What a city. Paris is beautiful! It's like London, only in French!
We stayed at the Best Western Nouvel Orleans, and if you're ever in town you should definitely check it out. The accomodations are small and cozy, but the beds are comfy and they have typical Parisian balconies overlooking the rues.
Showing Hillary around London made me so terribly happy. I do love London a lot, and I'm going to miss this town when I leave (in twenty-one days, can you believe it!), but I absolutely cannot wait to get home. I miss my cats and my puppy and my rabbits. I can see it now, I'm going to walk through the front door and be smothered by a big old blind kitty who is going to give me scratchy tongue kisses all over my face (especially my eyelids, because she's weird) and she is going to make me carry her 15 pound self around for an hour or so and when I finally get her to calm down and realise she isn't dreaming I'm going to be pounced upon by a slobbery dog, who is then going to make me carry her 40 pound self around for an hour or so. The rabbits won't slobber, pounce or smother, they will just see me and jump all around and give me those big rabbit eyes and silently ask me for yogurt chips. Buns will request that I give him a kiss on her twitchy nose and that I rub him between his eyes.
Gosh I'm such a sucker.
But back to London and Paris. London is a fun town, and it was awesome to be able to share it with my most favourite person in the world.
Paris is just amazing, and fortunately they have very effective public transportation. We saw the Eiffle Tower at night, all lit up and glowing. We went to the Louvre and saw the Mona Lisa, which was okay but I've seen better art since I've been here (and there are better Da Vinci's elsewhere).
Walking around Paris was by far the best part of the little trip. Walking through the streets and little cobbled alleyways, arm in arm or hand in hand. Notre Dam was impressive, but the little Sant Chappelle across the street was better (but not free). I hope to get back to Paris someday, and to get back to France someday as well, just like I hope to return to Spain and Barcelona, and Norway and Oslo.
We had dinner at this little Italian restaurant (if there is one Italian place in a 5 mile radius, I can find it simply by following my nose, trust), both nights. We had the same waiter both times, and he remembered our orders (and laughed when I got the same meal and said 'I'm not very adventurous'). On the second night we had our glasses of chianti, our still water, our pastas, and then our desserts (she had the fruit tiaramisu and I had this DELICIOUS sorbet with fresh fruit with CHAMPAGNE, ugh it was like I literally died and went to heaven). When they brought our dessert out the waiter comes over to the table and hands us to LARGE glasses of amaretto (and the two cups of tea we ordered, post dessert) and said "from us" with a smile. They totally knew it was our one year anniversary, and they made it so entirely special.
When we got back into London last evening, we were starving and exhausted, so I brought Hillary to Marleybone High Street, where all the cute little restaurants are (and the best gelato in London, if I didn't know better I'd swear I were Italian), but we were so hungry that our eyes were bigger than our stomachs and we barely ate any of our food. We stopped at a bar on the way home, after sharing a 1/2 bottle of red wine at dinner, and I had a double shot rum and coke and she had a double shot vodka cranberry and then we shared a pitcher of a drink called "purple rain" which is basically vodka and lemonade and anything else they feel like throwing in. We stumbled home in the rain, got ready for bed and passed out.
I got her to the airport today with 70 minutes to spare (they close the check-in for flights 60 minutes before departure, so we were sincerely hustling), held her hand and played with her soft brown hair the whole time. When we kissed goodbye while she was running to get to security I felt the biggest pang in my heart. I miss her so much, I miss home so much. It's like taking someone's heart and ripping it right out of their chest, and then sending it over 3,000 miles away.
But I'll only be here for another twenty-one days, and then I can go home and everything will be perfectly right with the world.
Hope everyone in the States had a very happy Thanksgiving!
Showing posts with label Thanksgiving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thanksgiving. Show all posts
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Fried Green Tomatoes
The trip to DC was basically uneventful. I drove home yesterday (it takes about two hours from school to home) and then we drove all the way back up today to Framingham to take the Logan Express in to Logan. The flight was very short and very uneventful. We were right on the wing so I had to lean really far back into the person behind me or get on top of the person in front of me in order to look out the window (which I did, cause I have no shame).
I finally finished Fried Green Tomatoes while at the airport waiting to leave this evening. I don't get much time for leisure reading but when I have the opportunity I take full advantage of it.
My God, what a good book. I feel like I've never read anything like it before. I feel like my heart hasn't ached so badly for something to not be over in a very long time. I remember the same ache when I finished The Last Battle in the sixth grade and I cried for a week, not because all of the kids on those beautiful pages I had known and loved for an entire summer had all died in a train crash after seven books (I'm refering to The Chronicles of Narnia in case you are unfamiliar) but because it was over. The magic was over. Sure I can (and do) reread the Narnia stories, but there is something different about reading them as a child, and there is something absent when you reread a story. The mystery is dead, you turn a page and it is the same as the last time you turned it.
The point is, I am very achey right now after having finished Fried Green Tomatoes. It might not have been a good idea for me to read it around Thanksgiving, either, because now I am not only aching at the fact that it is over, but I severely miss the old days.
I miss the old neighbourhood, with Grampa Fred and Mary and the tomatoes that grew bright red along the chain link fence, with Miss Bubba and Turbo who would greet me every day after school. Miss Bubba would take me into her arms and hold me like I was her own little girl, and Turbo the little Sheltie would run across the street and shepherd me onto the sidewalk like a good babysitter. Grampa Fred got cancer when I was five. I still remember being ushered into the house to say goodbye to the man who had loved me like a grandfather and seeing all the machines helping to keep him alive for a little while longer. Mary died after we left the old neighbourhood. Daddy always told me she was alive and well, but after he died I found out he had only been lieing to me, to keep me from being too upset. Miss Bubba always smoked like a chimney. I remember bringing her one of my favourite stuffed animals and telling her she could have it, if only she would stop smoking. She took the toy and told me she would do her best. I went back a few years ago to visit her and saw the black and white dalmatian stuffed animal on the back of her couch, and the lingering smell of decades of smoke perfumed the air. But I think she quit, I have to think she quit. I love her so much still, and I know she loved the little red haired girl who would bring her beautiful leaves and art projects from school. I remember running into Mary and Grampa Fred's house, completely uninvited but completely welcome, in search of the peanuts I knew they always had.
My parents told me of the time that a transformer exploded right outside the house and they couldn't get out of the front gate, so they handed me (I was an infant) over the fence to Grampa Fred and Mary to keep me safe. They were the closed people I had to true grandparents, besides my maternal grandmother who has lost all her faculties at this point in time.
I miss Thanksgiving with my family in the old days. Mom and Dad and I would drive up to New Hampshire to my aunt's house and the whole family would be there. My four aunts and their husbands and my uncle and his wife, my eleven cousins and their spouses and their children, and my grandmother if she could make it. There was a kids table, where I sat until I was twelve years old, and then Thanksgiving stopped being a family tradition and I never got to sit with the adults (SUPER upset about that aspect of this whole shenanigan). And then the family drifted apart, and now we are lucky if we see each other sporadically in the span of a year. We all live up and down the East Coast, from New Hampshire and Vermont to North Carolina, Virgina and Florida.
I just want to hold my Mom and Dad's hands and walk into the warm mud room of my aunts house, being greeted by warm smiles and hugs and kisses that make your cheeks raw and red, hugs and kisses that you dread until they are long gone and then you want nothing more in the world than to be hugged and kissed by your family and your neighbors who you can never see again. I'm not a little girl anymore, I can't take my parents in each hand and walk into the bright kitchen and ask my aunt for a glass of tap water and head down the hill to the trampoline with my cousins. I can't get out of the little red Horizon and watch Turbo scamper across the street and greet me with a wagging tail. I can only see those things in my memory, a memory that I cherish so much these days.
I love and miss you all, my family and long lost friends. You made me who I am today, all of you. Happy Thanksgiving, wherever you are.
I finally finished Fried Green Tomatoes while at the airport waiting to leave this evening. I don't get much time for leisure reading but when I have the opportunity I take full advantage of it.
My God, what a good book. I feel like I've never read anything like it before. I feel like my heart hasn't ached so badly for something to not be over in a very long time. I remember the same ache when I finished The Last Battle in the sixth grade and I cried for a week, not because all of the kids on those beautiful pages I had known and loved for an entire summer had all died in a train crash after seven books (I'm refering to The Chronicles of Narnia in case you are unfamiliar) but because it was over. The magic was over. Sure I can (and do) reread the Narnia stories, but there is something different about reading them as a child, and there is something absent when you reread a story. The mystery is dead, you turn a page and it is the same as the last time you turned it.
The point is, I am very achey right now after having finished Fried Green Tomatoes. It might not have been a good idea for me to read it around Thanksgiving, either, because now I am not only aching at the fact that it is over, but I severely miss the old days.
I miss the old neighbourhood, with Grampa Fred and Mary and the tomatoes that grew bright red along the chain link fence, with Miss Bubba and Turbo who would greet me every day after school. Miss Bubba would take me into her arms and hold me like I was her own little girl, and Turbo the little Sheltie would run across the street and shepherd me onto the sidewalk like a good babysitter. Grampa Fred got cancer when I was five. I still remember being ushered into the house to say goodbye to the man who had loved me like a grandfather and seeing all the machines helping to keep him alive for a little while longer. Mary died after we left the old neighbourhood. Daddy always told me she was alive and well, but after he died I found out he had only been lieing to me, to keep me from being too upset. Miss Bubba always smoked like a chimney. I remember bringing her one of my favourite stuffed animals and telling her she could have it, if only she would stop smoking. She took the toy and told me she would do her best. I went back a few years ago to visit her and saw the black and white dalmatian stuffed animal on the back of her couch, and the lingering smell of decades of smoke perfumed the air. But I think she quit, I have to think she quit. I love her so much still, and I know she loved the little red haired girl who would bring her beautiful leaves and art projects from school. I remember running into Mary and Grampa Fred's house, completely uninvited but completely welcome, in search of the peanuts I knew they always had.
My parents told me of the time that a transformer exploded right outside the house and they couldn't get out of the front gate, so they handed me (I was an infant) over the fence to Grampa Fred and Mary to keep me safe. They were the closed people I had to true grandparents, besides my maternal grandmother who has lost all her faculties at this point in time.
I miss Thanksgiving with my family in the old days. Mom and Dad and I would drive up to New Hampshire to my aunt's house and the whole family would be there. My four aunts and their husbands and my uncle and his wife, my eleven cousins and their spouses and their children, and my grandmother if she could make it. There was a kids table, where I sat until I was twelve years old, and then Thanksgiving stopped being a family tradition and I never got to sit with the adults (SUPER upset about that aspect of this whole shenanigan). And then the family drifted apart, and now we are lucky if we see each other sporadically in the span of a year. We all live up and down the East Coast, from New Hampshire and Vermont to North Carolina, Virgina and Florida.
I just want to hold my Mom and Dad's hands and walk into the warm mud room of my aunts house, being greeted by warm smiles and hugs and kisses that make your cheeks raw and red, hugs and kisses that you dread until they are long gone and then you want nothing more in the world than to be hugged and kissed by your family and your neighbors who you can never see again. I'm not a little girl anymore, I can't take my parents in each hand and walk into the bright kitchen and ask my aunt for a glass of tap water and head down the hill to the trampoline with my cousins. I can't get out of the little red Horizon and watch Turbo scamper across the street and greet me with a wagging tail. I can only see those things in my memory, a memory that I cherish so much these days.
I love and miss you all, my family and long lost friends. You made me who I am today, all of you. Happy Thanksgiving, wherever you are.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Don't Loose the Dreams Inside Your Head
There is a family of deer living in the woods behind my dorm. When I'm walking across the parking lot late at night, I see them on the grass and in the trees munching on the grass. I can't tell if I've seen a male or not (I'm nearsighted), or if they are two females and a baby. The little one isn't very little, but he's young. It's comforting to come home to them in the yard on the nights which are becoming progressively colder. It's kind of like, even when I am alone in the middle of the night in academia, I'm not really alone. They're very beautiful and I hope they stay warm.
I'm pretty thrilled with how my week has been going. On Sunday when I got back from the concert I searched desperately for my sickest friends and counted out how many of my allergy pills I could take before I needed to be hospitalized so I might be terribly ill, but not die. Then I tried to determine how much cherry coke I would have to drink in order to stay awake for four days straight. Of course, I'm totally kidding about all of this. I just really didn't want this week to exist and I bitched and moaned about it a lot.
But all my work has gotten done, I've taken two exams, handed in a five page paper (which I wrote while watching Wall-E and Heathers with my friends in a very noisy lounge, so mad props to me), gone to the gym, and managed to get eight hours of sleep every night.
Tonight they're doing a competition at my school for the college's funniest videos. My entry comes from last year when, during a night of complete boredom, my friend and I danced and sang along to the song "Let's Get Fucked Up." My RD saw it on youtube last year and emailed me over spring break. After I awoke from the coma that put me in, I emailed her back and asked if I should even bother coming back to school. Luckily, Jess thought it was the funniest thing she'd seen in a long time, and this year she wouldn't let me not enter it in the competition. I hope we win!!
We had Thanksgiving dinner here last night (it was DELICIOUS) it was sooooo good to have a good meal for once. When everyone was eating I said "God bless us, every one," just cause I'm a goof and some chick goes "wrong holiday." Who the hell says that? Maybe it is from Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol but let's be real; I can say "God bless us, everyone one" any time I want. I wasn't referencing Dickens, I was simply saying "God bless us." Is it a crime to wish that God would bless my friends and I? It made me a little disgruntled.
I really don't want to go to DC for Thanksgiving. I wish I could just stay home and hang out with my friends. I haven't seen my best friend since August and the way things are going, I probably won't be seeing her until December. It'll be a nice little break though, I think everybody around here could use it.
It's too cold to be outside, which is sad. I hope it's warmer in DC, but I'm not expecting any miracles.
Take care out there!
I'm pretty thrilled with how my week has been going. On Sunday when I got back from the concert I searched desperately for my sickest friends and counted out how many of my allergy pills I could take before I needed to be hospitalized so I might be terribly ill, but not die. Then I tried to determine how much cherry coke I would have to drink in order to stay awake for four days straight. Of course, I'm totally kidding about all of this. I just really didn't want this week to exist and I bitched and moaned about it a lot.
But all my work has gotten done, I've taken two exams, handed in a five page paper (which I wrote while watching Wall-E and Heathers with my friends in a very noisy lounge, so mad props to me), gone to the gym, and managed to get eight hours of sleep every night.
Tonight they're doing a competition at my school for the college's funniest videos. My entry comes from last year when, during a night of complete boredom, my friend and I danced and sang along to the song "Let's Get Fucked Up." My RD saw it on youtube last year and emailed me over spring break. After I awoke from the coma that put me in, I emailed her back and asked if I should even bother coming back to school. Luckily, Jess thought it was the funniest thing she'd seen in a long time, and this year she wouldn't let me not enter it in the competition. I hope we win!!
We had Thanksgiving dinner here last night (it was DELICIOUS) it was sooooo good to have a good meal for once. When everyone was eating I said "God bless us, every one," just cause I'm a goof and some chick goes "wrong holiday." Who the hell says that? Maybe it is from Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol but let's be real; I can say "God bless us, everyone one" any time I want. I wasn't referencing Dickens, I was simply saying "God bless us." Is it a crime to wish that God would bless my friends and I? It made me a little disgruntled.
I really don't want to go to DC for Thanksgiving. I wish I could just stay home and hang out with my friends. I haven't seen my best friend since August and the way things are going, I probably won't be seeing her until December. It'll be a nice little break though, I think everybody around here could use it.
It's too cold to be outside, which is sad. I hope it's warmer in DC, but I'm not expecting any miracles.
Take care out there!
Monday, October 13, 2008
Happy Thanksgiving Canada!
Today is Canadian Thanksgiving, and tomorrow they elect their new leaders.
I can't say as though I'm up to date on Canadian politics, but from what I understand the great white north isn't doing much better than we in the States are right now.
In any event, it's Thanksgiving and there is so so so much to be thankful for. Great family, good food, a roof over our heads, the ability to see each other, to know we love each other.
I am looking forward to getting back to school though, despite all the work that is growing in huge piles all around me. It was very nice to get away from the chaos for a while, but I'm ready to go back.
I'm kind of sad because I don't know when the next time I'll be going home is. My best friend called me about a week ago asking when I was going home so she could plan accordingly and I had to tell her honestly I don't know. The next time might be as far away as winter break. I'll be in D.C. for our Thanksgiving holiday, and all the weekends between now and winter break seem to be filling themselves with concerts and day trips and work work work.
I do miss home, as much as I'm used to the dorm and have re-adjusted to the chaos of college life. There is no cat to curl up on my chest, and no dog to lay at my feet. And the novelty of same-sex marriage has warn off in Massachusetts, I wish I were in Connecticut to see how all this is playing out. I wish soooo badly that I had been there last Friday. But at least I can say I'm from Connecticut, one of the free states.
I can't say as though I'm up to date on Canadian politics, but from what I understand the great white north isn't doing much better than we in the States are right now.
In any event, it's Thanksgiving and there is so so so much to be thankful for. Great family, good food, a roof over our heads, the ability to see each other, to know we love each other.
I am looking forward to getting back to school though, despite all the work that is growing in huge piles all around me. It was very nice to get away from the chaos for a while, but I'm ready to go back.
I'm kind of sad because I don't know when the next time I'll be going home is. My best friend called me about a week ago asking when I was going home so she could plan accordingly and I had to tell her honestly I don't know. The next time might be as far away as winter break. I'll be in D.C. for our Thanksgiving holiday, and all the weekends between now and winter break seem to be filling themselves with concerts and day trips and work work work.
I do miss home, as much as I'm used to the dorm and have re-adjusted to the chaos of college life. There is no cat to curl up on my chest, and no dog to lay at my feet. And the novelty of same-sex marriage has warn off in Massachusetts, I wish I were in Connecticut to see how all this is playing out. I wish soooo badly that I had been there last Friday. But at least I can say I'm from Connecticut, one of the free states.
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