Oops...

·            In my attempt to catch up on the blog, I skipped Saturday in Paris and jumped straight to Sunday.  So, now I'll backtrack a bit...On Saturday morning, Ashley and I jumped on the Metro to Invalides, which is near where Napoleon is buried.  We walked down the streets of Paris towards the Musée d'Orsay before lunch.  I had to see at least one art museum in France, right?  Rain began to sprinkle down as we walked toward the museum along the Seine.  The sun was still out bright and lit up the freshly-watered streets.  We wandered past the French National Assembly.  

           The Musée d'Orsay is a converted rail station filled to overflowing with great works of art.  After getting past the ticket part of the museum, the ceilings arch way up, with sunlight streaming in through the big skylights in the ceiling.  Massive sculptures line the main hallway and floor upon floor of paintings and sculptures and models line the halls alongside the main hall.  In a room tucked in behind the wall at the end of a main hall, there's a big square glass floor with the model of an entire city underfoot.  Some of the paintings in the side rooms were so large that they covered entire walls of the museum.  Unfortunately, 50 or more of the great Impressionistic paintings by Monet and Renior were in a special exhibit at the French Palace, so I did not get to see them.  The beautiful swirls of rich paint on one of Van Gogh's self-portraits, the Rodin sculptures, and the rooms full of Degas paintings definitely made the trip worth it though.  

           With our one and only destination for the day accomplished, Ashley and I continued meandering around the Parisian streets across the Seine to the base of the Champs d'Elysees, at Place de la Concorde.  The crazy intersection bustled with pedestrians, cyclists, taxis, cars and buses flowing in from every direction.  Enormous fountains perched in the middle of the roundabout(s), with a gold-capped obelisk rising up nearby.  Great stone and golden sculptures perched on bases, welcoming the crowds to join the madness.  You could see down the tree-lined Champs d'Elysees to the left and the Jardin de Tuileries to the right.  Metro signs arched over the steps to the station below.  Seeking to escape the insane amount of traffic, Ashley and I hiked up some steps into the Jardin de Tuileries.  The parks in Paris aren't covered in grass, but in sandy dirt.  Meticulously planted lines of trees lined the park, providing a barrier between the park and the streets brimming with traffic just outside.  A group of little boys were kicking up dirt as they played soccer just inside the fences.  We walked further into the park, where we found a great open space with a giant pond and a fountain in the center.  Green metal chairs filled with French people enjoying the now-sunny day ringed the pond.  We sat and people watched for a while, marveling again at the fact that we were in Paris.  Gelato at the edge of the pond capped the moment and we trekked further into the trees again.  Filled baguettes eaten with a view of the Louvre and flowering gardens made for a perfect lunch.  The rain started to set in soon after we walked to see the Louvre, so we booked it back to the apartment to wait out the weather.

          After night fell, we left the flat again to explore more of Paris.  We got freshly made crepes from a vendor (hot banana & nutelle...yum!).  We located a Pizza Hut for reference for Jillian's future American food cravings and snagged some fresh fries (sorry...chips) from Mickey D's after the sugar overload of the crepes.  The bizarrely crafted Centre Pompidou nearby was all lit up nearby.  A short walk back to the apartment and a round of cardio to pump up the air mattress ended day 2 of the Paris experience.

 J

Sunday in Paris

     On Sunday, we took the Metro to the end of the line to the morning meeting in a suburb outside of Paris, with a pitstop at a boulangerie for fresh pastries for breakfast.  I'm pretty sure that NOT eating pastries whenever possible in Paris is a crime...

·          Obviously the meeting was in French, which Ashley & I most definitely do not speak.  The wife of the elder is Canadian and used whisper mics to translate half of the testimonies to us and our testimonies to the rest of the meeting.  Another man in the meeting translated the second half of the testimonies for us.  It was a unique experience that was really a privilege to experience.  They lent us hymn books for the meeting too.  We had a French hymn book and another companion book, which translated the French hymns into English, so that we could grasp what we were singing.   Ashley and I attempted to sing along during the hymns by just following the pronunciation of the people around us...it's a good thing that it really is the thought that counts!  The meeting was fairly used to visitors and were very friendly.  The elder is Slovokian, but speaks French and English as well.  There was a girl from Californian that is living in Paris to learn French, a boy from French Guiana, who moved to Paris to study for the semester, a few older French people, the elders, and a younger couple with a little girl.  The little girl in the meeting immeadiately warmed up to us and held our hands while we were greeting others. An older lady kissed our cheeks in greeting and exuberantly said, “Rouge!  Rouge!  Rouge!”  to Jillian and I, since all 3 of us where wearing red sweaters that day. There were 2 older single ladies and 1 older single man that only spoke French, so we smiled and said, "Bonjour," thus exhausting my French vocabulary. 

·           On the way home from meeting, we stopped for lunch at a café in the city.  We had curried ham with spaghetti while we planned out the rest of our day and chatted.  Right down the street from the café was a street market with fresh flowers, raw cuts of meat & seafood, fake Pashmina scarves everywhere (of which I now own 2), shoes & everything else under the sun.  People were teeming everywhere and salespeople were heckling one another and shouting to try to attract the attention of shoppers.  One of the booths got mad at Ashley for taking pictures of their cheese, giving away the fact that they were obviously not licensed to be selling their goods.

·      The rest of the day started to get rainy so we picked up a massive baguette and more pastries for the afternoon.  My pastry of choice was a stack of 2 chocolate covered cream puffs that is supposed to represent a fat nun...French humor goes a bit over my head sometimes, but it tasted delicious!  The clouds rolled in and started covering the city in rain, but we were determined to see the Eiffel Tower all "sparkly."  We headed out to the Metro after dark and saw the Eiffel Tower twinkle in all of it's glory at night at 9.  According to our hostess, the Tower twinkles for 15 minutes on the hour every hour.  We enjoyed another round of savoury crepes at another street vendor before heading back to Jillian’s apartment to thaw out & dry out for the night.

Catching up, part deux.

Bonjour, Paris!


     After Dad left for the day, Ashley and I got packed for the flight to Paris that night.  That was about the longest day of public transportation I've had yet...car, bus, plane, train, and Metro all in about 8 hours.  The whole fact that I can't speak French added a bit to the adventure.  I spaced the time change between France and Ireland, and we ended up getting to France more than a little bit after dark.  Poor Jillian had to wait in Gare du Nord trying to fend off skeevy, forward French men to pick us up and lead us back to her apartment for the night.  We also learned that my phone is stuck up when it comes to foreigners.  It is near impossible to call my mobile if your phone is not Irish, but I can call international numbers with no problem whatsoever.  We were beat by the time we straggled back down the dark road to Jillian's.  Ashley & I piled into the smallest elevator ever (max capacity 3 people...erm, yeah, if you all suck in and think thin on the way in) to avoid the first 5 flights of stairs up to the apartment.  We squeezed out of the elevator, up another flight of stairs, and went to the bathroom...not for the usual reasons, but for the view of the top of the Eiffel Tower all lit up with the spotlights at the top flashing over Paris from out the bathroom window.  
     The next morning started out properly Parisian, with freshly baked croissants and baguettes from the boulangerie down the street.  With stomachs full of delicious French pastry, we meandered to République to catch the Metro towards École Militaire to see the Eiffel Tower up close and personal.  In spite of Jillian's directions and a Paris map, Ashley and I ended up taking the longest route to the Eiffel Tower.  Between all of the buildings and trees on the street, you can't actually see the Eiffel Tower from too far away when it's within a few blocks of you. :P  We meandered up a street, attempting to follow signs, and ended up at a park where we got our first daylight view of Eiffel's gigantic metal creation.  Ashley was really in touch with her French blood that day...she cried when she saw it.  Some peddlers (our first encounter of the day) immediately spotted the blatant tourists and promptly convinced Ashley to buy their goods...thanks for the keychain! :)  Now that we had the Eiffel Tower in sight, we walked toward the bottom to see how long the line to get to the top was.  The whole garden below the tower is covered in guys trying to sell you all of the cheesiest souvenirs ever.  Some Jamaican guys came up to Ashley and I, tied these yarn bracelets around our arms, and would not leave until we paid them...totally got ripped off, but we learned not to make eye contact with the peddlers quick!  We lined up to get the lift to the top of the Tower and were periodically entertained by the bicycle cops cycling as fast they could to drive off the peddlers.  I've never seen such a wave of people running from the cops and yelling out warnings to one another all at the same place, only to come harass tourists again 5 minutes later.  
     Eventually, the lift took us to the bottom level of the Eiffel Tower (about 20 stories up), where we could see out over the city in every direction.  It was gorgeous!  Unfortunately, all 500 plus pictures of France are those trapped on my camera until I can clear up some computer memory, so you'll just have to imagine the view for now.  The clouds started to roll in, so we took the second elevator to the very top of the tower in order to beat the rain, which we did by about 5 minutes.  The view from the top was shrouded in clouds and the rain started to come down after we had a few moments to appreciate what sights we could still see through the fog.  Once we made it back to earth, we headed off in search of a slightly less touristy patisserie for lunch in PARIS!  It still hadn't completely set in that we were in France.  Ashley had some cheesy, oniony bread thing that we ordered by pointing at (could've used a real Parisian at that moment).  I had a filled baguette, and once those were demolished, we went back inside to order strawberry tart and pain au chocolate.  I don't think my taste buds have ever been so happy.  
     Jillian spent the evening accommodating her fellow Americans by taking us to Notre Dame and the Padlock bridge over the Seine.  There was a random blood/organ donor festival going on on the way there outside of the Hotel de Ville, with clowns (Ashley's favorite), a French band, and a crazy confident old lady dressed up as a human heart dancing and spinning around.  After we saw the gorgeous flying buttresses and the garden behind Notre Dame, we got our snap-happiness out and went to the concert at the donor festival.  The band wasn't too bad and Jillian danced with a clown.  Walking back to the apartment, the other two had to wait for me as I took pictures of everything (including the gargoyles on the church that I had to draw for class last year).  Thus ended day 2 in Paris...really didn't mean to write this much about a day and half.  If you aren't bored to death yet, I'll have a couple more posts about Paris done in the next couple of days (cross your fingers that procrastination doesn't set in again...).


SWAK,
A.


Irish-ism of the day:
puffed - exhausted.  It sounds a "loads" cooler than worn out.


More Irish words...
Dia duit. - Hello. (Literally, God with you.)
Dia is Muire dhuit. - Hello back to you. (God and Mary be with you.)

Slacking already.

     As promised, I have gotten extremely behind on blogging.  Normally, I could blame this terrible procrastination on classes and homework, but...classes started two days ago and, so far, I haven't gotten homework.  Oh well, now I just have 2 weeks worth of blogging to do!  I'll try to just start where I left off on September 19.  On Sunday, Dad, Ashley, and I drove some more typical Irish roads from Limerick to the Cliffs of Moher.  It looked cloudy and gray, which got us nervous, but it all worked out alright.  I can't remember exactly how long we were driving.  We kept thinking we were almost to the Cliffs of Moher because it felt like we would run out of island, but the road just kept winding on through the Irish countryside.  When we made it to the Cliffs of Moher, the sun was still in hiding behind some clouds, but the cliffs were still visible with the ocean crashing against the rocks on the bottom.  We walked up a bunch of steps along the railings/walls between the sidewalks and the slippery grass and rocks dropping off into the ocean.  There was an old building at the top of the steps on one side of the cliffs that was a bit higher, so you could see out over the water and barely make out some of the smaller islands shrouded in mist in the water facing the cliffs.  By the time we all wandered down the steps and up the other side of the sidewalks along the cliffs, the sun started to peek it's way out, lighting up the grass and cliff faces in a much brighter light.  After wandering through the museum exhibit about the Cliffs of Moher built into the hills at the entrance, we learned that puffins are supposed to be around that area.  Unfortunately, we had no such luck spotting them.  A couple of hours and a few hundred pictures (good ones of landscape and awful ones of people) later, we meandered back to the car for a few more hours in the car to get to Galway.  Little did we know that roads between the Cliffs of Moher and Galway are more than a little bit twisty. 
     I have never seen anybody get carsick before, but after driving on those roads I was extremely glad I wasn't Ashley.  If we had had more than coffee and pastries a few hours earlier, Dad would have been paying for more than a new hubcap for the rental.  The big double decker buses barreled down roads that might have been considered narrow one-ways at home, but are supposed to be a workable two-way road in Ireland.  Never in my life have I been so grateful for interstates.  At home, you can scoot over to let a car through.  That courtesy is a bit more difficult when the edges of the roads are massively overgrown hedges or chipped (but still definitely solid) stone walls.  If you're not scraping the windows with hedges, you're not driving correctly.  The speed limit on all of the roads was 100 km (or about 62 mph)...I don't think we cracked 35 mph for the whole trip.  (And, if you know how Dad can drive, that's saying something.)  Somewhere along the way, we hit massive traffic and were driving through a town plastered in flags and pictures of cupids and hearts.  We were some of the lucky people to get a drive-by experience of the annual Matchmaking Festival in Lisdoon.  Based on how many old maids were wandering the streets and how few old men were to be seen, I doubt that much matchmaking was going to happen in that town...but those old ladies looked like they were out for blood.  :P  After we got out of the bumper-to-bumper traffic for the festival (don't laugh...I'm dead serious...men must be scarce in Ireland), we were overjoyed to be back on some more vomit-inducing roads!  By the time we got to Galway, Ashley was a bit green, I had no fingernails left, and Dad had done more than couple more curb checks on stone curbs.  I think we lost the hubcap somewhere between Galway and Bearna, Barna, where our hotel was.  
     Our hotel was pretty spiffy and about 15 minutes outside of Galway towards Connemarra in a supposedly Irish-speaking town called Barna.  When we checked in, we got fresh iced-tea and plush couches for the 5 minutes that we were at reception at "The Twelve."  In Irish terms, it was quite posh.  I think it was the chocolate-covered strawberries and the cornbread with Metherd written on it in chocolate that really made us feel class.  Oh, and I can't forget the special "mood lighting" switch in the bathroom, which turned on multi-colored lights (you know, just in case you wanted to feel like you were at the club when you were getting ready for bed).  During the daytime, you could look out across the road to the ocean from the Juliet-style balcony too!  We went out to eat at an Italian place in town and then crashed for the night.
     On Monday, we drove into Galway's city centre and went exploring.  We went down to the waterside and back up the main street for a bit.  Dad wandered into a bookstore and sent Ashley and I off to meander down Shop Street.  Galway has a really neat feel to the city, kind of like the hippy sister city of Dublin or Cork.  The buskers on the street were really cool, with accordions, drums, and other instruments that I'd never seen before, just playing away on the side of the street.  People were everywhere, going up and down the streets even in the middle of the workday.  I guess when it's sunny in Ireland, you really take advantage of it! :P  We headed back to Barna after a couple of hours, and Ashley & I went down to the coastline to take pictures by the craggy rocks and walk some more.  It was beautiful and moody, but probably more than a little dangerous, since there was nothing to keep you from falling into the ocean except sure footing.  After eating way more than a personal-sized pizza each at the hotel restaurant, we retreated to the room, content with our sea air and food babies.
     The next day, the car got loaded up again and we made our way back to Dublin.  This trek was mostly motorway, so the car did not inherit anymore scrapes or dings this time.  Once we made it back to Dublin, we drove up to Malahide so Ashley could see my favorite seatown so far.  In hunt for reasonable seafood, we ended up at a little cafe tucked along the main street through town.  The fish and chips were delicious...it's really sad, though, that it took over 2 1/2 weeks to get fish and chips when we were on islands the whole time.  Wednesday I could finally move into my dorm room in Moville on St. Pat's campus!  A quick stop at school let me pick up my keys and pile a load of stuff in my room.  On the way out the door to city centre, we met up with one of the other girls from UNC and I met a boy from Spain and a woman from Japan who are in my dorm too.  The girl from the States came with us to city centre, where we tried to see what Dad wanted to see in Dublin before he went home.  We went to Trinity College in the heart of the city, just on the south side of the River Liffey, to see the Book of Kells.  The books were intricately written in perfect script by scribes and are still perfectly intact on the calfskin they were written on.  The library at Trinity looks like something out of Harry Potter, with a huge arched ceiling and books lining the old wooden shelves that are probably older than the United States.  The librarians working had to wear gloves and face masks to even touch the books.  Busts of famous academics lined the walls and an ancient harp over 1000 years old sat intact in a glass case.  After leaving Trinity, we crossed the cobblestones by the college to get back out onto Grafton St. and O'Connell Street.  Eventually, we made it back to the car and headed back to the hotel before the meeting for international students at school that night.  Ashley came to the meeting with me and tried to convince everyone that she was my sister...they fell for it, but I don't know how when she told them that I was "almost 20" and she was "still 19."  & we're sisters, but I don't have a drop of Irish blood in me and Ashley is Irish and French. :P 
     Dad flew back to the States the next day in the morning, leaving Ashley & I at the school to get packed and ready for our flight to Paris in the afternoon.  And on that note, I think I am done writing for tonight.  Trying to catch up for two weeks takes a long time when 4 days is 5 pages.  My writing is getting more boing by the minute, so it's time to quit for the night.  The stories from the weekend in Paris need a more awake Ainslee to attempt to do them justice in writing.  Plus, Paris deserves its' own blog post...it's just that kind of place! (: 


Slán


(That's goodbye in Irish.)


New Irish-isms:
splash out: splurging, or going on a shopping spree (but usually meant sarcastically)


P.S.  I'll put up pictures again soon, but my computer is out of memory so I've got some creative deleting ahead of me...but they're on their way!  Dad & Ashley: Feel free to correct/add anything I left out, I've got a good "forgettory" too!