An Americanxctfy in Pariskpwqd

After our equine rendezvous in the country side, we changed pace and set off for what many would consider the capital of culture: Paris.  Note: by set off, I mean waited in the Dublin airport for 4 hours while I ginormous winter storm dropped a couple inches of snow on Northern France.  Again, I blame my American companion  for bringing the weather with her.

I will admit I was a bit skeptical going to Paris.  I anticipated that the French would be snooty, and that Paris would be dirty.  Instead, I found the French extremely congenial (Note 2: all stereotypes I thought applied to the French turned out to be Italian - see posts about Rome)  and Paris to be snowy, but very very classy.

The view from my room in Paris

Granted, I greatly benefited from the fact that the individual with whom I have an undisclosed relationship speaks conversational French.  I did my best to fit in , but I fell into 2 traps.  First, I tried to speak with the same speed as she did, which resulted in the verbal equivalent of a train wreck and confused waiters.  Second, I consistently forget the golden rule of French pronunciation, which is you don't pronounce the last 4 consonants of a word.  (For example, if there was such a word as Dublinkzfgp, it would be pronounced Dublin. At least I think that's how it works.)  So I said chocolate, instead of chocola.  I might as well have walked around with a red white and blue A being pasted on my back.

We visited a ridiculous number of sites in 3 days in Paris including:

Musee D'Orsay - home to many famous Impressionist paintings. I actually liked it better than the Louvre!

It's actually a converted railway station 

Notre Dame!

Arc de Triomphe! Including some spectacular view...

...looking down the Champs de Elysee once the snow melted...

...and at the Eiffel Tower!

Sainte Chapelle with it's amazing stained glass windows!

The Louvre!  Where it is really fun to play copy cat of...

Greek philosophers! 

Naked Men!

And Roman gods!   Note: I have no idea who this girl is and she definitely has no relation to the individual with whom I have an undisclosed relationship

Sacre Coeur!

La Place de la Concorde, where the guillotine stood during the French Revolution. Fun Fact: The top of the obelisk marks the height from which the blade dropped.

and the Eiffel Tower itself!

My companion was invaluable.  Getting us around on the Paris Metro, speaking French, and sharing tons and tons of fun facts.  Whoever this individual is, I highly recommend her as a Parisian travel guide!

An Individual with Whom I have an Undisclosed Relationship

I was recently speaking with an individual with whom I have an undisclosed relationship, and said person expressed mock disappointment that said person was not included in the list of things I missed most.  My parents expressed the same sentiment in a joking manner.  Just in case anyone does feel snubbed I do apologize - I really miss you all, I just figured people would get bored reading about how much I missed people (so instead I wrote about how much I miss garbage disposals.)

I refer to the individual with whom I have an undisclosed relationship as such because in a wise move, said person requested that limited information be posted on the internet about said person.  I decided to take this to the extreme! Unfortunately, I am about to begin a series of posts about this individual's visit to me here in Ireland in March, so this could get a little complicated.

Said person arrived the first week of my spring break, and there was much rejoicing.  Said person had never been to Dublin so I showed said person around the highlights of the city.
I learned a number of important things during my time with said person, such as 1) If you are going to buy a loaf of French bed when it is raining, buy one covered in plastic, not paper. 2) Downing a Guinness at around 2 when you have not eaten since breakfast makes for an interesting experience (for the record we were at the Guinness Storehouse, not a pub. See:

3) British people are actually super nice!  Yes we eventually did go to a pub, and ended up sharing a table with a couple from Bath, UK.  We talked to them for probably almost 2 hours, and it was fun to trade comparisons of life on different sides of the Atlantic.

4) If there is a chocolate factory tour in a city, you take your female companion to it (oh shoot I let her sex slip), otherwise you will hear for the next couple of months about how you could have gone on a tour of a chocolate factory but did not.  Always remember, for women Chocolate >>>> Beer.  Fact.

Our last day in Ireland was interesting to say the least.  The individual with whom I have an undisclosed relationship brought South Bend March weather with her, so the last day in Ireland it was snow-hailing.  Conveniently it was also the day I had planned to take said person to out into the countryside by the ocean and go for a cliff walk!  We never even made it to the path because the wind off of the sea was so strong.  We ended up huddled behind a wall waiting for a break in the weather to dash back to the train station.

Then we were surrounded by a corral of horses.

No really.

I would also like to point out that the snow streak at the bottom of my jacket is traveling horizontally, not vertically.  It was a wee bit windy.

My companion remarked this was exactly how she imagined rural Ireland.  I must admit that in my four months here, this was the only day during which I was randomly surrounded by farm animals, so I think her sample is a bit biased

What I Miss Most

As the semester begins to wind to a close, here is what I am most excited to have again back in the States:

1) A bicycle - It has been torturous here seeing all the bike lanes and having no way to utilize them.  It's the worst for those middle distances when its too close to merit taking a bus but too far to walk in under 20 minutes.  Or when I need to run a quick errand on campus and drop off library books

2) A garbage disposal - I have wonderful Irish roommates, who are extremely courteous 99% of the time.  However, one of them does not understand the concept that more rice should not be put down the sink if water is barely draining.  Cleaning pipes of old soggy rice is not fun.

3) ND/American Catholicism.  I miss having a chapel in the same building in which I live, so i can take 5 minutes in the morning to quiet myself.  Additionally, I miss good American Catholic Masses.  No exaggeration, I showed up for an on campus Mass on 2 weekend ago 3 minutes late - they were on the homily.

4) Decent college architecture - everything on UCD's campus in made of concrete. EVERYTHING.  Even the water tower is concrete! I imagine even Stalin would have criticized the campus for being too grey and too minimalist

5) Pandora internet radio - having to go back and click a new song every 5 minutes on Youtube is not good for productivity

Make Like Julie Andrews and Climb Every Mountain

Having fallen behind on posts, it is difficult to balance writing posts to catch up and telling stories while they are fresh in my head.  So apologies to those of you who are waiting to hear about adventures I have had in France, Belgium, Amsterdam, and London.  I promise those are coming soon.

For now, I want to share pictures I took these last couple days in County Kerry, Ireland.  A group of us undertook a seven hour climb of the highest mountain in Ireland: Carrauntoohil.  It was just over a kilometer high, and was grueling at times, but provided some of the most spectalur views.  The best part is the great feeling of accomplishment I have at having climbed to the highest point in a country, a feat not even wilderness man Alec Hyde has accomplished!

Yep, I climbed that.

There's a cross at basically every high point in Ireland

You can see the bay in the distance on the left

The path we followed up in on the left

We climbed down the mountain by a different route.  The path we took up cuts through the center of this picture.

I felt like I was in Lord of the Rings at times, which is why I shouted at one point:

They're taking the hobbits to Isengard!

The town of Kinmare where we stayed.

Lambs are my new favorite animal.