On this day, I learned just how much weight I had lost. (~15 lbs) I am stoked to say the least. I am also comfortably wearing jeans I could not comfortably wear before I left.

I learned that my grandfather’s ashes are currently residing in a beautiful cedarwood box my uncle made on a shelf in the dining room in my grandma’s trailer. I about started to cry when my mom showed me where they were. Also, my dad is on a fresh food kick; eagerly boiling corn on the cob my uncle gave us this morning when I got up from my 14 hour nap.

I relearned how to remove people on LJ who haven’t updated since 2004 from my friend-of list (thank you, psychoticville )

On this day, I learned that you should always make sure you have your passport before you leave (luckily for me, this was not a personal lesson, but it was so sad for Jeff though ;.; ), and you should always make sure you actually put your mother’s book on top of your backpack and not just beside it (sadly, this was a personal lesson). This is especially true when said book contains some flowers from germany and also your boyfriend’s letter (!!!). (I have e-mailled the CLA to see if they’ll ask the coach company for me)

Also, one must retrieve their baggage from the carousel in Dallas/Ft. Worth Intl Airport, go through the custom’s desk, give your baggage to a man to put on another conveyor belt, go back through customs while people trying to tell you what you have to take out when you know full well, then RUN to the skylink bus then WALK down the escalator, then HURRY towards the gate which is actually right there, then WAIT for the family of a million kids to go through the line, then SWEAT through the airbridge to get on the plane, then CONVERSE with the old lady sitting next to you.

anyways, dramamine and benadryl make a good cocktail for sleeping on those long 11 hour international flights. I fell asleep before we got served the first course of drinks! and fell back asleep several times.

Oh yeah, it was nice not having to go through HOMELAND SECURITY in Charles de Gaulle. So nice. And I didn’t see a single terrorist. Owell. My suitcase was supposedly overweight, but they never did anything about it.

Also I do not recommend Ban deoderant for long travel excursions. Despite applying it sometime between midnight and 2am, it was GONE by 6am. (same day)

I love seeing people on the tellies with MBPs.

On this day, I learned that the Chinese place on the river was a fully-fledged restaurant and had the best spring rolls (albeit nigh on only springrolls) ever for €8. They even gave you the rest of the meal for free with that! ahhaha

I also learned that I was scared to death of not knowing how I would get to my bus for the ride to Paris.

Also, it is much easier to sleep on a coach if you lay across the aisle and drown out the people who talk in a vain attempt to stay awake by blasting such music as Hold Tight London or A Long Time Ago.

On this day, I learned how to make itunes display an album in the correct track order (thank you, macrumors.com forums!)

If your album is correctly albumed and track numbered but you still have tracks out of place, select all the tracks on that album, right/cmd click for Get Info, then everywhere you see a blank that isn’t especially important to you (they are blank because they are not the same, so if you have BPM or comments in there, you might not want to include those) check it and hit enter/click okay to make those fields really really absolutely blank for every track on the album (obviously you don’t want to do this to the title or track number fields for sure). Voila! It should be better now.

On this day, I learned that my grandpa Bill passed away early this morning. (1am at home, 8am here). He was a lot of things. He operated a radio in Hawaii in world war II, he had his own electrician’s business (his sons followed that lead), he lived and worked a farm until he was 74 years old. He knew people from many places, and I always loved to listen to his stories before he got to where he couldn’t tell stories anymore; first attempting to and losing train of thought; later just being quiet and listening or smiling when I would hug him.

The last year or two of his life were not very dignified, but a couple of years out of 84 are just a drop in the bucket, i suppose. I’m not sure what will happen to my grandma now. I think her purpose in life for a while has been taking care of her husband (They were married back right before he left for Hawaii). she recently fell and had to get her hip replaced, and my mom said that she wasn’t very eager to continue on with the therapy and was near to giving up. She still has all her faculties (if not all her original bones), and i would hate for loneliness and lack of purpose to claim her as well. I think I will be making more visits this summer, at least I hope I will.

I haven’t really been the most affectionate of granddaughters; when I was little I was kinda intimidated and didn’t know what to call them, so for the first 11 years of my life or so, I called them ‘you’ or left the subject completely out.

My mom had been spending all of her time at their trailer taking care of grandpa bill while grandma mary was healing and rehabilitating, so I don’t know what she will do with this time now. I have only recieved a few terse e-mails from dad, so I can only guess at her reactions. the logical guess is that she thinks it is better this way; he doesn’t have to be nearly immobile, unable to speak or think clearly, a burden to anyone, no longer in any pain or disgrace.

but she might be torn up inside. she feels a lot of guilt from the way she used to behave to them when she was a teenager (possibly in retaliation to the way they behaved to her. they are not forthcoming with interpersonal details like these).

For my part, I can take a small comfort that I did make several efforts to visit and hug him (and grandma mary too) over the last year, but always always always it’s never enough. there’s always more you could do; I should’ve done it sooner when i could hear stories about people who grew arkansas black apples, or about long dusty roads a long time ago. I should’ve driven him to church at mars hill more often, anything and everything.

I’m just glad that he doesn’t have to live how he was, though.

On this day, I learned that my atelier class can be rather enjoyable, but only if the regular class is extra terrible. I had a pretty fun time writing little personal notes and learning words for doing the laundry
trier le linge = to separate coloreds and whites (I feel really weird typing coloreds. but that’s how it’s said x.x;;; surely I have read that word in a million civil war era novels, no?)
une dose de la lessive is what you use to make your clothes clean~
mettre en marche = to start an appliance (washer, fridge, oven)
allumer = to start an electrical/digital device (tv, lights)

On this day, I learned that Diet Coke Plus is actually pretty good. It definitely tastes better than regular diet coke and it was cheaper than regular when i got some at Monoprix.

I also learned that it’s kinda embarassing to let people look at pictures from your trip when you forgot to delete the one naughty picture on there. Luckily no one saw it!

Also, I learned the the Beszie has had some amazing artists. the range of works in their Musée des beaux arts is just astounding. I saw a lot of works there to give some fuel for thought. We went there as an afternoon trip instead of doing work in class and it was so fulfilling, even with sore tired feet.

Got up at 8:20, everyone ran late. I gingerly dealt with my sunburn. Everyone was late. Instead of getting to Versailles at uh 10am, it was more like 11. and instead of buying tickets ahead of time, we waited in the secondary line for the privilege to wait in the real line. -.- *facepalm*

I broke my fast with the last of the sugar wafers and some pretzels I had left over from yesterday. They were also my lunch while I waited in the misery that was the double curved lines at the palace.

There was an american guy by himself behind us in line. I tried to strike up conversation a couple of times but he was pretty court and i got too hot and miserable to keep it up very long. I hope he has a good time wherever he ended up going next on his european tour.

It was still pretty aweinspiring to think ‘holy crap this chick that they cut the head off of used to walk on this floor’. the stairs were all worn down from the millions (billions?) of footsteps trod upon it. Freaking expensive feeling though. I kept drawing parallels between marie antoinette giving public births in that little short bed to all of us ravening (the crowd was not too far off in manners from the revolutionary kids imo) the place.

Got a good burger from the mcd’s (was running out of cash) and eagerly tried to spirit away from the place. Was held back by everyone else. i ended up vaulting the RER barrier twice (once in each direction) because I went ahead then realized no one had followed me. *lesigh* I got half the money back that I had loaned to jennifer though. Had an awful time trying to get OUT of the RER. I dont’ know what they wanted us to do, but when you have to present a ticket to get out of the barrier. . .

I was pretty annoyed, but when I got to the musée d’orsay and found it closed, I just kinda had to keep going. we ended up walking the entire way back to the hotel. On the way, we found a cute little art exhibition that almost made up for not seeing any impressionist artwork.

continued to walk through the Art district and saw a €15.000 print and some €6.000 statues. Got something for stu from a certain store~ Tried on some hulk hands and looked at stock art postcards. decided just to print my own when i get home. Got back to the hotel and read a little bit of Witch World before getting on the train to go home.

On the ride home, I finally listened to Metro, and the impressions of it were so new and so old and so intense; I saw the same images I always have seen to that song, but they were amplified by having been to these places, done those things, etc. I probably listened to it on repeat for half an hour easily.

Then we got congenial and started talking, and it turns out Michael not only was in DCI, but he was in the madison scouts and performed at Broken Arrow one of the years we went! How awesome is that? that’s awesome.

Woke up at 9:15 to a phone call– Cherise coming for her batteries. Groggy, dressed, slept unsoundly. Got a monoprix breakfast (sugar wafers). Took metro to Notre Dame- couldn’t remember which was the important stained glass, so I took pictures of all of them. I found a very cute friendly sunny circle on the floor and took a picture of my shadow in it. They were actually having a ceremony in there at the time. I dunno what kind. There was a band playing outside when I emerged. I took a picture of the marimba there and wished I was playing. There was a mom that just picked her little girl up at the crotch to put her legs around the posts of this fence so she could sit on it xD it was so weird

Finally got new batteries and got temporarily “lost” while a little chinese man told a couple about not being able to restore pictures deleted from a digicam. Apparently no one had heard me when I said I was going across the street while they purchased street paintings. Got found again and we headed for some shopping after failing at deciding to visit Saint Chapelle (or something like that).

Started Jennifer’s quest for l’argent while everyone else shoe shopped. We had just got to a La Poste when the woman inside locked the doors for the week-end. were unsuccessful in finding a place for her to change her bills.

we all went into H&M then, and I totally did not enjoy it because I was hardcore bleeding at the moment. I thought about getting stu a €5 polo shirt but I did not grab the chance. I sat on the fence outside H&M for a while until I just decided that no one would come out soon and went into McDonald’s to wait in line for the bathroom. Luckily I had brought my napkins from starbucks with me; the stall didn’t have any TP.

Returned to the fence, found people and we decided to manger à McDo’s It was pretty expensive, but the mcnuggets I got were the best mcnuggets ever and I don’t even like them at home. The fries were horrible though. They had these little balloons on sticks and I took one and then left it on the metro in front of these two twin asian girls. I hope they took it.

After that, we walked towards the river to ride the batteau mouche and we went past the bridge Lady Di died in. It was kinda sobering. The boat ride completed erased somberness from memory though, except a niggling regret at the huge sunburn I was getting (the boat ride sunburn was actually the least of my worries. I put my sleeves down for that and the tanline there is almost imperceptible compared to the overall day’s)

We went to the Musée D’Orsay and it was closed! I was really looking forward to it after learning it had the 19th century stuff. I kinda dig Impressionism and the beginning of modern art like that. On the way back to the subway I got another pistachio ice cream cone (which wasn’t very good. I think I’ll give up on french pistachio for the time being), and successfully navigated the RER C line. I was pretty proud of that inspite of being doubted so hard. I wish people would have more confidence in my navigational skills.

Planned to go to D’Orsay the next day, got back to hotel, accompanied Jennier on pt 2 of money quest, still failure. Walked almost all the way back to Notre Dame in the pursuit, however. Passed a little menagerie with ostriches 8) No money changers though, so I made a silly off-color joke about it being saturday and all the french who weren’t catholic were jewish and at synagogue. I felt kinda uncomfortable on the walk because I had shucked the pajama bottoms I had worn under my blue dress all day. It’s not an immodest dress by any standards, but it still felt weird xD

Got back, had a short bathe, dressed, and withdrew some €€€. Left on a super crowded metro. My companions were pushing me onto the train and the french were pushing me off of it (rather angrily). walked to the George Pompidou building, thought “holy crap you can see every important thing in the city at once from here nearly”. We ended up getting a table inside where you couldn’t see, but I sat on the corner that could just catch a glimpse of the eiffel tower.

I definitely had a freak out here. “I’m not dressed good enough,” “I don’t have enough money to justify this”. etc I also wasn’t sitting next to anyone I knew very well, and that didn’t help. The menu was impossible to understand with their fancy names that don’t describe the food at all (the tiger who cries for example). also they gave us no water. I ended up ordering a bottle of vittel inadvertantly because I was dying for something to drink. I hate how stingy expensive places like that are. They wouldn’t even let me take the rose place setting home :( they were getting wilted anyways so I don’t know why they cared >:{

But it ended up that my place setting mates were more genial than I had hoped; johnathan complimented me on my pictures and Melissa told a lot of funny stories, and the three of them (the ones who didn’t generally hang out with the other ten of us) were wide eyed when I responsed to their question that I was 19.

There was a movie of appalachia playing on two lcd tvs above our heads that featured long winding paths, a fish on the chopping block, and a naked man wearing a pig’s head and brandishing a gun. I snapped a picture to remember pigman forever. I should reread the book The Pigman, at that.

I ended up paying for Jennifer’s dinner since she had not found money, otherwise I would’ve gotten off light with only spending €38 out of €892 total for all thirteen of us. I felt physically ill when I thought about how much money that was, or maybe that was my conscience berating me for supporting the death of cute little crispy ducks.

On the metro home, I got into a car with a bunch of drunk people who were smoking and doing shots of something whiskeylike in a dark brown bottle. Their friends were singing a drinking song and the mood was so infectious that I had to join in a little bit. Not too much incase they were like ‘wtf you’re not french’ and decided to rape me or something. It was exhilarating, making the second time I was scared and excited at the same time.

It was the Fête de la Musique that night so I went to bed to the heavy bass beats from down the road, but I snapped a picture of the solstice moon (didn’t even realize it was the solstice!) and slept unsoundly again (because of sunburn but also because I was lying on my wallet xD)

the weather was so gorgeous that day though.

[cross posted from my livejournal]
Got up at 6:00– initially thought it was 6:30, calmed down, talked to stu, read an e-mail from my dad basically saying my grandpa is about to die. Cried for a while, talked to stu, calmed down again. Took a new bus and it turned out fine. Got to the gare and the train was an hour late. Stood around for an hour, trying to figure out if the train we were standing next to was ours, decided it was, walked through, realized it wasn’t, then figured out another train was coming to couple on. Train arrived, we settled in and were off. Started bleeding (predictably!)

Got to Paris and it was pretty stinky around the gare Lyon. Alternates between urine river and $500/oz perfume. Hawkers everywhere.

Went to hotel room, got tamped up, set off walking to metro, went to Sacre Coeur, intense déjà-vu of big restaurant building (george pompidou) on a cloudy day with mostly strangers. Beautiful ceiling in Sacre Coeur. God dude looking up from the edge. Bought a toothpick holder and lighter. Dunno who to give them to (well, lighter is for cory, and the toothpick thing was supposed to be for megan, but I might get her a t-shirt on OMGSALE day wednesday). Walked past the Amélie café and the Moulin Rouge. Went into l’Opéra which was closed for rehearsal.

Gallery Lafayette–reminds me of the place I hated in London. Too expensive, too shopping, etc etc etc etc I just don’t dig them. Bought hp and the half blood prince and a cute black shirt I’m pretty eager to wear (when it’s not hot). This also had a nice ceiling. Saw some €350 shirts, shirts that had cables on them to prevent shoplifting.

Took metro to Champs-Élysées. L’Arc de Triomphe was pretty dang inspiring. It was incredible to think of all the men who died for France for whatever reason to have their names inscribed on this huge arch in the middle of a gigantic roundabout. The first thing we saw was a tow truck pulling a car away. Got my first glimpse of the tour eiffel at this point. Walked down the entire length of the CE to the Louvre. Holy crap that was excruciating. (two miles).

Saw amazing paintings (i took pictures of my favorites except for a couple (the coronation of napoleon, and this red dress duchess looking lady). Took a gratuitous shot of the wreck of the medusa and the mona lisa to satisfy Mrs. Jones, and took a special walk to find Venus de Milo for mom but actually enjoyed seeing it. Mona lisa has her own special room now with a long line to see her, and frankly I didn’t think it was worth waiting for. Got a nice green tea for relatively cheap (€2.80 compared to uh, €5 for a coke; make sure you take a water bottle or your own drinks to the Louvre, not to mention every other single place in Paris)

Metroid (haha pun?) to uh, Trocadéro where I finally took proper pictures of the eiffel tower (it was a pretty sunset atm too!), then we ate at the café trocadéro which wasn’t too bad. I had thought previously that the sparkling of the tower was a long term and gaudy thing, but I found out it is neither and was glad.

Oh yeah, at the little terrace that looks out on the tower, there was this dude that like ran up to this girl and like grabbed something from her, then all these other people started trying to fight him, but he had a chain in his hands, and the gendarmes just were kinda standing there talking on their talkies (hopefully calling for backup), but it was so crazy that this guy was just like doing that in the middle of a hundred people easily. There was a black guy that started to brawl with him, but he couldn’t do much because of the chain. I didn’t see the end of it, but I hope that guy got his ass whipped. It made me mad and I almost wanted to go over and do it myself.

Anyways, after dinner, we wanted to try and take a batteau mouche that night so we walked down the pont and of course it was too late, so we just went and stood under the middle of the eiffel tower for a while. It was so romantic walking up there. I wished so bad that stu was there. it is just simply gorgeous.

Past the tower is the champs de mars, and that night they were having what was easily the biggest lawn party I’d ever seen going on. There were hundreds of teens and young people out drinking, smoking, smoking joints I’m sure, and it was the first time I felt really scared and really excited in Paris. I wanted to go and join them, but I was afraid also.

We made it back to the metro for an unbelievably long ride back to the hotel, and when we got back there, they were counting as we came in and shortly after, we got a call asking us how many people were in our room. Of course they weren’t going to let us get away with cheating them, so the three who were going to be bunk buddies between teh rest of us had to get their own room. shamefully, I stayed in my room and had nothing to do with it because I was tired and didn’t want to have to deal with difficult problems. Understandable perhaps, but entirely selfish.

I took a nice hot bath and scraped the blisters off my feet then settled in for bed.