We believe there is something weird about to happen since there are army soldiers on the streets with machine guns and they were not around a few days ago. Nobody else seems overly peturbed but it does seem a little odd to us.

They are only hanging around major monuments like the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe as though expecting some sort of attack on symbolic things. Maybe we are just being paranoid - the only nezs in English we can get is CNN in the hotel room and since they are only reporting on the “War On Terror”, it’s a bit hard to find out real news. Not that the US response is not real news, but it would be nice to hear what else is happening in the world other than which countries are being scared and forced into supporting Bush’s War.

In other happenings, I have decided the French keyboards are demented. Most things are in the right place but the A, Q, W, Z, and M are all in the wrong spots. The row of numbers over the top is only accessible with the Shift Key. You even need the Shift Key to put a full stop - the semi-colon gets more use here apparently!

We are not sure if this is a French thing or an EasyEverything Internet Cafe thing to make you spend more money because it takes longer to type. Either way, it is annoying that I have to use the net with this keyboard since the WWW is in the wrong spot! The @ symbol is with the zero numeral, and of course, MooQuack uses a lot of shifted letters and my email address is : trqvis2,ooauqck:co, : according to my touch typing…

Off to Hong Kong tomorrow after Versailles today. The Aussie dollar has gotten to the point where we now need to cut short the travels and go home earlier than desired, but we have gotten to the point also where we *want* to go home. As dumb as it sounds, you *CAN* be on holiday too long…

Combined with the recent world events, it would be best to be back in the global backwaters of Australia where nobody would waste their bombs. Hopefully…

Categories: Travel, Odyssey 2001