Reasons Why My Little French Cousin Is Awesome

25 Jun

Amelie is ten years old. She’s almost as tall as I am, skinny as a stick, and a blonde to boot. She’s got a Cindy Crawford-esque freckle and is pretty freaking awesome. Why?

  • When asked what her favorite musical artist is, she paused for a minute and then said, “Chopin”. Um hello, ten year old loving Chopin? Pretty sure most ten year olds are obsessed with Justin Bieber (whom my little cousin wrote off as “lame”).
  • Thus, understandably, her favorite type of music is classical.
  • She has a collection of images she likes from the web. There is a large amount of Google logos. She also really likes the Chrome logo.
  • She also has a few lolcats.
  • Selena Gomez > Miley Cyrus, according to Amelie
  • Her email address involves cookies.
  • Upon learning about the magic of Photoshop, she requested she ‘shopped underwater, being chased by Godzilla, and in a movie.
  • Her new favorite site is Flickr.
  • She is so far over me being an American, even if her friends were absolutely in shock and asked me questions like “what do Americans eat for breakfast?” and “are there cereals there?”.
  • She doesn’t throw ten year old tantrums, which is incredibly awesome of her because when I was ten, I totally threw a lot of tantrums.
  • She’s looking forward to coming to Poland because she “gets to be responsible for animals” here.
  • Amelie can rollerskate 16 kilometers. I can’t even rollerskate a meter.
  • When she was two, she hit me on the head with a strawberry bucket. This isn’t really a reason why she’s awesome but I mean, she was two and really cute so it was okay.
  • She knows her way around Paris. And walks to school by herself.

I mean, is there a better ten year old out there? Because I’m thinking no.

Never Losing Anything

22 Jun

Ania doesn’t lose anything.

Those words have been said by my mother for years. I don’t remember the first time she said them to me but I do remember being five and always bringing home both mittens after playing outside in the snow. I would come home and promptly plop myself on the cold tiled floor, pulling my snow boots off. Off came my hat, my scarf, my gloves. Everything perfectly accounted for. It was the same in the summertime. My mom would send me out to play and I’d manage to come home, everything neatly in its place and clean. My brother, according to my mom, wasn’t as good about staying clean. That was me, along with never losing anything.

The first time I nearly lost something I was nine. For my first Communion, my family gave me plenty of rings and jewelry. I’m not sure if it’s a Polish tradition but I raked in the gold. There was one ring in particular I loved. I think it had a tiny ruby in the middle. I loved wearing it. Seeing it on my finger made me feel so grown up. And then one day, it disappeared.

I didn’t blame anyone. I didn’t think it was stolen. It had simply vanished into thin air. Ghosts, possibly. But I was distraught over the idea of losing something, anything. “Ania doesn’t lose anything.” I searched my room, tearing it apart, and to no avail. The ring was gone.

A few days later, I sat at my desk playing with a Polly Pocket castle, one of the real ones that actually fit in your pocket. The phone rang and I grabbed it. My oldest cousin was on the line and to speak to him, someone fourteen years older than me, was a Big Deal. So I held tight to the phone and refused to hang up, even when my mom answered. I sat there, phone in one hand and Polly in the other, listening in. After a while, I grew bored of their conversation but I still refused to hang up. I put the phone to one ear and started rummaging around my desk.

“I FOUND IT!” I suddenly screamed. My poor mom and cousin. I must have broken their eardrums. Somehow, in the corner of my desk, was my ring.

I’ve never lost anything.

There are more stories. Miraculously finding the back of my white-gold earring in a gravel parking lot outside my school. A vanished credit card. Countless hidden phones. The problem is, I can’t determine why. Is it because when I was little, it was inserted into my head that I never lose anything? Or is it because that even when it seems bleak, I keep on looking? And now, by writing this, am I opening up the door to twenty years of never finding anything?

I don’t think so.

Welcome to London

20 Jun

Woo, I suck. I was doing so well with the updating! And then, silence. Radio silence. Not a word. Nothing. Not because my life and Europe have suddenly become boring but because they haven’t. They’ve stayed interesting. The only problem is being able to write or talk about it.

I’m a firm believer in distance. You need time and space to get over things, to think things through. I like closure. I like analyzing. I like details. I like to understand before I go and run my mouth. So while I had a fantastic time in London, staying with my beautiful cousin, I still need some time to mull over certain details.

I’ll try though. Try to write about certain days and ignore the others. I can do that.

First off, getting to London.

I am one of those ridiculous people who show up to airports ages before the flight takes off. I’d rather be early than late. Thus, I left at about 10 AM for my 1 PM train into London. It was a good call though because when I was on the RER A near Charles de Gaulle, the train decided to take a page out of a horror movie and turn all the lights off. Then, we slowed to a stop. The brakes screeched like a thousand screams. The lights were out and a woman near me started moving about nervously. The car was silent.

We sat there, waiting. Nothing was happening. No one was talking. A train full of people, silent and underground. I switched between calmly listening to my iPod and the certain knowledge that I was going to be killed on a train beneath Paris. Staring out the window was no good because next to me was a little half-cave that had a flickering light and the refuse of a homeless person. It was the perfect setting for a horror movie.

Luckily, it wasn’t one. After a good ten minutes without movement, the train began to go again. The lights turned on. The woman stopped fidgeting. I turned my iPod up.

Garde du Nord is a big station. I took the RER C there from Chatelet so I came up from underground. Maybe I’m blind but the signs pointing towards the Eurostar are crap. I thought it was hard to find and, even though I hate asking for directions, I had to do it twice. Once the woman was like “screw off”. The other guy helped me though.

Getting through security and border control is a breeze. I traveled on my Polish passport for the first time, which was great. The cute British guard told me my accent doesn’t sound Polish, which it wouldn’t when peppered with “ya’ll”. I explained my dual citizenship and he told me he tried to learn Polish once. It was much more exciting when it happened, I promise.

The train was nothing that exciting. I mean, it’s cool that you can get from Paris to London in about 2 hours and you go underwater and all but it’s just a train. The girl next to me was a stylist and had fantastically colored hair. Time flew because we spent most of it talking fashion and life.

After I got to London, I took the tube (so weird to write that) to the station near where my cousin works. Then I sat in Starbucks, waiting for her and people watching.

British kids wear uniforms. It’s awesome. They look like extras out of Harry Potter and I’m mad jealous that I didn’t have a cute uniform back in my Catholic school girl days. They also have ridiculously cute accents.

Speaking of which, there were some accents that I just could not understand. I mean, I’m a native English speaker. I was born in the US and I’m just about as American as apple pie, only with a Polish crust. So it baffled me that I couldn’t comprehend some of what they were saying. It didn’t matter though, because the cute boys tended to speak slowly and clearly.

After all that, I met up with my cousin and called it a night. Stay tuned for a partially more exciting Day Two.

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London

16 Jun

Sorry for going so MIA while in London but lack of sleep got to me. I’ve been busy here so I haven’t had all that much time to type it out. However, I have had some pretty incredible experiences I plan to write about soon. Like a night so totally perfect and out of a movie it’s hard to believe it happened. And of course followed by two properly crap nights. I’ve met a few fun people and been out to pubs so now it’s time for me to put metaphorical pen to paper and write. In the meantime, how about some pictures?

Parliament

Westminster Abbey

Changing of the guard

Changing of the guard

Changing of the guard

Tower Bridge. Supposedly it's good luck if you see it go up.

The London Eye. And the picture with the most story behind it. Oh the story behind it.

Djembe Juice

7 Jun

My cousin, Adele, has a djembe drum.

Source

Apparently that’s all she wanted for Christmas. So now she takes weekly lessons.On Saturday, she had her first ever performance in the next town over. As a supportive family member, I traipsed over to the town with the rest of my family.

The djembe is a fun instrument to listen to. It’s even better when random people start dancing. The show was held in a former church, with old solid stone walls. On one side of the church was a boy in a bright blue shirt jamming out, complete with random howls. On the other side was an older man in an orange wife-beater. He was really feeling the music. His tan and veiny arms were waving in the air and, at one point, he was jumping.

Another fun thing about watching Adele’s show was seeing yet another gorgeous Frenchman. This one had short buzzed blonde hair, blue eyes, and huge dimples. He was also tall and ripped. When it was his turn to have a solo, he rocked out but he was adorably shy beforehand. He waited to get the feel for the music and then let it go. So amazing. And, because this name seems destined to follow me forever, his name was Charles.

Sunday was a pretty calm day. My aunt, uncle, baby cousin Amelie, and I went for a drive around the French countryside. It’s incredible. It’s probably extremely American of me but I can’t help marveling at how old houses are. I mean, the last house I lived in was considered “old” because it was built in the 1980′s. There are houses here that were built in the 1580′s. Imagine living in a house that old. It’d be fantastic.

Mummy! Mummy!

6 Jun

A few days ago, I went and sat outside the Louvre kind of like a creeper because I could get in for free if I brought my Polish passport and I’m a poor college student so of course I’m not going to pay money to get in. On the 4th, I decided to go all out and bring my passport with me so I could go check out the Mona Lisa, again. Spoiler: it’s small.

I took the train in because I’m cool like that and because standing outside in the hot sun waiting to get in is not my friend. Thus, the only pyramid I saw today was this one.

The Da Vinci Code had something important here. I don't remember what it was but it doesn't exist in real life.

Once I got inside, I wanted to go see the Mona Lisa first so then I could wander around aimlessly, much like I do around Paris. But I somehow managed to get lost. Instead of ending up in the Italian art section, I managed to get into the Egyptian art area? I’m not really sure how I did that but it was ok because I like mummies. I used to be terrified of them because when I was five, I watched Reading Rainbow and there was an episode about mummies and after that I dreamt that this huge mummified owl came and swept my daddy away into a nest in our backyard and it was very emotionally scarring. Luckily, the fifteen years in between dream and reality have managed to make my fear of mummies mostly disappear.

Not sure whose mummy thing this is but it's AWESOME

The inside

I am now fairly sure that when I die, I want to be mummified and put into a coffin as fantastic as those. Also, a pyramid would be swell. kthnx.

Then, after I went through the Egyptian art, I decided to go upstairs instead of traipsing back through to get to the Mona Lisa. So again, instead of Italian art, I managed to get in to the French stuff. Most of the people they painted were pretty ugly. And from what I know, they tried to make them look better than they did in real life for portraits so I’m not sure whether they had completely different standards for beauty or if the artists just really got stuck painting ugly people and this was the prettified version.

I was finally headed to the Italian section when a Louvre tour guide grabbed hold of me. He began by speaking French and once he realized I didn’t know any, he told me that if I lived in France, I’d be “his”. And that I had a “smart face”. I’m not completely sure what he meant by that but we were in the Roman room and he started shouting stuff at me about the art work and could he please give me directions to where I want to go? It was really awkward because the people in the room could tell that I was creeped out but no one bothered to save me. Thanks Frenchies. I appreciate the rescuing.

After I managed to escape his overzealous explanations (“That ring! So old!”), I got to the Mona Lisa.

The crowd in front of the Mona Lisa

Up close and personal

The actual way you get to see the painting

I decided that it was time to peace out of there and went back to the gardens near the Louvre. I plopped down with a book in the gorgeously green grass and started to read. Not even ten minutes later, guess who was sitting right near me!

Oh yes, Green Shoes Boy! He looked gorgeous in a button down again, which I’m pretty sure is his signature look. And the quintessentially French girlfriend was no where to be seen! Granted he only stayed near the Louvre for like thirty minutes but still. Amazing. Exciting. Fantastic.

Along with him, there was also a bunch of good looking guys who took off their shirts.

Theoretically this picture is of the statue of the naked lady

See, I knew ya’ll would appreciate seeing how green the grass is over here. And the naked statue. Those guys in the corner were just accidentally there. Totally accidentally.

But, although they are completely gorgeous, they were pretty much douchebags. Two of the four were American and the other two were Australian. They were in Europe to get laid. The best looking one said that he was “in [his] prime” and that he could “get a girl in five minutes flat”. While so far I’ve been really lucky in meeting awesome guys, it’s important to remember that there are guys like these in Europe too, the type of guys who are total skeezes and probably riddled with unsavory diseases.

Because I want to end this on a happy note, the chances of me seeing Green Shoes Boy again are fairly decent, if I move into the Louvre gardens. Might be worth it.

Celebrate The Irony, Everything Is Going Wrong, But We’re So Happy

5 Jun

Ok so wayyyy back in the beginning of the year, my friend and I strategically planned out who could friend-request a certain guy first and it was a big deal. We also have a system that we use when we need to add people because first friend A adds the boy and then friend B adds him too so no one appears overly desperate. Do boys do that too? Because here’s the back-story.

The hardest part about traveling abroad is the budgeting. Paris is an expensive city and basically everything here costs 10 Euros, which doesn’t sound too bad until you realize that if everything costs 10 Euros, that’s a lot of Euros to be spending all the time. That’s why free things make my heart happy. One of those free things is this tour you can take of Paris. It’s a three hour walking tour and loads of fun. Three hours on foot with an New Zealand tour guide who told me that firemen in Paris look like male strippers. Oh and I was just about the only one who found her funny  so my laugh was the only one to be heard. Yeah, not awkward at all. Along with that, an old man decided to latch onto our group with his big tele-photo lenses and wanted to take my picture for something and I’m an untrusting soul so I said no and it was just weird. He kind of wandered off later on, after spending half the time chatting up a girl from Iceland. So along with the comedic New Zealand tour guide, there were these two guys. We bonded over the fact that we accents make stuff sound so much funnier than it really is. We were talking, becoming fast friends. Their names are Dan* and Jim*.

The following is transcribed from my iPod because that’s what I do when I’m on the train, I take notes that are really rubbish but that’s okay because hello, reminders.

  • Dan was cute and short. Bonded over tour guide and his love for country music. He built custom made wooden things for a band. Thinks my “ya’ll” is cute.
  • Jim is an HTML geek like me. Not cute but nice.

Yes, my notes really do suck.

Anyway, I spend most of the time talking to Dan. Jim doesn’t even begin talking to me till the very end. Then, Dan asks me for my name and contact info because they’ll be in London when I’ll be in London and we might go out. I tell him to Facebook me because that’s how I roll. We ride the train part of the way back together and I’ve had a glass of wine at the cheese tasting restaurant (because this is France and that’s what they do here, apparently) and am… happy. Well I get home and I have a request from Jim and not Dan. WTF?!? I mean they were legit running back to the hostel before going out again but seriously, WTF? I don’t really get it. Why did Jim request me and not Dan? I spent three hours talking to Dan. Maybe 30 minutes talking to Jim. How does that work? It’s not that I’m particularly interested in him but I’m more confused as to how this all works. I’m perplexed.

Notre Dame

Notre Dame again

Supposedly if you jump on this, it means you'll come back to Paris. This is also where all distances between Paris and other cities are calculated.

Some king that once had a light saber in place of a sword. True story.

View from a bridge

Doesn't this look Alice In Wonderland-esque?

Pretty sure Napoleon stole this from the Egyptians.

After they went bon voyage, I sat next to this hot soccer player on the train, unintentionally because it was packed and I was mad excited to even get a seat. How sad is that? Anyway, hot soccer man had been facing the aisle but once I sat down, he turned right next to me and we rather smiled at each other. It was all sorts of disgustingly cute. And because I like to be different, I decided to pull out my book (in English) and start reading. This gave him a chance to talk to me. He told me his English sucked and we talked about how he was in college and he was so cute. He had brown hair and pretty brown eyes and I like Paris apart from weirdos whose friends add me and not them.

**Names and identifying details have been changed because I believe in a thing called privacy. And just so it’s clear, whenever I use an actual name on this blog apart from mine, if it’s not linked to another blog/site, it means it’s been changed. Thus, the only time I really post people’s names are when they have posted their own online first and I have their blessing.

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Faking French

4 Jun

Apparently, I fake French quite well. Basically, everywhere I go people assume I’m French, something I take as a compliment because it means I’m not one of those tourists that drives every local crazy. I try to keep quiet and speak the bare minimum of French. I learned how to say “I don’t speak French” and “do you speak English” so that I can keep death threats at a low. And while I’m not completely certain how French I manage to look, I do get asked all the time for directions. I honestly think it’s because I’ve always got my iPod in, which tends to make you look like a local. And because I don’t really have a set direction when I set out in the morning so it may look like I know where I’m going when really, I’m just winging it. Either way, it’s kind of nice and also sort of annoying because I keep having to apologize for not speaking French and they tend to take it one of three ways:

  • Option One: the person gets really excited that they have an American in front of them and speak English to me.
  • Option Two: the person gets annoyed with me and leaves in a huff.
  • Option Three: the person thinks that shouting at me in French is going to assist me in figuring out what the hell they want.

Option Three never works, although it’s been often tried on me. Mainly it leaves everyone really exasperated.

The first day I went out into Paris, I stood waiting for the bus to come. Once it finally arrived, two French girls (whom I heard speak French) got on before me. This little old lady in Willy Wonka-type glasses and with a plaid bag stood in the doorway and let them through. I tried to be polite and let her off. She started speaking to me and gesturing, which I had no idea what was being said. I interpreted it as “come and get on the bus”, so I did. After I stepped on, she started shouting at me. This little four foot tall grandma was shouting at me. In French. On a packed bus. So I replied with “je ne parle pa francais”. Apparently the old lady was also slightly deaf because another woman had to pass on the message. And then she helped the lady get her bag off the bus, which it turned out the entire fuss was about. She wanted the bag off. Instead of asking the two girls before me, she decided to ask me and my confusion made me look like a bitch. Lovely. And then I turned around, after apologizing and reiterating my lack of French speaking skills, to an entire bus full of people staring at me. Being a tourist is fun.

Along with that, I tend to get the creepy old guys who try to chat me up. Usually the language barrier works in my favor but sometimes they get really happy and try to woo me with English. It fails.

Another problem that I’m attributing to culture is smiling. I tend to smile at people. When I sat in front of the Eiffel Tower for six hours, I saw the same soldiers over and over again. After a few times, one started smiling at me, something I thought meant that he thought it was funny that I was still there. So, I started smiling back. Apparently, he and I were on two different wave lengths because the second to last time I saw him, he gave me a really vulgar gesture. One that made the women who were near me look at me and ask me if that really happened. I mean, woah. I guess I tend to forget that I’m sort of an adult now so I can’t just grin at guys like I used to. I don’t know. I learned a little in NYC to stop smiling at guys but I forgot, I guess. I like being happy. I like smiling. I don’t like the whole interpretation of my smile as something completely different.

Speaking of different, did you know that the French don’t tell each other “bless you” when they sneeze? They don’t say anything unless they actually know you really well. So sneezing on the bus or in public means you get nada. It’s so weird. Half the time I’m inclined to say “bless you” but I don’t know how to say it in French and I also don’t want to be accidentally rude. Complicated stuff, huh.

The Louvre

I learned about the sneezing two days ago, when I went to the Bastille, which apparently doesn’t exist anymore. Maybe I completely fell asleep in history class that day but I don’t think we ever covered the fact that the Bastille was destroyed during hte French Revolution. It was. Now there’s a courtyard or something. After that, I went to the Louvre. Well I didn’t go into the Louvre because you can get in free if you have proof that you’re a citizen of the European Union and I totally am so I decided to wait another day. Instead I sat around in the gardens and people watched some more.

The Louvre's side entrance

Fountain in the courtyard

The famous pyramid entrance

Old and new (and my attempt to be artsy)

There were two frat guys beside me, the type that made me so happy that I didn’t go to a regular college. They talked about their friends “Nate-dawg” and “P-brah”. Seriously. These two bros referred to their friends incessantly as those names. And the girl with them was hanging off their every word, totally crushing on one of them. It was kind of sad because the guy she liked didn’t like her, which was pretty obvious.

The fountain where I sat until I got sick of the bros

After I got sick of hanging around them, I walked towards the Louvre again and laid down in some grass. The busses I use to get around were on strike so I had to stay til about 7 in Paris itself so I wouldn’t get caught in traffic. It was there that I saw one of the best looking guys I’ve ever seen in real life.

He was lying on the bright green grass in an unbuttoned pink button-down shirt. He was perfectly tan and rocking bright green sneakers. His hair was dirty blonde and he had a book beside him. In short, perfection. It was great, trying to figure out how to become his future girlfriend. I mean I had a plan and everything. There were these two dogs and somehow they were going to get us to strike up a conversation and true love would occur, of course. It was going perfectly, until his actual girlfriend showed up. And the actual girlfriend was quintessentially French and marvelous and it was absolutely heart-breaking.

The grass where I saw the (momentary) love of my life

Luckily, my heart’s got a quick rebound rate so I moved on pretty easily.

PS. I apologize if these posts seem so picture-heavy. I’m just trying to document everything because it’s ridiculously exciting for me.

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I Ate Snails. Seriously.

3 Jun

I’ve finally decided to create a category for this summer, seeing has how I’m traveling. Thus, these posts are going to be called Eurotrip 2010, with tags for Paris, London, Krakow, and Tarnow. This is my attempt at organization, along with trying to add in pictures.

Now then, on to the fun part. On Monday (May 31st), I decided to go check out Montemarte, one of my favorite places in Paris. The first time I went, I absolutely fell in love. It’s such a gorgeous place and, well, just look at the Basilica.

It is absolutely gorgeous.

I stumbled around a few streets in Montemarte, trying to avoid touristy spots. I strive to not look like a tourist because I know how much I utterly despise them in Manhattan, where they pull out their maps and block off the entire sidewalk. Or when they stop to take photos of random buildings in the middle of the sidewalk. I avoid doing that as much as possible.

After Montemarte, I walked down to Clichy–which is apparently the new “red light district”. It’s where the trannies hang out, according to my cousin. Pigalle, where Moulin Rouge is located, is the old and theoretically classy whore hangout. See, learn something new every day.

From Clichy I took the train and stopped across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower. Thus began my attempts at artsy shots.

Then I plopped myself in front of the Eiffel Tower for about six hours. No joke. I love people watching and that is a golden spot for it. Not only do the tourists hang out there, we’ve got gypsies. The gypsies roamed around asking for money and kind of harassing tourists. One of their favorite tricks is to ask if you speak English, then show you a sign pleading for money. It’s sad but also gets to the point of irritating. And then one gypsy peed in a bowl. Yeah, no joke. She popped a squat in front of the Eiffel Tower. It was disgusting.

While I sat there for so many hours, I became friends with this guy we’ll call Pete. Pete studied in Europe for the semester and we got to talking. He’s an amazing artist (which is how we met, he was sketching the Tower). He may or may not have taken me out on a date. I’m not sure. We went out to dinner after hanging out for like five hours in front of the Eiffel Tower together and he convinced me to try some escargot. Yep. Me, who won’t eat mushrooms or most fish, ate a snail. I don’t have photographic evidence yet because Pete’s got the picture but as soon as I get it, I’ll post it up. The verdict of snail-eating? Chewy. It was well-seasoned but really chewy. Also, never think about the fact you’re eating a snail while eating it. Or before. Or after. It’s actually best to never think about the fact you’re eating snails. Even now, while writing this, I feel pretty grossed out that I ate a snail.

Pete’s already back in the US but it was loads of fun to actually meet someone in Europe and become friends. And, not going to lie, I’m pretty proud of myself for at least trying escargot.

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Je Suis A Paris

2 Jun

I took the first one way back in ’07 and the second one today. I didn’t mean to be in the same place but I stumbled there by accident.

This morning I went to the Eiffel Tower alone, where there was a vast amount of rugby fans? Who knows what the fuck they were there for but one group started chatting me up. I said my “bonjour” and then my piece de resistance, “je ne parle pa francais”. They somehow assumed I was from Spain? I don’t know but that was cleared up rather quickly. The boy’s name was Chris and he wanted to give me a kiss on the cheek but I literally bid him “au revoir” and he was calling after me “I love you America”. It was really cute. Whenever I’m in Europe, I tend to be called America. It happened loads in Poland.

After that I just hung out around the Eiffel Tower and got this DELICIOUS pastry. It was to die for. There’s a lot of yummy food. Some of the not-yummy food was escargot, which they legit fried outside in front of the Eiffel Tower.

Escargot

These guys supported USAP... which is about all I know. Chris was a USAP boy.

More USAP fans.

They were really excited.

I'm going to assume a donkey is their mascot.


Along with that, apparently some big event was happening where a world record was being broken. I snapped some shots of that too.


That’s the name. Mega Jump. A guy basically jumped 40 meters (I think) off of the Eiffel Tower and onto a ramp.

The ramp from a distance

Up close and personal

They also set up ramps for kids and adults to skateboard, rollerblade, and bike on.

Skateboarding

Bike ramp

After that, my cousins decided to take me out. Of all the places in Paris, where do you think we went?

Yep. A gay bar. Naturally. It’s basically where I feel most at home due to the fact that nearly my entire school and neighborhood are gay. Nah though, it wasn’t actually a “gay” bar in that there weren’t any gay guys/gals so it was kind of weird. There was a hot bartender too whom I assumed liked men but apparently not? France is making my gaydar go loopy. Men in white pants aren’t gay here. It’s a strange world.

At the bar I had a Long Island Iced Tea, which Frenchies suck at making. There was no “tea” about it. It was basically a concoction of the ingredients minus the tea taste.

We didn’t get to the gay bar for ages though because we failed at finding a bar that was cheap, had good music, and relatively young people. We wandered around the Latin District, near Chalet, and a few other places but we ended up at that gay bar.

Basically, I’m having a good time in Paris. It’s only been two days but so far so good. I think my favorite aspect of the trip is that I’ve decided I’m not allowed to “hate” myself. You know, the whole “oh I’m fat” or “I’m ugly” bits that we all feel sometimes. Whenever I think something like that, I try to change focus. It’s been working so far. I’ve also been trying this thing called “interacting with guys” where if I see a guy I think is cute, I actually do something like SMILE at him. It’s surprising to see how much more fun it is to do something active instead of passively thinking about it. On the train I had a cute experience where we sat next to this guy who I thought was absolutely adorable. Blonde hair, green eyes, and a cute smile. After sitting across from him and making eye-contact a few times, I decided to just fucking go for it and smile. He smiled back and while there wasn’t any instant love connection or even any conversation,  it was nice. I looked over at him when I was getting off the train and gave him another smile, which he returned. It was kind of adorable because you know that look you sometimes get when you realize you had a momentary connection (which may be too meaningful a word for what I’m trying to convey) and you get happy? That’s the look he had on his face after our little interaction.

It’s the little things, the tiny smiles, that are the best parts of my day.

Update: Apparently I was much more tired last night than I thought when I wrote this. Sorry for the whole repeat thing. I going to send this as a message to my friend but I failed? Sorry lovelies.

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