Cuties

outside of a french school over by St. Germain des Près

Sometimes I get REALLY jealous of the perks of being a male:

This was at the Louvre. I was probably 15 minutes late for class.

I wonder:

why they don't give the men's bathroom like two stalls and the extras to the women's side?

Things that should be red flags:

(this was all in the same day.)

-eating two whole bars of kinder buenos (that means 4 sticks), unpeeling each wrapper right after one another and popping them into my mouth without thinking.

-buying an almond croissant after class. Said class included chocolate tasting.

-sneaking bread from the kitchen after dinner.

-Not having gone on a run for about a week and a half.

Something's happening and it's not good...I did so well the first month and a bit!

time to remember self-control.

one other favorite thing in Ireland:

jane got stuck inside my computer.

also, last week, i got a good grade on my photo essay basically because i didn't really write anything. the week before, i got way marked down because i wrote way too much. i didn't want some people to interpret my photos their own way. i wanted them to know the specific reasons i took the pictures. but, my professor likes ambiguity, and letting the viewer make connections, and everything. anyway, since not writing worked so well, i tried it again. don't think it will work, but we'll see. let me know if you could make some sense of it. my professor's hard to do homework for. he loved my project last week that i really didn't like at all, and didn't like the one before, which was my favorite. so, we'll see.

Favorite Things about our trip to Ireland:

almost missing our flight because line one was down. Especially bad because no one else in the group knew where we were going, staying, how to get there, what to do, etc. Realizing only as I was walking out to the plane from the gate that we had indeed made the flight.

realizing we couldn't make our connection to Dingle because there was no bus going there that night. Non-summer hours are a lot more limited than in July. Woops!



listening to "Elephant" by Damien Rice until my ears wanted to fall out. I never realized before how satisfying that one part in the bridge is. Please listen.

Listening to Damien Rice in general while we spent long hours on the bus.



Eating a lot of bourbon creams and corners yogurt...

coming into Dingle, renting bikes, and taking five other girls on a 30 mile bike ride that they thought was going to be about eight miles. I never insinuated this. Someone talked to someone on the plane who said they did an eight mile loop. So, no one had any idea what they were getting into. Except for me, but I had forgotten how long it was except for a last grueling hill. Woops! They were all grateful later that they really had no idea what that bike ride entailed. Except for Kirsten would still have done it even if she knew. She would have done it twice.

Taking this picture SOLELY for the purpose of trying to make Whitney jealous (compare here):

a few photo shoots:

Rachel, senior pictures anyone? and...yeah.

I legitimately thought that Cami was going to kill me right here. She was a bit angry that I led her to believe differently than she felt...we were about 25 miles into the ride. She was considering turning around at mile number four.

Cute animals. Especially because they aren't all dirty and gross
like the pigeons and dogs here in Paris.

With ridiculous luck, it was a beautiful day on Saturday, and the man at the hostel tried to convince Cami and I to ride our bikes to the base of Mt. Brandon and then hike the mountain. Cami had vowed the day before that she would never again ride a bike. When we proceeded to go out the door to visit shops, he offered to drive us up in his car and then we could walk back to Dingle and enjoy the beautiful, clear view. He had room for four people in his car. We had six. Kirsten and I sat in the trunk. We all went. There was a hill higher than where the hostel guy (I really wish I knew his name) took us, so Kirsten and I climbed it. Obviously.

it was that hill. And then we walked from the top along the ridge back to Dingle.

Then we completely soaked our chacos and feet into basically the bog of the peak of the mountain, and made our way down through sheep poop and over about ten fences and did some unintentional sheep-worrying. It was ABsoLUtely BRILliant.

marshy summit and ancient ruin of really old shelter...called a beehive or something?

Rachel being groped (on accident) by the B&B lady whose place we stayed at last night. I stood awkwardly in the corner while Cami and Rachel talked her down from 25 to 20 euros.

Never Having to use my rain jacket.

Getting to know these girls better:

Kirsten, Caitlin, Cami, Me, Camille, Rachel.

Yay!

Dingle, Ireland

I'm going to Ireland tomorrow. Back to the same place I went to just last July. It is one of my favorite places in the whole world, and I get to show five more people how much beauty is in this wonderful place. We found tickets for about 30 euros. not bad

I know, the weather will probably not allow us to sit and read in the middle of fall.



Whitney, you probably hate Kirsten and I right now. As a preemptive strike, I hate you for going hiking and playing frisbee and hanging out with Sydney and other people, but mostly there are pictures of Sydney. But just know, that when I am riding my bike looking at someone in front of me on a bike, all I will be able to think about is your red raincoat. I will be the one with the computer this time, being asked by people to check their emails, and having to get my computer out at security while they wait. And maybe I'll be the one pulling ticks out of people's forearms. And when we go to the grocery store, I will think of you meticulously preparing a meal, and your muesli, and your little squeal when you were really happy and excited when we would see beautiful things. And when you would say, "I'm so heappy," like someone from Wisconsin, and then I would do it on accident. And I will feel like I should be reading The Book Thief while I am riding the bus. But the man at the desk in the nook by the stairs at our hostel will probably still be there, along with that math teacher girl, and maybe even that musical group in the pub. This time I will only have my study abroad backpack, and I won't have to wheel around a suitcase that is missing a wheel and hate my life while I am trying to wheel that suitcase that was 45 pounds in Edinburgh, and 15 kilos to Ireland. After I had bought a lot of things. And I won't be wearing the clothes I had been wearing for a month, that I got sick of when we were in Italy because reading and breathing and seeing and commuting became much more important than showering and wearing flattering clothing. (hence the skirt/raincoat/chaco combination in the picture. what?) But Bentley will not be trying to convince us to dance on the tables, and you will not be there with me to walk on the pier of Dingle bay on that clear, beautiful, chilly night and to look at the reflections of the fishing boats, and at the graying sky, and the beautiful, dark green hills and the ocean laid out in front of us, and think to ourselves, this is where we should be.

Carmel tea, bananagrams, and eyebrows.

Yesterday I went to an old books market on the Rue Cler. It was a small market, with probably fifteen vendors, but there were a lot of books. A lot of old books that were unheard of or falling apart. Of course I was basically salivating over all of the leather and beautiful binding, and the wonderful old book smell. (ps I wonder if there is cologne that is old book smell...? hmm...) I made my way through the booksellers, walking down the row of tents set up, and unfriendly sellers sitting, scowling at me while I looked carefully through their piles of precious junk, unconsciously giving each book I looked through a gentle tap with my palm after I put it down, to show the bookseller I was careful and cared about their books. I didn't commit to any yet, because I needed to know the range of prices, etc. I thought I hit the jackpot when I saw an enormous table just piled and piled with old books. The stalls with neatly arranged books are the ones you have to watch out for. Every beautiful book is part of a set, or it is 40 euros just on it's own. But at this stall, most of the books weren't marked with the price, so I knew I would have to ask for each and every book, so being polite was necessary.

Old bookseller came up to me, smelling like alcohol, and he was probably in his forties, and had an ugly beard, and teeth that seriously needed to be flossed...thirty years ago. I had just picked up a beautifully-bound random book called "entre les deux oceans..." and I was thinking it was perfect because of some recent travels in my life that have occurred recently. There are a lot of beautiful old red books in french. It must have been a pretty big style about a hundred to a hundred and fifty years ago. Anyway, old bookseller comes up to me, asks me how I am, and is standing too close to me. I smile and stay friendly, backing up a bit, hoping that maybe I can swing some prices lower. Conversation (in french for him, broken french for me):

Ugly Man: you have beautiful eyes. Where are you from?
Me: The United States.
UM: oh! yes the United States! Obama lakdjfjfd;lajdljalf Nobel Prize! ;akdfja;dkfj;a United States! a;slfjadfj;alkdf (I had not heard of the news already...woops)
Me: hmm...yeah! still smiling a lot and nodding, looking at the stack of books I've picked out.
UM: you are a true blond, you know? Gestures at my eyes, and then at my eyebrows because they are blond...gesture turns into him touching my eyebrow briefly. I feel super uncomfortable, and am torn between leaving--but he is blocking the entrance--and trying to get a better deal on the books...what is wrong with me?? It was all just so strange. I back up more, into a curb.
UM: a;dfa;dfj;afj;kdjf;df;al blue eyes...a;dlfka;dkfja;dfjdfdf gives me a side hug, gives me a real hug, gives me fake kisses on the cheek....what the crap is going on??? lets go and slides his hand down my back and I literally jump away. I wonder if other shoppers saw any of that and think it's weird...I feel weird...I am at the edge of the tent, basically touching the canvas.
Me: uuuuhhh...okay, how much do these cost? I hardly listen to the answer and just leave his stall with stacks and stacks of old books, telling him I'll come back. (misplaced modifier alert...I was not carrying stacks and stacks of old books...they were left on that perv's table.)

I'm pretty sure that happens with like every customer of his...weird. Anyway, later I told this story to Haidy and Corrine and Cami and Amelia over some dinner at the first restaraunt I've been to here. It's usually just a baguette, or some fruit, or when I'm good, a crêpe. Ravioli with olives and goat cheese is really good, if anyone was wondering. And the night was still warm enough that I could wear short sleeves beneath the heat lamp. Afterward, Haidy and Amelia's host family was out of town until tonight, so of course we went over there and stayed up ridiculously late drinking carmel tea and playing bananagrams and laughing and telling stories and eating chocolate and cookies and ice cream. For some reason, "girl's night in" (which really doesn't happen infrequently enough for me for it to even be called that, judging by last year's amounts of redbox nights with pizza and ice cream...and the fact that there is one boy in our group, so literally every night is "girl's night in") is so much more fun here, where we can't really be out at night because 1) it's kind of dangerous, and 2) because it's a little bit dangerous, it's just annoying to get anywhere and as Cami says to me all the time, "I don't like people in my face," and because we get to take over someone else's apartment for a bit and have more freedom to be comfortable than usual, and because the tea selection here is really wonderful, and the fact that the metros stop when you stay out too late, so you might as well stay up even later and sleep there. I slept on the floor. Soundly.

Can you believe the people in these pictures? Katie asked me if I ever feel like a creeper with some of the pictures I've taken. Really, to be honest, yes. mm...sometimes. not as much as I should. Basically, since I have no skill at photography, I have to rely on guts, and good luck. Here are a few more from when both of those things collided on friday:

These people were British and having a photo shoot.
If anyone figures out who they are...that would be awesome.



I liked this one as well. Happy monday!