather and eveyrbody looked gothy! it was cool acutally! i was releived when in one of the corners there was TECHNO! OOOOH YEAH! and next to it on a projector was the soccer game between Switzleraland and France! walking through we checked out the rest of the area. Then we ended up at the game again. The score was 2-1 France winning. As the score ticked down to zero we coutne down. in French of course! and then we partied hard! The next few hours i had no control over. i let the beat of the music take over my body as the throb of the speakers shoook the air If you stood in front of the speakers you would fin it hard to breathe! if you would feel the wind against your body! well that was it until 12 o'clock. Then everybody left. as we sat on a ledge keeping a girl company before she was picked up we talked about our interests and the different countries. THen we walked home and dropped onto the beds.
Day 3
Well we start off the day with another bright summer morning. wake up and we decide to be really really cheap so instead of buying another big expensive meal we went to the local safeway (woolworths equivalent) and got ourselves some pastries, tasted better, and healthier. We literally spent ages in the snakc section oohing and ahing at the different cookies and lollies (candies). Remembering that we were going to be picked up by the Barkl relatives we ran back to pack away our stuff. Me being the ever organised was the first to get down to the foyer. waitin waiting.... finally she arrived with the big SUVs. we were soon to fidn that we were with an SUV family. We got taken to their house and was welcomed with big american handshakes. we got to see their dog and their fish..... it was cool. we then went to Target!
Back into the SUV's and we drove to the target. IT WAS BIG! it was a supermarket and a target crammed together and the stuff they stocked wasn't bad as well! like good sony stuff. which was cool! i got toothbrush and toothpaste which i would use for the rest of tour and then i found the rest of the WO. they were running around dressing josh in random clothes, quite funny. So we walk around some more and we find a nice pink skirt for josh.... hehehheeh. Then David thinks of something smart for hte first time nad sez that WO should get some t-shirts or sumthing and then we can write WO on them! w00t! THen we discover T-shirts are amazingly expensive so we decide on headbands! what better than head headbands! so we got there and i think up of a good idea to get wristbands but they wnat headbands! oh welll we soon weren't allowed to wear headbands and were forced to put them away! neway with our newly pruchased headbands we headed on back to the house.
Back at the ranch we quickly got out the headbands and with Liz's expert skills we got WO 4EVA written on the front! in the bakcgorund we could hear the call of Lunch is ready. finsihing off the headbands we sat down at the table to discover a plethora of foods and salads. As the host served up large sausages, fruit we ate a superbly filling meal! This was filled also with great hilarity with overly amusing and stupid comments from david. Proving that his intelligence was less than that of a 5 year old american!
It was now time to head to the airport, back into the big SUV's we drove in style and arrived at the aiport at the same time as the rest of KAYO. walking past them with our headbandswe felt soo cool! hehehe. we went through an increasinlgy hot and short check in and headed towards the gate. after experiencing the last flight i decided to buy earplugs, and it came with eye cover, EVEN BETER! next ot the shop was a shop dedicated to Washington memorabilia, with persidential, FBI and bush related paraphernalia. And we boarded.
the plane settings for the seats were 2 5 2. i was on an aisle window seat. and mrs Vicary on the other side. thinking quickly i switched seats and found myslef next to haein. the next surprise of the trip was the inbuilt TV's. This however compensated for the large amonts of legroom lackage.(what a badly worded sentence) As the plane started we watched Catch me if you can. AWESOME MOVIE! after watching many of the differnet movies on offer, i had no choice but pretty much to sleep! no need for the earplugs as the lights were off and people were cramming for the second round of catch me if you can.
Day 2
Day started off with us being woken up for breakfast by Mr Varecka. the girls being the organised people they are were down there alot quicker before us. We ended up PAYING for our breakfast and had buffet. since we figured it was buffet, and we had to buy lunch, we jsut ate alot at breakfast :D. So we headed up got ready for a big day which was ahead of us. we caught a small cramped shuttle down to foggy bottom and there we caught our trian ride into the Smithsonian Institute. THe first thing i noticed was that the trains were acutally on time! they travelled very quickly and had no power lines above meaning htat the tracks were powered. the trains travelled about 2 time the speed of the trains we have, butthey were single deck trains. which was interesting.
so arriving in the smithsonian area we departed with Mrs Pfuhl and we left to conquer
The "Big Stick in the Ground!"
We then slowly made a pilgrimage towards the white house with me as navigator. So as we passed the dpeartment of commerce we encountered our first squirrel.... As children we are easily distracted so gues wat? we chased the squirrel along the wall for about 50 metres. then we decide to move on when the squirrel ran away. So we began our pilgrimage towards the white house once again and then we find a whole field of squirrels. we chased htem everywehre with cameras in our hands we looked like such tourists. then there was one squirrel which jsut clung fom the tree almost posing. We found the white house and it was croweded and packed with people. nothing much to see so we decided to goto the norht side of the white house , the further side, where nobody really goes. On the way there wemade our famous WO sign on the steps of the WWI statue.
WO on the steps of the WWI memorial!
After our long long trek we arrived. to find that they were doing construction. -_-'. so we saw the front of the white house through a metal fence.
Barred from the white house... how symbolistic
We were so bored we started to take random pics! like playing chess with no chess pieces, or drinking out of the dirty water.
Chess.... with no chess pieces!
drinking the dirty water!
So we had enuf of the white house we wanted to go see some museums so off we headed to the Smithsonian Institue. On the way there all of a sudden we decided to switch our shoes. so we switched our shoes. So we walked a few metres but we had to stop because Imogen couldn't stop laughing. Sarah's feet were so small and Josh's shoes were so big. so ther was this huge size difference plus Imogen had Harmonnia's high heals and she was wearing sandals so she laughed even more.
We switched our shoes!
Once we all got our original shoes on we continued towards the smithsonian institue seeing sum interesting statues along the way. At the door of the Smithsonian there were huge lines as they were checking everybody for bombs..... walking in we saw Apollo 1 encased in plastic.
Apollo 11!
We walked upstairs and saw OUR moon, not America's moon or Australias moon as stated by some stupid person. So all this walking made us hungry. so we went to maccas. soo much food. soo large sizes. their large was uber large. andtheir meddium was jsut bigger than our large! no wonder supersize is so damaging! the maccas has a cool drinks area where u jsut fill up your cup instead of them filling it for you. Well we were now well fed and we found we were running low on time. we hadto meet mrs Phful back at the train station. so we ran. we took a few photos along the way and saw some guys playing soccer. Then harmonnia decide we should get Hadeny Frost a birthday present. but what? we jsut left the smithsonian. We got haYden a moon Rock! well nto really a moon rock. more like an earth pebble. it'll do. We took a while to find the right one but eventually we got it. Getting back to the hotem we swarmed into the girls room to wrap our beautiful present. we layerd it with pages form Liz's Notebook and gaffa tape! Mr buggy suddenly knocked at our door and we had to go back to our room and get changed to goto the cathedral.
Walking into the cathedral we noticed how huge it was! everybody was shouting out ECHO! The cahtedral also had this giant stained glass rose down the end!
Cathedral Rose
We played extremely well and our sound just floated thru the cathedral. At the end of it we got a standing ovation and an encore! Afterwards we went to a great diner type place with Mr Varecka to have dinner. On the way there we took a picture with one of the pandas they had floating around the City.
One of the many pandas found around Washington
We had so much pizza and we convinced Hovo that Olympic was in 2005! We walked back to the hotel singing Waltzing Matilda.
Day 1 - Sydney/Washington
well here i am in Washington, after an extremely long and noisy flight. we were all so excited. i was stuck in a seat between a canadian and Mrs Vicary. sigh couldn't move much. behind me Josh Wiseman, Jodi and Lucy jsut kept talking soo annoying! I'm gonna try buy me sum ear plugs :D Well eventually i got to sleep and when i woke up it was still dark. i look out the window and i see a beautiful thing. Sunrise ove the clouds!
view form plane window, sunrise!
Not long after that we decided the raid the back of the plane and we all congregtrated there where the free drinks were. eventually breakfast was served and i found my egg had formed into the shape of my bowl. not good. Soon we landed and entered into Washington DC. well not really Washington DC. the Washington Dulles airport. so some other place which i don't noe the name of cos i'm not American! So how hot is it here? soo humid! we walk out of the plane and wer'e in the terminal and we're already sweating. The bus was sweating! lol. we drove thru george town, was all shops and big designer outlets for clothes. so we arrive at the Washington cathedral ST Albans. WOW the skool is huge! and the chathedral even huger! wen they came we gave them our skool chapel, we get to play in the national cathedral. wowo. So we get there and find out that i have no billets :'( so sad. So Harmonia, liz, Josh, Hovo, Sarah Slat, and immo go off to the Holiday Inn at George town. We watched sum TV and josh fell asleep on the bed with all his clothes on, and Hovo spent 1 hr inthe toilet, omg. well that's the first day of tour!
site of the blog: can't be screwed
current wants: still mp3 player
Well i'm extrememly bored staring at my glowing screen of life. Cna't be gothered to play CS so stuck here writing blogs. oh well it's better for you. YAY i hear you cry. anyways today at school was best. That's because we weren't at school. AHAHAHAHAHHA lol. went on Physics excursion to Luna Park. that was fun. almost puked though. that wasn't fun. everything so expensive. wasn't fun. had fun that's fun. any way if you didn't get what i jsut wrote well your normal.
Wow i have a stupiud physics assignment which i need to get done, and a stupid Geo assignment. well better start working. *sigh*
Anybody remeber that video Usama made before the US election? well here's the translation! pretty crazy stuff!
Following is the full English transcript of Usama bin Ladin's speech in a videotape sent to Aljazeera. In the interests of authenticity, the content of the transcript, which appeared as subtitles at the foot of the screen, has been left unedited.
Praise be to Allah who created the creation for his worship and commanded them to be just and permitted the wronged one to retaliate against the oppressor in kind. To proceed:
U
Pe
Before I begin, I say to you that security is an indispensable pillar of human life and that free men do not forfeit their security, contrary to Bush's claim that we hate freedom.
If so, then let him explain to us why we don't strike for example -
No, we fight because we are free men who don't sleep under oppression. We want to restore freedom to our
No one except a dumb thief plays with the security of others and then makes himself believe he will be secure. Whereas thinking people, when disaster strikes, make it their priority to look for its causes, in order to prevent it happening again.
But I am amazed at you. Even though we are in the fourth year after the events of September 11th, Bush is still engaged in distortion, deception and hiding from you the real causes. And thus, the reasons are still there for a repeat of what occurred.
So I shall talk to you about the story behind those events and shall tell you truthfully about the moments in which the decision was taken, for you to consider.
I say to you, Allah knows that it had never occurred to us to strike the towers. But after it became unbearable and we witnessed the oppression and tyranny of the American/Israeli coalition against our people in
The events that affected my soul in a direct way started in 1982 when
I couldn't forget those moving scenes, blood and severed limbs, women and children sprawled everywhere. Houses destroyed along with their occupants and high rises demolished over their residents, rockets raining down on our home without mercy.
The situation was like a crocodile meeting a helpless child, powerless except for his screams. Does the crocodile understand a conversation that doesn't include a weapon? And the whole world saw and heard but it didn't respond.
In those difficult moments many hard-to-describe ideas bubbled in my soul, but in the end they produced an intense feeling of rejection of tyranny, and gave birth to a strong resolve to punish the oppressors.
And as I looked at those demolished towers in Lebanon, it entered my mind that we should punish the oppressor in kind and that we should destroy towers in America in order that they taste some of what we tasted and so that they be deterred from killing our women and children.
And that day, it was confirmed to me that oppression and the intentional killing of innocent women and children is a deliberate American policy. Destruction is freedom and democracy, while resistance is terrorism and intolerance.
This means the oppressing and embargoing to death of millions as Bush Sr did in Iraq in the greatest mass slaughter of children mankind has ever known, and it means the throwing of millions of pounds of bombs and explosives at millions of children - also in Iraq - as Bush Jr did, in order to remove an old agent and repl
So with these images and their like as their background, the events of September 11th came as a reply to those great wrongs, should a man be blamed for defending his sanctuary?
Is defending oneself and punishing the aggressor in kind, objectionable terrorism? If it is such, then it is unavoidable for us.
This is the message which I sought to communicate to you in word and deed, repeatedly, for years before September 11th.
And you can read this, if you wish, in my interview with Scott in Time Magazine in 1996, or with Peter Arnett on CNN in 1997, or my meeting with John Weiner in 1998.
You can observe it practically, if you wish, in
The latter is one of your compatriots and co-religionists and I consider him to be neutral. So are the pretenders of freedom at the White House and the channels controlled by them able to run an interview with him? So that he may relay to the American people what he has understood from us to be the reasons for our fight against you?
If you were to avoid these reasons, you will have taken the correct path that will lead
As for it's results, they have been, by the gr
Our experience with them is lengthy, and both types are replete with those who are characterised by pride, arrogance, greed and misappropriation of wealth. This resemblance began after the visits of Bush Sr to the region.
At a time when some of our compatriots were dazzled by America and hoping that these visits would have an effect on our countries, all of a sudden he was affected by those monarchies and military regimes, and became envious of their remaining decades in their positions, to embezzle the public wealth of the
So he took dictatorship and suppression of freedoms to his son and they named it the Patriot Act, under the pretence of fighting terrorism. In addition, Bush sanctioned the installing of sons as state governors, and didn't forget to import expertise in election fraud from the region's presidents to
All that we have mentioned has made it easy for us to provoke and bait this administration. All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the generals r
This is in addition to our having experience in using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers, as we, alongside the mujahidin, bled Russia for 10 years, until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat.
All Praise is due to Allah.
So we are continuing this policy in bleeding
That being said, those who say that al-Qaida has won against the administration in the White House or that the administration has lost in this war have not been precise, because when one scrutinises the results, one cannot say that al-Qaida is the sole factor in achieving those spectacular gains.
Rather, the policy of the White House that demands the opening of war fronts to keep busy their various corporations - whether they be working in the field of arms or oil or reconstruction - has helped al-Qaida to achieve these enormous results.
And so it has appeared to some analysts and diplomats that the White House and us are playing as one team towards the economic goals of the
And it was to these sorts of notions and their like that the British diplomat and others were referring in their lectures at the Royal Institute of Inter
Meaning that every dollar of al-Qaida defeated a million dollars by the permission of Allah, besides the loss of a huge number of jobs.
As for the size of the economic deficit, it has reached record astronomical numbers estimated to total more than a trillion dollars.
And even more dangerous and bitter for America is that the mujahidin recently forced Bush to resort to emergency funds to continue the fight in Afghanistan and Iraq, which is evidence of the success of the bleed-until-bankruptcy plan - with Allah's permission.
It is true that this shows that al-Qaida has gained, but on the other hand, it shows that the Bush administration has also gained, something of which anyone who looks at the size of the contracts acquired by the shady Bush administration-linked mega-corporations, like Halliburton and its kind, will be convinced. And it all shows that the real loser is ... you.
It is the American people and their economy. And for the record, we had agreed with the Commander-General Muhammad Ataa, Allah have mercy on him, that all the operations should be carried out within 20 minutes, before Bush and his administration notice.
It never occurred to us that the commander-in-chief of the American armed forces would abandon 50,000 of his citizens in the twin towers to f
But because it seemed to him that occupying himself by talking to the little girl about the goat and its butting was more important than occupying himself with the planes and their butting of the skyscrapers, we were given three times the period required to execute the operations - all praise is due to Allah.
And it's no secret to you that the thinkers and perceptive ones from among the Americans warned Bush before the war and told him: "All that you want for securing America and removing the weapons of mass destruction - assuming they exist - is available to you, and the
But the darkness of the black gold blurred his vision and insight, and he gave priority to private interests over the public interests of
So the war went ahead, the death toll rose, the American economy bled, and Bush became embroiled in the swamps of
So I say to you, over 15,000 of our people have been killed and tens of thousands injured, while more than a thousand of you have been killed and more than 10,000 injured. And Bush's hands are stained with the blood of all those killed from both sides, all for the sake of oil and keeping their private companies in business.
Be aware that it is the
And the same goes for your allies in
Finally, it behoves you to reflect on the last wills and testaments of the thousands who left you on the 11th as they gestured in despair. They are important testaments, which should be studied and researched.
Among the most important of what I read in them was some prose in their gestures before the collapse, where they say: "How mistaken we were to have allowed the White House to implement its aggressive foreign policies against the weak without supervision."
It is as if they were telling you, the people of
And among that which I read in their gestures is a verse of poetry. "Injustice chases its people, and how unhealthy the bed of tyranny."
As has been said: "An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure."
And know that: "It is better to return to the truth than persist in error." And that the wise man doesn't squander his security, wealth and children for the sake of the liar in the White House.
In conclusion, I tell you in truth, that your security is not in the hands of Kerry, nor Bush, nor al-Qaida. No.
Your security is in your own hands. And every state that doesn't play with our security has automatically guaranteed its own security.
And Allah is our Guardian and Helper, while you have no Guardian or Helper. All pe
site of the blog: www.yetisports.org
current wants: a fucking MP3 player!!!!!
It's two days in a row where i've had to stay at home and do work while my family goes out and has fun. AAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH. i'm feeling soo lethargic! 4 days till KAYO tour. that's sooo crazy and i haven't even packed my bag and scotchguarded my shoes. Well Tour's going to be fun. i wonder if i'm only talking to myself on here.... oh well. people please comment. Well why not list the places i'm going
Washington DC
Paris
Lucerne
Inssbruck
Salzburg
Budingen
Frankfurt
Cleveland
LA
HOME!!!
i really need an MP3 player for this trip. like need. if anybody want's to give me one it would be most appreciated. as if anyone would do that though. aaaahhh the sun is shining in my eyes. i guess i should keep everyone updated when i'm on tour eh? most likely and most likely it will be on another blog.
Site of the blog is a cool site. If you remeber the original yetisport of hitting that peguin with the phat bat, this site is the rest in the series, great site for wasting time.
well i have an unwanted maths turtoring soon. and then later our farewell concert. then tommorow we have our physics excursion to LUNA PARK! heheheheh. best exursion ever. Too bad we we have to wear school uniform other than that it will be great.
well thats all for today,
Arthur
