Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Fantasia

WORD OF THE DAY
trashcan: la poubelle

I am prepared. My teeth and ambitions are bared. This week will surely be the most intellectually taxing of my stay in France. Lots of work due. Lots of responsibilities coming to a head. Everything is culminating at the end of the semester, and it is slightly overwhelming. Please pray for me . . . if that's something that you do. I don't pretend to know who/what you worship.

If not, then just think about me real hard.

If that is still asking too much, then I guess just enjoy my blog post. I suppose even horribly selfish people need a good laugh.

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[If you're reading this entry hoping to be entertained with stories of faraway galaxies and magical fairy lands where Molly has recently ventured, you will be sorely disappointed. As the semester draws to a close, it is becoming increasingly difficult to commit long amounts of time away from productivity. That's not to say that I'm a superhuman study machine with absolutely no room for procrastination. Quite the contrary. (What do you think I'm doing right now?) It's just hard to say "I'm definitely not going to study at all today" and then be morally okay with that. So the following accounts will be more or less devoid of jet-setter material. I hope this isn't too disappointing.]

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1. Today I was more productive than I've been since that last time I told you how productive I was. I went to the post office, the bank, the grocery store, the train station, class, the library, and even the kitchen to cook myself some very delicious veggie soup. Ack! I'm so adulty! When did this happen?!!

2. Well, to add to this adultiness, last night I went to the symphony with Zara and Ricky. It was SO fun! And it was free, making the fun exponentially greater. But, I should tell you (and I'm aware this will completely nullify all attempts at convincing you that I'm a grown up), but when I go to the symphony, I like to close my eyes and choreograph little Fantasia cartoon sequences in my head to go with the music. So it looks like I'm sleeping, but really I'm enjoying classical music the only way I know how. Through visual whimsy. Since we weren't given programs, and my knowledge of classical music is that of a dandelion, this is the only account of the night's performances that I can give you--a song-by-song description of what was dancing through my head (as scribbled on a notepad so I wouldn't forget it):

(Classical music often fills me with inspiration. Also images of hippos in tutus.)

-A very depressed mole who has no ambition to emerge from his hole to see the sun
-(I'm not gonna lie. My mind wandered in this one. Soooo dull. Sorry classical music. Somebody had to say it.)
-There is this royal procession with a lot of fancy horses drawing fancy carriages. The horses are really proper. But there is one new horse who is smaller than all the other horses. He is not very good at pulling carriages. But he wants to be. Unfortunately he is clumsy. This does not work in his favor.
-Near the horse procession, there is a jester who is trying desperately to make a living. He waves cards in people's faces and jumps through hoops to make a quick buck. By the end he is doing 8 things at once and falls over.
-There are 2 apple-cheeked children baking a pie without their mother's help. They are strangely efficient. Reminds me of "Whistle While You Work."

These are the children I envisioned.

-A man and a woman are ice skating on a pond. They are very good. There is also another man who is not so good. He is skating with a cherub who shames the man with his talent. Then there is a snowball fight by the pond. It ends in a standoff.
-There is a sad man who works in a factory. He does the same thing everyday, but he dreams of doing something different. One day he decides to quit, and he sprints out of the factory and finds the city. It is like New Orleans with jazzy music and dancing, and he is thrilled. But then there is a parade, and the music and the dancing become too much for the man. He runs back to the factory. And he is happy there.
-An elephant and an acrobat get ready for the circus.
-The rainforest at dawn. Slowly all the flowers open. There is a baby snake. He sees all the other animals who have hands, and he is sad because he doesn't have hands. And everyone is scared of him because he is a snake. This makes him more sad. Then he meets a squirrel who is not afraid. The squirrel tries to make hands for the snake out of sticks and leaves. This does not work. Then there is a fire! And there are men cutting down trees! And the snake saves the squirrel because he scares away the men.

Then they played that "Can Can" song 2 times. We all clapped along. It was so fun. I don't know the name of the song, but I always sing "Can Can, can you do the Can Can, can you do the Can Can, can you do the . . ." and so on and so forth.

3. On a more relaxed note, the other morning I woke up to this:

B-E-A-UTIFUL

4. When Zara and I hang out, we always find words or phrases in English that we say differently. It's like a game.

I say "knock on wood."
She says "touch wood."
I say "pacifier."
She says "dummy."
I say "Where's Waldo?"
She says "Where's Wally?"
I say "candy."
She says "sweets."
I say "course."
She says "module."
I say "that powder stuff that you put in regular water to make it flavored water."
She says "squash."

So we learn a lot. Even in English.

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Welp, that's all I have.

I guess it's morning now.

So good morning!
And in case I don't see ya--good afternoon, good evening, and good night.

Amitiés :)

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Letters to Juliet, Part 1

In the criminal justice system, internationally-based offenses are considered especially heinous. In One French City, the dedicated blogger who experienced these offenses has written some strongly worded letters to the deserving parties. These are those letters.

Dunh Dunh

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Dear Right Boot,

They aaalways come crawling back.

-Molly

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Dear Cave people who live on my floor,

I understand that you come from a simpler time when rocks were used as multi-purpose tools and your dinner would actively run away from you, but, and I shouldn't have to be the first one to tell you this, you live in a university dorm now. And we share a kitchen. So I don't mind if you drag your rotting mammoth carcasses all over the stovetop, but I don't want to have to deal with it 3 days later when my pot sticks to the burner. I know I can't expect too much from you, as you've just recently discovered fire, but please use this new discovery and cremate yourself because this is disgusting. It's not even that hard! If you clean up as you cook, then it doesn't even really feel like you're cleaning up at all! Unless you pour an entire pot of grey rice and carrot mush into the sink. Then it might feel like cleaning. There's just no avoiding that.

-Molly

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Dear 15 minutes,

I will never ever complain ever again that you aren't enough time to get from class to class. You are perfect just the way you are.

-Molly

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Dear Fan,

Keep doin' whatchoo doin.'

-Molly

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Dear Lentils,

I'm so sorry. I . . . I didn't mean to. I was just so hungry! And it was 10:30 at night! What else was I supposed to do?? You were the only edible thing I had left in my room. It seemed all right. How could I have known that you didn't taste good with mustard? I know it's not your fault. I shouldn't put that guilt on you. You meant well. You just wanted to give me nourishment. And I appreciate that. Which is why it pains me to say this.

I think we should take a break . . . a break from us. It's not you. It's me. And my gag reflex. I want to love you. I do. But I've never been more turned off of a single food item than I am right now. I even put off restocking my fridge because I knew it meant I would have to deal with your leftovers, and I just couldn't stomach that. That noxious murder-face-corpsy-pickle-death scent you emanate, it permeates everything. But, hey, let's look on the bright side. You've made me a better actress. Now, all I have to do is think about you, and I can vomit on command.

Thanks?

-Molly

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CREATED BY
Dick Wolf

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

The Italian "Nut" Job

Sigh . . .

There's always something.
Aaaalways something with me.

Do you want the good news or the bad news first?
(This question is inevitably rhetorical, as this is a blog, so I can't actually hear your response. Also I don't care what you think.)

Well, the good news is I'm not feeling sickly anymore (fingers crossed).

The bad news is I left my French debit card in a ticket machine at the train station in Menton. So that was an unwelcome surprise while in line at the grocery store today. But I've cancelled the card, and, if I'm to find a silver lining, French credit cards don't work unless you have the secret 4-digit code. So no one would have been able to use the card even if they did find it. And I'm sure someone did inevitably find it. As I left it inside the machine.

Nevertheless! I still bought lots of groceries. This is welcome news as I ran out of my good food yesterday and was forced to dig into the yucky canned food I'd saved for such an occasion. More on that nastiness to come later.

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"So, Molly . . . "

"Why, hello, hypothetical reader. Long time no see!"

"Yes. Question: you said you lost your card in Menton??"

"Oooh! Nice segue, hypothetical reader! Yes, I left my debit card at the train station in Menton this weekend while buying a ticket to go to Ventimiglia!!"

"Ventimiglia? That doesn't sound French at all."

"That's very astute of you."

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Yes, folks, this weekend I decided to take a short day-trip just over the border into Italy!! It was super fun! And super cost-efficient! The whole trip cost me a grand total of 9€! All-inclusive! (transportation, pizza, apple, cactus, and little wooden chest thing!)

I KNOW RIGHT??

. . . if you can believe it, I actually already had this photo saved to my desktop . . .

Ventimiglia is a small Italian city juuust on the other side of the French border. There's not a whole lot to do there (like most of Provençal Europe), but it is rather famous for having one of the biggest and most wonderful outdoor markets. It did not disappoint. SO MUCH FRESH PRODUCE! It's no wonder Europeans stay so thin.



Then I found another "market" place along the coastline where people were selling odds and ends for really cheap. It kind of had a yard sale feel to it. But I use this term cautiously. Because I can't find another term for "place where people sell things, some of which have no business being in a yard sale at all, but they're Italian so it's not weird, it's antique." Now, I actually had a yard sale this past summer, so I know the ins and outs of putting one together. So I know that the real work of the yard sale comes before the sale even takes place. This is the time when you have to go through your unwanted material goods and discern which things are YOUR crap and which things are ACTUALLY JUST crap. If you've done this, then I don't understand how a used horse brush and a half-naked balding Barbie are still on your table for 2€ apiece. But I suppose it gives me something to look at.

However, I did make an interesting discovery. I realized that the tables you should avoid weren't actually the ones selling the golden baby statues and armless dolls. In fact, these were the normal tables. No, the tables you should be avoiding were the ones that most closely resembled actual stores. I found that there was a direct correlation between cohesiveness of the yard sale display and the vender's location on the crazy-meter. What I mean is, perhaps I should stop admiring your array of neatly organized merchandise and take a moment to question why you have a whole table just for your knives and 5 copies of the same Michael Bolton album.

But after perusing through the lives of 50+ "Italian nut-jobs," I actually did make some purchases. And here they are!!

This is Fuzz Lightyear and Eliza Wood.

(I would have gone with the obvious Woody and Fuzz Lightyear, but I think we can both agree that she doesn't look like a Woody.)

Here is another picture for size comparison. Fuzz Lightyear is about 3 inches tall. And he's fantastic.

(This is also a plug for ABLE Youth! Don't know what that is? Go check it out!)

Some other miscellaneous bits of Ventimiglia information:

1. I saw 4 different stores carrying FIVE KILO containers of nutella. WHAT! WHO NEEDS THAT?! I mean, I do . . . but it was mega-expensive. And I wasn't thinking clearly enough to take a picture. Just Google it and agree with me that this is unnecessary and amazing at the same time.

2. The pizza I bought was 90 cents. It seemed to be about as good as a piece of 90 cent pizza could possibly be. But because it was in Italy, it was the greatest pizza I've ever tasted. Bottom-of-the-barrel-Italy-crap-pizza=still delicious. Also, funny, it had one olive on it. Just the one.

3. There was no passport check at all. Or train ticket check. So I could have feasibly just ridden the train all the way back to Nice instead of getting off at Menton and taking the bus. This would have saved so much time. But because I am a good person (/terrified of the implications of doing anything even remotely illegal), I got off. It's not like it would have been that bad . . . just entering a country illegally. Big whoop.

4. I've found that I've learned some new French words/phrases in the context of certain situations, and I don't really know the English equivalents. This is the first time being stupid has made me feel more awesome.

5. On the way back to my dorm I stopped off at the grocery store to pick up a few things. While in the checkout line I tried to remove my purse to get out my wallet only to realize I misunderstood chronology that morning and had put my purse on before my coat. This was a strange realization, but not as strange as the realization that I'd gone the entire day without taking off my purse. (They're gonna love me at this grocery store.)

6. I've also realized that there are things I do for semi-OCD purposes that make my life inherently more dangerous. For instance, when I walk down the stairs I like to have my toes dangle over the edge of the step. This is not safe.

Well, that's all I have for now. Tune in next week for another exciting adventure of Molly and Fuzz Lightyear!

PS. If you get a chance, go look at the Google logo today before it changes. It's for Stanislas Lem, and it's supa fun!

Amitiés :)

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Das Boot

The Ballad of Right Boot

Oh, Right Boot, oh Right Boot.
I've torn my room apart.
Oh, Right Boot, oh, Right Boot.
Why don't you have a heart?
I've looked around my room ten fold,
But you are gone. My foot is cold.
I don't know why you've run to hide.
The room is small where I reside.
You'd think this wouldn't happen here,
But now you've gone and disappeared.
I looked around my desk and chair.
(I even dug through underwear.)
But you are no where to be found.
My heart--you threw it on the ground.
Your brother's here, and he says hey.
But you are not. You've run away.
Did I do something apropos?
I don't know why you had to go.
I'm hoping that you come home too,
Cuz Right Foot really misses you.

Friday, November 18, 2011

Die Another Day

I'm recovering. Day by day I'm recovering.

I've been pretty reclusive on account of my cough and correlating exhaustion.

But today is a new day.

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ME: "Hey, you. Coughy McSucksalot. Where do you get off?"

THROAT: "Meh."

ME: "You've got some nerve. Here I am minding my own business, and you decide to come along and air 2 weeks of "The Itchy and Scratchy Show." Are you aware that you ruin everything?"

THROAT: (gurgle)

ME: "I will pummel you with antibiotics."

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I've decided I can't let my throat determine what the rest of my body wants to do.
Chief among these desires: to get out of my room.

So, I'm planning a trip for this weekend. And then a more awesome trip for next weekend.

I've been looking up flights and stuff, and, since it's still sort of last minute I've decided to stay somewhat local and possibly go to Aix-en-Provence this Saturday and then to the Gorges du Verdon next week. The Gorges are said to be the Grand Canyon of France. I've seen pictures. I will go there. You can bet your bottom dollar I will go there.

Until I have something more interesting to write about, here's some music to make you happy.


Amitiés :)

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Children of the Corn

Wanna hear a scary story?

Like most scary stories, I didn't witness this series of events firsthand. It is regrettable. I am sorry.
Unlike most scary stories, this is 100% true. And you're about to hear it straight from the horse's mouth! Well, straight from the fingers of the girl who heard it straight from the horse's mouth. But . . . that's good enough.

For our purposes here, I'm going to use the first person tense. Simply for effect.
No false pretenses.

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To set the mood . . .

It was a daaark and stormy night. (Well, it was dark. The weather was fairly pleasant actually. Kind of chilly with a slight overcast.) But nevertheleeEEEeess . . .

We had decided to go on a ghost tour through Dublin. OoooooOOOOooooohhh

It was fun. Well, it was fun.

In our group there were these two punks in the back, probably no more than 11 years old, horsing around, with their punky hoods pulled over their punky heads, shoving each other into innocent bystanders. One of the boys pushed his friend into a man, probably 35, who gently brushed the boy off as he was there with his wife and didn't want any trouble. No muss. No fuss.

Eventually the boys left. You could feel the group breathe a heavy sigh of relief.

No one could have predicted what happened next.

As we rounded a corner, children and punks alike started emerging from bushes, climbing over fences, creeping out of alleyways, and I'm pretty sure I saw one crawl out of a trash can. First it was one, and before we knew it we were faced with upwards of thirty pre-pubescent lads and lasses. They were angry . . . comically so, because they were so little and had funny accents.

We had been hunted. Like Velociraptor hunted.

There was silence and shouting all at the same time. We were being taunted by tiny Irish boys, leprechauns if you will. Their girlfriends, a little taller than the boys but you know how that works, were shrieking and doing the z-snap all up in our ghost tour.

Then one kid, who appeared to be their leader, probably 16 years old, but still much smaller than me, burst into our circle and shouted "WHICH ONE O' YERS BEEN' TOOCHIN' ME COOSIN??" He began running around the circle, looking each of us in the eye, as if to intimidate us to the point of sacrificing one of our own to avoid his scrawny wrath. One of the original punks eventually pointed out a man in the back of the group. Now, I couldn't say with certainty whether this was actually the man who "tooched his coosin," but the 16 year old didn't hesitate. He shot over to the man and punched him straight in the jaw.

At this point the police had already shown up. They arrested the 16 year old . . . and NO ONE EVER SAW HIM AGAAAIN oooOOOOOOOooooooohhh

All the other children crept back into the shadows from whence they came.

Our poor little tour guide. She was so scared.

Moral of the story: It's okay to be afraid of children. They are very menacing.

Amitiés :)

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Contagion

What did I wish for at 11:11 on 11/11/11, the luckiest time on the luckiest day of the luckiest year, a trifecta of wishing power coming together to create the ultimate stroke of good fortune?
Nothing. I forgot.

If I had remembered, I probably would have wished to be relocated back onto the weather.

But, since I forgot, I remain under it.

Still pretty sick. Still very coughy.
. . . sounds like coffee. I wish I were coffee. Then I would be warm and smelling good and ready for the day. I still wouldn't be able to sleep though, but it would be from a caffeine-induced high and not from fits of coughing. So that would be more pleasant.

I've reached the point in my hacking sickness where my voice has become more alto than usual. I like to think it makes me sound like Nnenna Freelon or Billie Holiday, but, if imma be real, it's probably more like Al Pacino.

So, as eventful as a sick week can possibly be, here are some of the highlights:

1. Last weekend I went with a few of my friends to Saint Paul de Vence for a lazy rainy day trip. It was really fun. We just kind of wandered around in a little village town area. I forgot to charge my camera, so I have no pictures of my very own, but here are 2 pictures from Maria's camera.

Left to right: Zara (England), Cristina (Spain),
me (YU ESS AY!!), Ricky (Germany)

Aaaaand Maria (Norway)
We break cultural boundaries.

(While we were in St. Paul de Vence, Maria and Zara kept talking about how excited they were to be in my blog. One day we'll all be famous, and we can look back at these pictures and remember how fun it was to stroke Maria's vest.)

2. Fetch me my soap box!

Sometimes I forget that I'm 20. I forget that I’ve graduated from adolescent angst and melodrama, overcome teenage pregnancy, and lost my baby fat. I forget that there’s a laundry list of things that, as a member of this new age group, I’m supposed to like now. I sometimes look around at all the other 20-somethings and figure they must have been given a 20-something handbook and that I was inexplicably overlooked. There are new rules. There are new responsibilities. Sometimes when someone asks me what I plan on doing with my French major, it takes all of my willpower not to say "I'm not a grown up! That's really more of a grown up thing."

I say all of this as a preface to this past Thursday.

There was a big party for university students at the Acropolis. (Perhaps a convention center? We're not really sure . . . ) There was music and alcohol and dancing and an equally as popular smoking terrace. All things I've been told 20-somethings enjoy. So we tried to join in.

I would like to go on record saying that when I try to dance I look like a malfunctioning robot that doesn't know what to do with its hands. I know this. I'm not disillusioned. Usually my way of dealing with this shortcoming is just to not dance, but tonight I'd hoped my friends' heightened blood-alcohol levels would temporarily blind them to my socially neanderthalic tendencies.

Now, if you're in a public setting, you may be tempted to let someone in on how awkward you feel. But this is absolutely the wrong answer. Letting someone else know you feel uncomfortable moving and/or shaking it will not alleviate the awkwardness. What it will do is make your friend strangely aware of how your body doesn't move normally. And for a brief period, both of you will be focused solely on where your hands should be. And no one will be happy about it.


3. The other day I was riding the bus home from getting groceries, and I saw an older woman ambling through the park with her 2 dogs. Now, this sentence is misleading. What I'm sure you pictured in your minds eye was a gentle old woman walking her dogs on leashes through the park. This is a false assumption. But I can't really put it into words. So I drew a picture.

Just a big mayonnaise jar full of crazy

4. I was supposed to go with my friends yesterday to Tourettes sur Loup (a city famous for violets . . . not tourettes). But as I was not feeling medically adequate, I had to stay in the dorm. It was a huge disappointment. I felt like the mother of a business school graduate who just wants to take some time off to focus on his art.

5. Our hostel in Dublin had a lot of . . . character. There was a huge painting on the wall of famous people from Elvis to Snoop Dogg to Madonna and Britney doing that infamous thing they did. There were also really funny signs everywhere.


PS. I'm not sure how applicable this post title is. I've only seen previews for this movie in French, but everyone is coughing a lot. Also when I first saw the movie poster I thought Gwyneth Paltrow was James Spader.

I know you really want to look it up now.

Do it.

It's uncanny.

Amitiés :)

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

The Holiday

WORD OF THE DAY
leprechaun: un lutin

I'm definitely not dead.

I realize that this is a very delayed post detailing my experiences in Anglophonic Europe. And for that I am sorry. But my reasoning is valid.

I woke up really early Sunday morning for no reason, and, despite the fact that I generally approve of being awake, it was the opposite of enjoyable. It felt like tiny rock climbers were slowly scaling the walls of my throat, and no matter how much I coughed, I couldn't get them out.

So that happened. That's why I've been MIA. Still feeling pretty coughy, but not so debilitatingly pathetic anymore.

Anyway . . . England!

It was super fun! I flew from Nice-->Zürich-->Manchester on the 26th of October. But I didn't sleep much the night before, and I had to leave my room at 5am to run to the bus stop (I totally felt like I was on the Amazing Race running through the night with my cumbersome hand luggage).

So . . . I guess, here's the highlight reel:

I. MANCHESTER
-Met a friend. Saw the sights. Ate some food. Went to bed.

THIS . . . IS . . . MANCHESTER!!

-I fell asleep more instantaneously than I ever have before. This is a cool new talent I've developed. "Being able to fall asleep immediately anywhere, anytime." It's actually pretty helpful when you're traveling and don't know where your next bed will be. But . . . if you're not careful, this talent will turn on you. And make you look like an idiot.

Train ride back to Manchester from Dublin

I am wholly incapable of sleeping with my mouth closed. You know in those movies where Boy says to Girl, "Oh, I was just watching you sleep. You looked so peaceful." This will never happen to me. The closest thing to "peaceful" that I can pull off is "dead."

II. YORK
-The next morning, Ben (friend from UT) and I took a train to York. It was really rainy. Kind of added to the England experience though, so not the biggest bummer. (It was so rainy, in fact, that my camera flash kept turning on automatically.)

Heavy doors are liars.

-We toured the York Minster. I think it's the second largest cathedral in England. Don't quote me on that though. Like if you're doing a project or something. Or talking to someone who's really pretentious. You should probably look it up.



Window on the left is the "Five Sisters Window." INFORMATION!

-Then Ben went to a café to finish writing a paper, and I walked along the wall surrounding York. In the rain. It was only sort of miserable.

Only one entrance, and one exit. I can't believe I "walked" the whole thing.

-On the overnight train to Dublin, we stopped in Manchester for 17 minutes, so Ben went to find Wifi real fast to email his paper to his prof. I went ahead to the next train. The train came. I got on. Aaaaand the train left. No Ben. No bueno. And the battery light was flashing on my phone. It hadn't died yet, but it was definitely "mostly dead."

You've been mostly dead all day!

-Sooo I made the rest of the journey through Manchester, Chester, Holyhead, the Dublin ferryport, and the Dublin station all by my lonesome. (When I finally got to the Dublin station at 5:30 in the morning I was SO tired that I fell asleep in a crumpled pile on one of the chairs only to be woken up by a concerned security guard who probably thought I was either in a mind-numbing state of depression or a coma.)

III. DUBLIN!
-I somehow managed to meet up with my other friend Sam in Dublin with all his university friends. We dropped our stuff off at the hostel and then went to the GUINNESS FACTORY!!

View from the Gravity Bar


-Saturday we wondered around Dublin. Kind of a lazy day. Churches were expensive & not really worth it. Castle was lame. Museums were informative. Blah blah blah.

Ireland's motto?                             Occupy Dublin!

Motorcycle protest thing            Connor & . . . of course

-Sunday we took a van tour through the Wicklow mountains and Glendalough (south of Dublin). It was over 7 hours of pure joy.


This is the valley where they filmed Braveheart, Saving Private Ryan, AND Lassie. We decided to act some of them out. Can YOU find Private Ryan??



Look, Amy! It's P.S. I Love You!!!!

Batmanning



Ed: our tour guide. He was great.

Watchtower to keep out vikings coming to kidnap teenagers from the monastery!

Hug and make a wish!




-Ed was probably the most knowledgeable person I've met in Europe so far and definitely the most entertaining. He told us SO MANY STORIES and showed us SO MANY THINGS.
1. Enya's castle
2. Daniel Day Lewis' house/town/pub
3. St. Kevin's Monastery
4. Bono's house
5. Van Halen's driveway
6. 23 Martello Towers
7. Guinness house
8. and lots of others I can't remember now

(I would have accused him of being a name-dropper if he wasn't so fantastic.)

9. Also he told us that Gerard Butler was on holiday cycling through the Wicklow mountains. I stared far too creepily at EVERY biker we passed. No Gerard Butler. Pity.

-Monday I met up with my cousin Christie who lives in Dublin. And, I'll condense this by like a THOUSAND, but, basically, there were more issues with getting train tickets to get back to Manchester. Fortunately, it was all sorted out in the end. Plus it was really rainy, so there wasn't much we could do tourist-wise on a bank holiday, so Christie and I just went for drinks and hung out for a bit. That seems to be what people do in Dublin.

IV. MANCHESTER . . . again
-Got to Manchester. Got my suitcase from Ben's room. Went to the airport. Through security and customs and everything by 10am. Plane didn't leave until 2. So, then . . . well . . . you know where this is going.


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That was hauntingly long. I apologize if you got bored by the end. But it was 7 days of travel. So I inevitably left out A LOT of cool stories.
Which reminds me, speaking of haunting . . . well, we'll get to that story another day.

Amitiés :)
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