Well, I realize it's been forever since my fateful last Oxford post. But since I think it's important to remember this stuff and, more significantly, because I do not have a full-time job, I thought I would tell some tales of my fantastic continental travels. And I may have been receiving a lot pressure from my fans, AKA fan AKA Anna Speckhard, to compose such a post.
I should warn you that there are a lot of tales to be told. I considered writing a book about them, entitled “Lisa Single-Handedly Alternately Creates and Destroys the Bonds of International Friendship.” There were some days when I told myself: hey, I seem to be getting along pretty great with this particular Italian. There is hope that they will think all Americans are as cool and cultured as me. For instance, we were in Florence for Easter, and apparently they have this great crazy tradition where two oxen pull this cart all around town, straight into the Duomo, where it rests for an hour, and then they pull it back out into the square and set fireworks off of it. Happy Easter! So when we ran into this oxen-and-cart parade, we wanted to figure out where it was going and what time they were going to blow it up. So I asked an Italian man, and we had a great time using short phrases and large hand gestures, but apparently, one of us screwed up, because the fireworks started at 11, not noon, as I was led to believe. But we did catch the end of it, and it was awesome. Then a parade of some men in funny medieval costumes came by. But that is not the point. The point is that this Italian man and I, we were like this. In fact, we are now pen pals. The wedding is in December.
But then I would interact with some Frenchwoman, who, from what I could gather, wanted to spit in my bean curd. For instance, there was one Frenchwoman who stayed in a hostel with us, who we referred to as “The Crazy French Lady.” (Sidenote: she didn't seem to be grasping the whole idea of a YOUTH hostel, because she was at least 45.) The first night we stayed in our hostel in Nice, we turned on one little reading light over my bed, which, according to hostel rules, you are allowed to do, so you can do things like put your sheets on your bed, which we were doing. But the CFL started making harsh sounding commands in French, which I naturally assumed meant either “Turn off your light!” or “What gorgeous Americans you are! I can tell because your light is on!” However, once she figured out I don't speak French, she confronted me about my light-using habits, and I meekly turned it off and went to sleep. Interaction, over, I went to bed. So far, she does not sound very crazy, just a little light-sensitive. However, the next day she turned the MAIN room light on whilst 80% of the room was still in bed. So apparently you are allowed to turn on lights only if you are French. Noted.
But to be fair we also ran into a LOT of very friendly, sometimes borderline creepy-because-they-were-so-friendly French people. I would like to give a shout out to the poor French employee who helped me purchase 3,439 train tickets, and was very cheerful about the whole thing. Also the man who, on our first night in Nice when we were looking extremely touristy while trying to find our hostel at approximately 11:30 (we had our guidebook out and everything) offered to help us. And couldn't read our map, so called another French guy over, who also couldn't read it. And then led us to a store front so he could see it. And then insisted on bringing us (following us) to the hostel. And kept talking to us in broken English, while we just nodded. And didn't take our repeated “merci”s as a hint to leave. What a great guy.
Mother, if you are reading this, all I have to say is ha ha! Those crazy European times! Absolutely nothing to worry about!
Said travels started, as you may guess, with a chunnel ride to France. You can, if you so choose, take a ferry, but then you have to take some trains to get to the ferry, blah blah blah, basically, it is more complicated than it needs to be and since our main goals was convenience, that was ruled out pretty much immediately. You may also find, if you are (non-bearded) Jake, when attempting to purchase ferry tickets online, that you are red flagged by the ferry organization, on who knows what basis, and have to wait for the ferry guys to clear you before you can take said ferry, so that you are prevented from carrying out your doubtless deadly intent of skewering a hole in the bottom of the ferry, leaving all the other ferry passengers die a slow, descending death. I'm just giving you fair warning.
Anyway, I'm assuming the chunnel ride itself was great, although I really can't state that with authority, because I was awake for maybe 6% of it. You should ask (bearded) Jake. He was awake for 100% of it. Because we bought tickets at different times, we were in different compartments in the chunnel, and he was lucky enough to be in a compartment where he was completely surrounded by jr. high age-french children, who, as I understand, sang French songs at maximum volume the whole time. Jake really enjoyed this first glimpse into French culture.
However, after our chunnel ride we decided that if we were going to take over a country, it was going to be France. They spent about .2 seconds checking our passports. We momentarily changed our country domination plan to Italy, as absolutely no one checked our passports when we arrived there. However, we decided to stick to France after our experience on an Italian train when there were two separate lockdowns where a dozen policemen came in to check everyone's passport.
But anyway, we arrived in PARIS, where we experienced culture shock, Brooke even saying as we got off the metro “There's not even a gap to mind!” This reminds me that I should probably tell you who was actually on this here shenanigan. At the beginning, there was Jake, Brooke, Nicole, Max, Michelle, Elaine and I, although our number varied throughout as people died, or alternatively, headed back to London to catch their planes.
Anyway, in Paris, we did the classics like the Tour de Eiffel (Translation: “Eiffel Tower”), the Lourve (French for: “A Gazillion Paintings”). Luxemburg Gardens, Notre Dame, Musee d'Orsay, the bridge from inception where Mol stabs Juno girl, crepes, etc. etc. I would like to take this moment to say HOW DELICIOUS NUTELLA AND BANANA CREPES ARE. Seriously. I think they should do a “Super Size Me”-type documentary on what would happen to you if you ate crepes everyday, and I, for the good of French people everywhere (or in France), would volunteer to be the person who eats the crepes.
We enjoyed our crepes.
Lookit that, a creep with his crepe:
This is an example of Something Famous at the Lourve.
This is an example of Something Cool at the Lourve.
Ahhh, Pair-ee
Europe, also known as "Place Where You Pay Money to Climb Stairs"
There are many other stories to tell, mostly involving food, but they will have to wait another day. Maybe next time we will make it to Italy. Can I be done now, Anna?
