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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

On Wednesday morning, my intelligent brain decided I needed to wake up at 6AM. Yes, that makes a lot of sense when I went to bed at 1AM and have an international flight. I had to wake up by 8 anyway because we had this thing called sweeps where we go through and check to make sure all of our residents have left. Apparently our residents really love us because a bunch had stayed behind illegally so we had the added joy of kicking them out. Once we finished that, I got to hop on a shuttle at 1:30, where the entire thing was jam-packed and there was a gumball machine beside me. More fun stuff arrived while in the car because the driver started heading to La Guardia and I was flying from JFK. I tried to get up the nerve to ask him where he was going and it only took about twenty minutes of internal debate. I was so convinced we were headed to the wrong airport that I had an entire plan to get to JFK all ready.

Once I finally stopped being a baby and asked, it turned out we were headed the right way, only taking all the wrong streets. It made sense to him, I guess. He was a giant grouch who hated Indians though. I’m not sure why but after he dropped nearly everyone off at their gates, he took a call from dispatch and adamantly refused to take any Indians into Manhattan. I think he was Pakistani and maybe that had something to do with it but mostly it was just fucking awkward.

JFK does a lot of stuff strangely. One such thing is making you lug your suitcase over to another guy who screens it instead of putting it on a conveyer belt like everyone else in the world. I wouldn’t have minded if not for the fact that I was lugged down with a backpack, carry-on, and trying to shove my tickets/passport somewhere so the people behind me in line wouldn’t get pissed at me taking forever. Then, you head down to the duty-free area that ISN’T passed security so no drinks can be taken through. I pay attention to shit like that so I just bought food and got a drink post-security.

My flight from JFK to Dublin was relatively uninteresting. The guy next to me was a toy designer and we talked for a bit until the stewardess showed me I have my own TV. Hell yes. It came loaded with Top Gear, The Office, 30 Rock, and a bunch of movies I didn’t watch because sleep > TV. Landing was boring too, until I hit Dublin where it was just insanity.

So first off, Dublin. The airport sucks. You get off, completely exhausted because it’s like 4AM American time but 9AM Dublin time and you have to go through fucking security. Instead of realizing the fact that we’ve just CROSSED THE OCEAN and have been searched within an inch of our lives in NYC, they decide that Americans must suck at searches and search us again. Only before we get to do that, we have to go through customs where the guy was like “how long are you going to be here for” and my reply of “thirty minutes” did not make him happy. Whoops. It was the honest truth though.

Then, once you’ve made it past the grouchy Dublin customs agent, you have the joy of going through security. Again. And because I’ve technically left the airport by going through THEIR customs, I have to toss out my nearly full and perfectly good bottled tea because I could be a terrorist. Yeah. It makes a ton of sense. Also, Dublin says you’re not allowed to bring umbrellas in your carry-on, which I have never heard of but there’s an official sign and everything.

Well once you’re past that, you go through this white corridor which looks like an insane asylum with these stupid little “don’t mind our appearance” signs when in reality, I totally do fucking mind. It looks like shit and makes me feel like I’m about to go loco.

Then, when you’re convinced you’re going to be reaching some nice padded doors at the end of the hallway you reach your terminal, where a flight for London is leaving and no where does it say that a plane is flying to Paris. Lovely.

After that, you sit down and pray to God your plane is going where it’s supposed to be going. Luckily, it is. But then you get onboard and get seated next to a woman who fucking hates Americans.

Now I’m normally a calm person. I like talking to strangers. I do not like getting told that I’m racist because I’m American. Even though the 60 year old Irish woman tells me that she “used to think black people lived in mud huts and never grew up”. What. The. Hell. This woman was possibly the most repulsive person I’ve ever met in my life. If my flight had been longer, I would have asked the stewardesses for a different seat. This woman went on and on about how America sucks and it’s horrific and that even though we elected a black president, we’re all just racists because of the McCarthy trials which happened over 50 years ago. She also mentioned how Polish people are “such hard workers” in this utterly snooty tone. She basically thought she was amazing and the rest of us? Well, we suck. I tried to be polite and let her finish even though everything she was saying pissed me off. Then, when I thought she was done and I could read, the bitch began again. Jesus. It took a good thirty minutes for her to leave me alone, a thirty minutes that would’ve been best spent sleeping due to the fact that I hadn’t really done any of that for a while.

I don’t understand people like her. I’m a stranger. It doesn’t mean that I’m a captive audience for you to be a racist bitch to me. If I ever get anyone like her again on a flight, no matter how short, I’m asking to switch seats. I can do that, right?