Travelling the world, cathy style!

Hope everyone's having a great christmas!!

It's been christmas day for about 20mins here in london. I'm staying with Jananie & Matt. Huge thanks to your hospitality! arrived a few hours ago, but been crazy busy since.

Had a little hiccup with things, and had to change my flight plan out of london. Will be leaving on the 5th instead of boxing day. I'll get to stay for the boxing day sales, yay!!! Lisa's been shopping here for about 2 days already, and she says it's
fantastic. I better get ready for a spending spree.

The little hiccup is that i've lost my passport. (I can just hear you going 'oh no!', but calm down, it's okay. ) Wether its lost of stolen, i don't really know. I had it on me when i checked into my eurostar train journey at Gare De Nord in Paris, and had it stamped as coming to the UK. Then on the train i wanted to look at it and see my 'stamp', and realised it was missing. SHIT! I've been told the ONE thing you need when you travel irrelevant of anything else is your passport. And i managed to lose it. How much of a dumbass do i feel?? Not sure if it was stolen, but either way i don't have it anymore.

So i got to london and called the london police to lodge a report. They told me that since the passport went missing/stolen in paris, it's not their jurisdiction and i have to lodge a report with the french police. I call the french police, and they don't speak english! And i don't speak FRENCH!!! Eventually the guy on the phone managed to give me a number to call, which is kinda difficult since i don't really know the french numbers. Thank god Lisa knew a few more than i did.

The guy who answered also spoke french, and when i asked 'parley vou angles'? He said 'no' and kept talking at me in french which i obviously didn't understand. 5 mins later when i had tried to tell him i'd lost my passport for the 10th time in french, he started talking to me in english, and he spoke perfect english! What a PRICK! And then he tells me i can't lodge a report over the phone and have to go to Paris to do it in person! What the!?!?! I can't GO to paris, I DON'T HAVE A PASSPORT, I CAN'T TRAVEL TO ANOTHER COUNTRY!!!! 'so you just want to report your passport no? Just tell the english police you lost it in london' he says. I'm not gonna lie to the bloody police.

So I gave up on that. And did other stuff like change my flight to the 5th, and cancel my passport with the australian consulate. Then tried again this morning, hoping to get a reasonable police officer. Called the london police first, and told the guy i'd realised it was lost on the train almost at waterloo. Thank god he just took it as being lost/stolen at waterloo station, and let me file a report. Yay! Now i can try to claim it on my travel insurance.

Being christmas day, nothing is open. So i guess i'll just have to wait til the 27th to go to the embassy and get a new passport then.

What a drama. On the bright side i get to hang around here and see london instead. If i get my passport back a few days before i fly i might even have a chance to pop over to amsterdam for a day or two. Alls well that ends well.