Yeah, Mr. White! Yeah, science!

Sometimes, I'm able to sneak into the "science" classification. After all, I'm a sociologist (Really, I am! I have a bachelor's degree and everything!), and sociology is a social science. So, on occasion, I can be like, "Yeah, the sciences! We are cool."

In reality, I am not a scientist. Any science teacher I've ever had (especially Mr. Matykowski for physics my junior year of high school--woof) or anyone who has seen my science score on the ACT can attest to that fact. I like biology, especially human anatomy, but chemistry and physics and usually science in general require a lot of math. I ain't a math person, y'all. Letters--that's where it's at. Hence the law school thing. I must confess I find some joy in basic algebra, because there is an explainable logic to it and there is a right answer, but anything harder is usually beyond me. I took all the math and science required, and I even took more than was required in both high school and college (I may not love math and science, but I am a nerd straight through to my core), but I've never loved either discipline and I never will.

I'm always kind of jealous of girls who are mathematicians or chemists or physics or engineers, though, and I've identified two main sources of this jealousy: occupational prestige and feminism. Occupational prestige, for those of you who would like an explanation because you pursued degrees that might actually lead to some sort of career besides theorizing, case working, or study-conducting (wow, I should probably learn the real word for that) is the level of respect an occupation holds in society. For example, janitorial work has lower occupational prestige than teaching. The highest occupational prestige usually goes to doctors. Let's face it, we like those guys. It doesn't mean that position actually holds more value for the society (I'm more of a structural-functionalism type of gal so I cringe a bit from any role being "better" than another when we actually need them all to keep our society in balance), but people generally have ideas on what careers are better than others. Mathematicians and scientists have pretty high occupational prestige because those are jobs that are important (arguably...what does math REALLY contribute to society, anyway? [I'm kidding!]) and require a lot of schooling/technical knowledge and just seem really hard.

That's why I have any jealousy for mathematicians and scientists in general. But my jealousy for women in those fields stems from feminism. (And maybe because their dating odds are waaaaay better than mine were in sociology and even mine now in the male-majority legal world, because probably at least 80% of my male classmates are married.) These women are breaking into what has long been considered a field only for men! Women tend to lag behind men in the math and science fields even from elementary school. (Though that's starting to change in the younger grades, it's still true in our country by the time students finish high school.) These women are champions for the cause! They're breaking the barriers and getting into male-dominated fields. Votes for women!!

So, it's too late for me to get into science. I can personally get interested in science (actually I probably can't because when I see numbers I want to run away), but I can't change my whole educational/career tract. And I don't really want to, because, you know, I actually do kind of like what I'm doing--that's why I'm doing it. But I can try to get my (possible) daughters into math and science. I'm not talking about forcing them into anything they don't want to do; if I have 100 daughters and 100 of them want to be English teachers, fine. (I will not have 100 daughters.) But am I going to have math flashcards and do science experiments along with getting them hooked on reading? Heck yes! Even if they don't become engineers or chemists, at least they'll be smart. (Right? A girl can dream.)

So, to sum up: I think women in the hard sciences are way cool and I hope I have at least one daughter who breaks into a male-dominated field.


(For the record: I also think male mathematicians and scientists are cool and I admire them a lot, and I would never discourage a man wanting to go into those fields, especially if I had a son doing so. But I am a feminist and these stream-of-consciousnesses happen.)

P.S. I just really want an excuse to be able yell, "Yeah, science!" like Jesse from an early episode of Breaking Bad, from whence comes the title of this post.

Weekly Wednesday Words

My knees hurt. Both of them. And while I was running this morning I got delicious little stabs of pain through my left ankle. And when I walk my right big toe and foot hurt. Running...yeah. It's been a little rough for me lately. I was sick all last week and ran like 5 miles total, but then on Saturday had a half-marathon that I obviously needed to run. I had already paid. And I'd never done a half. And it's not like 13 miles is that far. Well, I learned a few things: it doesn't matter the distance, a race always always ALWAYS seems never-ending, and (conversely) a half-marathon is a lot more enjoyable than a whole one. After a half-marathon, I am able to move. I am able to think coherent thoughts. I still have some energy left, but I also still get that I-can-eat-that-third-cookie-because-I-had-a-long-run feeling. All in all, my half-marathon experience was quite nice.

However, my general day-to-day running isn't going so hot. I have to run on the treadmill these days because it's dark and cold when I get up to run, and for some reason I'm really having a hard time. It's so so boring. But remember how I halfway trained for my first marathon on a treadmill? It wasn't as bad as this. I can barely get through 8 miles without wanting to die of boredom. Also pain. Soooo much pain while running these days. The aforementioned body parts + my hips and my back and awful chub rub that I got rid of for a little while there before the Teton Dam Marathon when I was actually training hard and feeling great and so skinny and in shape. I'm just so totally lagging in motivation and energy these days and then I get super frustrated because I'm supposed to be a runner! I don't feel I can continue to associate myself with real marathoners when I'm barely logging 30 miles per week these days.

Maybe I just need a break. It would probably be a good idea for my body and maybe it wouldn't be so bad for my mind, either. But then how do I get in a good workout? Sometimes I ride the bike and it's not nearly the same. It doesn't make me sweat as much or breathe as hard or get the energy out of my knees as well as running. And if I'm not dripping with sweat and gasping for air afterward, I don't feel like I even worked out at all. And I really think I might have restless leg syndrome or something, because if I don't run enough my knees just have this jumpiness all day, like an incessant need to bend them, except bending them enough to satisfy them hurts and also running enough to get out the jumpiness tends to hurt. What the heck, knees?! You're putting me in this horrible position all the time.

Another reason I don't want to take time off from running is because I know how hard it'll be to get back into it. I still remember how hard it is to start your running life and I know how easy it would be for me to just fall back into a life of laziness because it's so much easier and less painful and less sweaty and less expensive because I'm not spending so much money on running clothes and races and tape and sports bras and knee braces and physical therapy and gym memberships and shoes and hydration belts. Sheesh, until I listed all that I didn't really realize how much money really goes into my running habit. But I would also be a whole lot more unhappy. Basically, I have a love-hate relationship with running and right now it's getting hard and frustrating because I know what I'm capable of and what I'm doing aren't lining up right now. (It's the same way I feel about school.) I really, really need new running shoes--I have definitely gone over 300 miles in the two pairs of shoes I have that I alternate. One pair is completely worn down so there's almost no tread left. I know my awful shoes are contributing to my running pain, but good shoes are so expensive and I am poor! I have been saying I'm going to get new shoes since August. That doesn't seem like that long calendarly (yep, just made up that word), but running-wise that is pretty much FOREVER. I was due for new shoes in about August, but since then I have run a marathon and a half-marathon and all the running in between in those same shoes. Oops. Sorry, body.

Basically this blog post has been somewhat pointless except for me to highlight my frustration with my running these days. I know I won't actually take time off running, because if I go more than two days without running I get this sort of desperate, worried feeling that I'm going to DIE if I don't run soon. I know that's a bit weird but I don't care. I have freaking buff legs and if for some reason I needed to run really far without stopping at a fairly quick pace (I don't know what that reason would be--apocalypse, maybe?), I could do it, so I suppose I'll stick to running. This is just one of those times when I need to suck it up and get back into my groove.

If a tree falls in the forest...

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it still make a sound? A deep philosophical question. More applicable to most college students is the age-old question, "If you fart while wearing headphones, is it still audible?" Well, to the guy on the computer right next to my desk at work: yes. I indeed heard that and giggled, able to do so without embarrassing you because I am too short to be seen over the computer screen. Or even the bookshelf by my desk.

Wednesdays are sooooooo loooooong for me. I go to three classes (an hour and 15 minutes each--a super random length of time that somehow seems infinite) and then sit at work for six hours. It really makes me feel bad for people who are full-time students and work full-time as well. I only have to do it one day a week (actually I really do it no days a week, since 6 hours of work is not full-time) and it kills me. I really like my job, for several reasons, which I will now list:

-It looks super impressive on my resume.
-I learn a ton about legal research, which will (hopefully) come in handy in my future.
-I get paid $11.75 per hour.
-When no one needs my help and I have no projects for professors, I get to study. (This describes 80% of my work time and 99% of my Wednesdays.)

So obviously it is a great job and I am super lucky to have it and I know this and I appreciate my job. But for real, I have been here for 5 hours already and so far I have spent a grand total of 10 minutes actually doing work--I took a book to a professor (on the 5th floor, which makes me huff and puff up all those stairs on a regular day anyway, but I currently have no use of my nasal passages so I sounded like freaking Darth Vader once I got up there and actually stopped to catch my breath before embarrassing myself in front of my professor) and looking up the call number to a legal treatise on worker's compensation for a guy who claimed to be an attorney but was wearing a backwards hat and carrying a side bag, characteristics which describe 60% of the unmarried guys in my class (which is probably like 8% of the total males in my class). (I seem to be really into percentages today.) (Also parentheses.)

So, you may ask, what do I do with the other time at my disposal whilst getting paid? I'm glad you asked. Let me tell you. (I'm also really into lists today, apparently.) Today, I:

-Did my reading for Monday's First Amendment class (only 8 pages; what is this, Christmas??)
-Did my reading for Wednesday's Criminal Procedure class (only 24 pages; also very short! We don't have class Monday but it's not like I had anything else to do so I did my reading...that makes me sound like I really have it together but don't be deceived.)
-Did a whole lot of Facebooking, including stalking random people (of course).
-Looked at pictures of baby animals.
-Went to the bathroom three times.
-Took a trip to the vending machine for some Wheat Thins.
-Read some recipe blogs and salivated over the pictures with full knowledge that I am far too lazy to ever make any of those things.
-Did not look at/talk to my secret crush when I passed him on the stairs. (In my defense, this was on the way up to the 5th floor and I needed to save my breath/my sick voice sounds like a boy going through puberty/I've never spoken to him before so I don't know why we'd be friends now. Plus I'm pretty sure he harbors some bitterness form when I totally showed him up at a 10k last year.)
-Didn't hear/comprehend a guy's greeting to me until he was already gone. (He told me to have a good evening but all I got was whisper whisper mumble -ing so I just smiled and mumbled something unintelligible back in hopes that his brain would fill in a socially acceptable response for me.)

I thought all this would eat up more time, but I still have half an hour to go. Back to Facebook stalking it is.

Placement Break

In law school, you get a week off each semester. (At least you do at BYU. Having never been to a different law school, I'm not sure if this is a law-school-wide thing.) This is obviously a good thing. I have no school this week. How could that be bad? And since I currently have no class or work on Fridays, I get a 9-day break from school. Woooooo buddy! What, you may ask, have I done with this break? Well, I went to Rexburg, of course. That's what I do.

First I went to Blackfoot to stay with the good ol' Heidi Ho (and her long-suffering husband, Dillon--long-suffering in the sense that he has to put up with me coming to visit semi-frequently [though not frequently enough] and our crazy antics) Thursday night after class and work. We stayed up way too late and ate way too many brownies and watched way too much "My Strange Addiction" because we couldn't watch Lifetime. Just a sidenote: "My Strange Addiction" creeps me out. Then we got up and ate blueberry muffins and drank orange juice and Facebook and blog stalked people. Such goodness.

Then Friday morning I drove to Rexburg, and believe me when I say I was STOKED. I passed familiar landscapes and towns and gas stations (Bob's Kwik Serve, of course) and listened to familiar radio stations and I was actually sort of giggling in excitement from Rigby to Rexburg, which is probably kind of weird/creepy, but I was alone, so I don't care. When I saw the BYU-Idaho/South Rexburg sign, I squealed out loud. I LOVE THAT PLACE. So I took the exit, drove up the hill, smiled at the GORGEOUS sight of farmland and the temple right next to each other, and hopped on over to the Ivy, where Robyn lives and was graciously allowing me to stay. Since it was conference weekend, everyone was gone and I got an awesome parking spot, which is not easy to do at the Ivy because 10 billion people live there and always have 10 billion other people visiting them.

Cut to me calling some of my most important BFFs and spending Friday-Tuesday laughing, smiling, bar-hopping (not for real), listening to good music, watching Breaking Bad, Sunday dinner-ing with Navajo tacos and some of my favorite people, visiting the Reading Center, eating at Ramirez, shopping at Broulim's, running my favorite routes, freezing my little keister off repeatedly, complaining about boys, raiding my friend's closet, talking about grammar, being somewhat awkward, and just enjoying the usual splendors of Rexburg. Good gracious I miss that place and I miss those people.

Wednesday morning I had to drive back because I had to work my usual 3-9 shift, and I was SAD. At the risk of being ridiculously over-dramatic and cheesy, I felt my heart breaking as I drove away. I would even go so far as to say I felt my whole self tugging backward to stay in Rexburg. Yes, self, I know--we want to stay there. But guess what? We are now a grown-up with responsibilities and we've gotta suck it up and leave. Many people find my love for Rexburg strange or even pathetic. This does not bother me in the slightest. The lovely Sis. Engstrom, aka my fave boss ever in the whole world, described it well when she told me sympathetically, "You left before your friends did." And even though this is not 100% true, because some of my friends left before me or have since left, it is largely accurate. I still have so many awesome close friends in Rexburg and it's hard for me to be apart from them. It's not that I don't have friends in Provo--though it's hard for me to make new friends when I feel like all I do is study and then when I'm not studying I'm either running or so daggum tired I don't feel like socializing or meeting new people or doing anything that requires me to not be in my PJs. It's not even necessarily that I don't like Provo itself. Mostly I just don't deal well with change. I'm a slow-adjuster. That should probably be carved on my headstone.

I also have a HUUUUUUGE issue with letting go of things/people. I try not to get attached too often, because when I do get attached to a place or a person or even just an idea, it is super-glued on my heart and it ain't gonna be easy getting it off. One of my favorite quotes is: "Everything I've ever let go of has claw marks on it." (David Foster Wallace) That's me. Once I'm into something, I'm IN. So being pulled from Rexburg before I wanted to be has been tough.

I'll admit, I didn't always love Rexburg. After my first year I wasn't sure I wanted to go back. So I keep reminding myself of that and hoping with time I'll come to love Provo, too. Or, at the very least, not want to cry every time I have to go back after being gone for a while. The moral of the story is right now I'm kind of sad and homesick for Rexburg and if I was not such a responsible/logical/poor student I would probably just go back for the rest of the week/my life.

But I looked at some pictures of baby animals and I definitely felt better. Maybe that's weird but I don't even care. Also I've been silently laughing to myself for the last twenty minutes because a guy on one of the public access computers keeps farting and it's dead silent in here and I can HEAR YOU, buddy! And when I get home Renae and I are going to catch up on the latest episode of Downton Abbey. And I get to go home for Thanksgiving in a little under 6 weeks.

So, to sum up: life is good. :)

Maratón Numero Dos

September 15, 2012, I ran the Top of Utah marathon in Logan, Utah. Let me start by saying it went SO MUCH BETTER than the first one. Since it was in Logan, which is just under two and a half hours from Provo, I went up the night before and stayed in a hotel. My awesome roommate Renae came with me because I didn't know how I'd be feeling afterward and didn't want to have to worry about driving home and dying. Also, I was sad about facing the prospect of running into the finish line alone.

We went up Friday night and got my race packet and then found a place to eat. There had been some traffic, so it was about 7 by the time we got there. We found this little Italian place called Gia's and decided to eat there. (We had wanted to try Chuckarama but the line was super long and we were both hesitant to eat at a place with the word "chuck" in the name.) I got pasta puttanesca, which literally mean's "whore's style." Awesome. I'm all about that. It was really good but goodness gracious, it was SO garlicy. I knew that would come back to haunt me but I had to eat something. They also gave us bread with vinegar and oil, which is funny because that's become something of a staple in our house. I'm not a huge fan of the vinegar and oil, but I sure love the bread.

After a super adventurous trip of trying to find our hotel and driving about half an hour up a canyon and getting lost approximately 6483 times, we got checked in and went to our room. It was pretty swanky. Maybe I'm just easily impressed. Maybe both. But what really made me happy was that they were starting breakfast at 4 am on the 15th so runners could eat breakfast! Yessss. Obviously they were used to people staying there the night before. There was also a free shuttle from the hotel to the park where the buses picked us up and took us to the starting line. When we got to our room, I got ready for bed and tried to zonk out asap.

Keyword: tried. I always have issues sleeping when I know I need to get up early in the morning, and this was a double whammy because of nerves and adrenaline and me stressing about being prepared. I kept thinking through what I'd do when I got up in the morning (get dressed; tape; knee brace; brush teeth; eat breakfast; take an extra banana on the bus; eat the banana at the starting line) and picturing myself running and worrying that my knee would hurt and thinking about my pacing. It was kind of too bad I had to waste that super comfy bed with no sleeping. My alarm went off at the unholy hour of 4:15 (the shuttle to the starting line left at 5). I went through my little routine I'd run through 800 times in my head the night before. I went up to the breakfast place and ate a banana and a piece of toast with peanut butter and honey on it. I successfully got on the bus and got to the park where the buses would take us up the canyon. I even sort of dozed off on the long bus ride.

We got up to the starting line and got off the buses. It was FREEZING. I'm not kidding. It was even colder than the Teton Dam marathon start, which I had definitely not anticipated. I had my trusty long-sleeve men's crew-neck I'd picked out at the Rexburg D.I. before the Teton Dam marathon. It was too big and I chose it because I wouldn't get attached so leaving it behind on the side of the road wouldn't be a problem. It wasn't keeping me super warm. But they had a big heated tent for us to sit in while waiting for race time. I waited in line for about ten minutes to go to the bathroom and then had ten minutes to drink some water, drink some Gatorade, and try not to freeze to death. We all started lining up. I was getting very nervous. The thought of not having my parents driving along to the checkpoints and making sure I was alive and taking my layers and giving me ibuprofen and a granola bar and gross energy gum and running with me when I wanted to die was daunting and scary and sad and I felt kind of lonely and I was cold and I suddenly did not want to do this at all. But luckily before I could get too hysterical, the gun went off. (P.S. The gun was a musket and there were people dressed up as frontiersmen. I still have no idea why; no one provided any kind of explanation for this.)

Since there were about 2 billion people running the race, it took almost two full minutes before I could get to my pace, but once I hit my stride, I was awesome. Seriously. I was running strong and I was running my race and I was golden. The miles passed easily, I was in no pain (well, relatively...there's no such thing as truly NO pain when running, at least for me), and I felt like a machine. I had to stop at mile 4 to go to the bathroom, which was annoying, because I had only been running for like half an hour! Come on! But oh well. My big toe was hurting with every step, right at the knuckle type place, but it wasn't bad enough to make any sort of impact. I was way way ahead of the 4:15 pacer and I felt AMAZING.

I tried some GU at mile 11. It was naaaaaaasty. The strawberry-banana flavor could not mask whatever the nasty underlying taste was, and the gel was kind of a gross texture that I wasn't used to. But it did its job and I was still cruising along. All along the way, I was so much smarter than in my first marathon. I stopped and walked through every water station after mile 11 or so. I took water and, at every two or three miles, I had Gatorade, too. I took orange slices and little bits of banana. I had to stop again for the bathroom at mile 15(? I can't remember) and got a little behind the 4:15 pacer, but I easily passed them and still felt great. I began to entertain the idea of beating my goal of 4:20 by leaps and bounds. At mile 18, a spectator was blasting the Olympic theme to pump us up. It was great. I was still running strong, and I reflected on the fact that I was already past where I'd had my mental breakdown last time. I felt like a superhero!!

Cue mile 19. The ground got kind of uneven and I had to go around a slight bend, and suddenly, with absolutely no warning, my fears were realized: I felt the old stab in my knee. Noooo! But it went away after a few steps. I told myself to calm down. It was just the corner that did it. I was fine. I walked through the next aid station, slugging my water and Gatorade, and then started running again after crushing my paper cup and tossing it in the garbage. (It pleases me to announce that I only threw 3 cups on the side of the road; the rest went into an actual trash can.) OH my knee hurt SO BADLY. This was not good. But again, I hit a stride and the pain eased up. I had slackened my pace a good deal though--going from 9-minute miles in the beginning to 9:20 miles for a while and then 9:30 and now 9:45. Mile 20 brought more steady pain. And finally, mile 21 was where my knee really began to give out. I had to stop to walk somewhere along the mile, not at the aid station.

I started to get really frustrated. Why couldn't I just run the way I wanted? Runner after runner passed me and I wanted to cry. I'd been doing so well. After walking for .2 of a mile, I forced myself to start running again, and I have to admit a few tears did escape because I was in AGONY. Miles 21-24 are sort of a haze of pain and frustration. At some point, the 4:15 pacers got by me and I had to admit defeat on that platform. I would not be running a sub-4:15 marathon. But I was still dead-set on getting my goal of 4:20. I had some more GU at mile...23? I'm not entirely sure where. It was a nice jolt of energy, but what I needed was some ibuprofen. Realistically, though, I knew that no ibuprofen would kick in fast enough to do me any good, so I just needed to be done. There was only one way to make that happen. So I just had to grit my teeth and get through it.

Mile 25 brought an incline up a residential street. WHO PLANNED THAT? I may or may not have been cursing whoever planned the course. Somewhere, like 24 or 25, Renae was waiting and took some pictures. Even as tired and in pain as I was, I was in such better shape than the Teton Dam marathon. I don't know if I'll ever get over the relationship you have with other runners during a marathon. Most of the time, you hit a stride and you sort of have a "pack" of people with your same pace, so you end up running somewhat together and passing each other. There was a guy I'd been playing leapfrog with since my slowdown at mile 21, and toward mile 24 or 25 we started encouraging one another when we'd pass. When I was walking and he passed me, he'd say, "Come on, keep it up!" and slap me on the back as he passed. When he was walking and I passed him, I'd say, "You got this!" and we'd fist pump. It's kind of weird after the fact, but during the race it makes total sense and you don't even think twice. And whenever you see someone walking and you pass them, you encourage them. It doesn't matter that you've never met, it doesn't matter that you'll never actually meet, it doesn't matter that you don't know one another's names or stories or anything--nothing matters because only another marathon runner knows how it feels so only another marathon runner can say things at that point like, "We're getting close!" and not make you want to scream at them. Sorry, spectators, but saying things like, "You look great!", "You're amazing!", or "You're so close!" doesn't actually help. In the beginning it's nice, toward the middle I start thinking, "I do not look great.", and by the end I'm apathetic toward you. (Don't stop encouraging marathon runners, though. It's a really nice dynamic and as a sociologist I love the collective effervescence idea.)

Finally, finally, I knew I was almost done. My Garmin was about .2 of a mile ahead of the mile markers on the course, for some reason, so when my Garmin said 26 miles I told myself, "Just .4 to go. No more stopping. This is happening." I don't remember what my time was at that point, but I knew my goal was in my reach. I was hurting pretty bad, but I was determined that I would totally meet my goal this time.

Seeing the mile marker for mile 26 is actually kind of the worst feeling in the world. There is no feeling of relief, like "Only .2 to go!" No. Instead, I just want to sob because I'm thinking, "I cannot run another step! .2 is forever!" You will seriously never understand how long .2 of a mile can be until you hit mile 26. And at mile 26, the spectators know you have nothing left. They're not smiling while they cheer you on anymore. Most of them look concerned and flat-out terrified that you are going to pass out and die right in front of them. Or maybe that's just when they see me and the panic and horror on my face. One woman actually pointed around a corner and said, "It's right there!" and there was so much pity on her face I'm willing to bet money she had run a marathon at some point. There's just no way to understand if you haven't done it.

Seeing the finish line can almost be as bad as seeing the mile 26 marker, because it's RIGHT THERE but it feels like I absolutely CANNOT get there! And some hotshot came sprinting in and passed me right at the end--literally a DEAD SPRINT. I thought, "If you have that much left at the end, you weren't running hard enough all along!" I had envisioned myself with this nice kick to cross the finish line. Ha. I told my legs to run faster and my pace literally did not change even remotely. I just couldn't run any faster. But I crossed that finish line at 4:20! I was so happy. And just like with the Teton Dam, there's this mess of confusion after you finish--you're done and someone puts a medal around your neck and people are congratulating you and cheering for you and telling you you're awesome and there are a ton of people milling around and you bump into people and you're just wheezing out "Thank you" and "Excuse me" and you have no idea where to go or what to do. I got water, but I didn't want anything else they were offering. They had cheese curds (why??) and Goldfish crackers and chocolate milk and ice cream sandwiches and, worst of all, BBQ ribs. I know many people find BBQ ribs to be fabulous, but after a marathon? After a marathon I don't want to eat anything, and as a vegan, my choices were seriously curtailed. It's okay though--I got my water and red Gatorade (what flavor is that, anyway?) and that's all I wanted. Renae found me and took an oh-so-lovely picture of me with my medal and we headed back to the car. I had texts from people wishing me good luck from the morning. I called home, because they cared the most, and Mom had been getting text updates for some of the miles along the way, so she knew my time already and was excited for me. She was probably the only person who really cared for all the details and everything else. I mean, everyone cares and wants to know how it went and thinks you're awesome, but no one cares like your mom cares. It's just a fact of life.

I was supposed to be checked out of the hotel at noon, but there was no way that was happening. I showered and got ready as fast as I could, and then Renae and I hit the road. I even stayed awake the whole drive! It was not easy, I'll tell you that much. And then we got home (and my legs weren't even that horribly stiff after sitting still for two and a half hours) and my plan to go study fell through. Even when I told myself I was going to go to the library afterward, I knew I probably wouldn't really go. I was hoping I would have the motivation to do it, but I didn't. Oh well. Renae and I watched some Downton Abbey and then I watched some Arrested Development and dozed off on the couch. I was kind of congested, which happened last time, too, and I made myself get up every twenty minutes or half hour or so and walk around so I wouldn't die too completely. I was fast asleep by 10 that night and slept in until 8 the next morning. Bliss.

The aftermath has not been bad! My knee feels fine. My quads have been sort of sore. Honestly, it's nothing like last time and I've been more sore many times! My big toe still kind of hurts--not sure what went on there but it's nothing too awful. I ran today for the first time since the marathon. I only did 4 miles but boy was I tired! I was no inspiration, that much is true. I stopped to walk after every mile and I didn't even feel bad about it. (Okay, I felt a little bad.) All in all, I'm much more proud of this marathon. I will say I prefer the small numbers of Teton Dam, though, but that's definitely in my personality. I've decided my new goal is to at least hit double digits in my marathons. That means only 8 more to go!

The rest of Europe...

Yeah, so it's been closer to two months than one since I got back to the WONDERFUL US of A, and I have yet to finish up posting what went down. Oops. And I'm too lazy to separate the rest of this, so...here's everything.

We had a few days to just chill at Catherine's on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. Sunday we went to church. The church really is the same no matter where you go. Even the building was the same, except there were no drinking fountains, which did not please me. But it was nice to be at church and have everything be familiar and the same. It's always a testimony builder to know it's the same church everywhere. It did increase my homesickness, though. I'm not really sure why I'm such a big baby but I am and I've come to terms with it. After church we took a picnic out to a little park by Catherine's house. We didn't stay too long because it started to rain, but it was fun. I love being outside way more than being inside, especially in the summer.

Monday I FINALLY went for a run. It was heavenly. A crazy and/or drunk guy rode up on his bike while I was running and was talking to me. He said his name was Thestral and I just smiled, but then he said, “Might I have the pleasure of knowing yours?” I told him my real name, too. I should've faked something but I was really caught off guard and I couldn't think fast enough! Then he said, “Bless you, and bless your little knee! What have you done to it?” I panted, “It's from running a lot.” And he gasped and said, “You're American!” All I could think was crap, now he's going to kidnap me and hold me for ransom and I'll end up dead because the United States does not negotiate with terrorists. But it was too late to pretend to be anything else, and my fake accents are laughable at best, so I just nodded.
“You've seen the Anisazi cave drawings!”

Uh...huh? I shook my head no at this psycho and he kept saying yes. “You'll remember someday!” He said, and then he told me it was a pleasure to have met me and rode away. It was weird and I was slightly worried he was going to follow me for a little while. I did six miles and it was kind of hard because a. I didn't really know where I was going; b. the air is super muggy compared to what I'm used to; c. I hadn't run in two weeks before that; and d. I have a broken knee. Even with tape and my knee brace it's not great. But it wasn't really hurting enough to stop me while running. It just killed for the rest of the day. But I don't really care if it hurts later—as long as I can run I'm good.

We went into town and walked around the shops. We found some paint to make shirts for the Olympics. We went and saw Batman. Cherisse was all excited to see the “foreign” previews. Nope. They were exactly the same as the previews in America. I guess England isn't foreign enough to have weird previews. You probably have to go to a country where they don't speak English. Then we came back and just chilled and watched Friends. Not too shabby!

Tuesday was more of the same. We made our USA t-shirts; the back of mine says “God Bless America” and Cherisse put “Then conquer we must, when our cause, it is just, and this be our motto: ‘In God do we trust.’” from the 4th verse of the Star-Spangled Banner. Catherine put the Union Jack on the front and “God Bless America” on the back. We went to Cusworth Hall, which is a big old house. There’s a museum inside so we went in and looked around. It’s like Downton Abbey! We saw the back staircases for servants and the different dressing rooms and stuff. It was really cool. And then we ate at the tea room there. We had hot chocolate instead of tea, obviously, but we had little tea cakes and lunch. I had beans on toast because apparently that’s a normal thing to eat here. Okay. It was good. I mean, how can you go wrong with beans and toast?

Wednesday, August 8, 2012
We got up this morning and drove to Berwick, which is pronounced Barrack, so that we could go to Edinburgh tomorrow. Berwick is up north, right on the border with Scotland. We stopped in Alnwick on our way to see Alnwick castle, where they did a lot of the shooting for the Harry Potter movies. It was really cool to see the stuff from the movies in person! And they had broomstick “flying” lessons that we wanted to do. The tickets were all gone when we got there though. It was okay, because we stood over there when they were doing it and the lessons were really designed for 5-year-olds. Lots of overacting by the guys running it and stuff. We looked around the castle and got to climb up on the wall! That was cool. And we took pictures with our heads and arms in the stocks. I didn’t even put my head all the way in because I was worried I’d get stuck and how embarrassing would that be? Super embarrassing. The castle was gorgeous and the grounds were SO pretty. And apparently people still live there! We went in the library and I was DYING because it was huge and full of books. It had two levels of books and a balcony! Oh to have that.

Berwick is a really cool “little” town. In England, their idea of small town is not the same as my idea of small town. There were still a million shops and lots of people. But it was cool. We stayed in a super cute bed and breakfast run by this old grandmother type woman named Anna who only runs a B&B so she can keep paying her gardener. Her garden was amazing! There were tons of trees and berry bushes and statues and a cool gate that went to a back way to town. And the house was really nice. Wednesday night when we got there we tried to wander around to the shops but they were all closed! Just like Heppner. So we found one place still open to eat. The only thing on the menu I could eat was potato and leek soup. It was really good though so it’s okay. The whole vegan thing seems to mystify Europeans. No, it’s not the same as vegetarianism. I do not eat cheese. They just can’t grasp that part. “Oh, you’re vegan? Here, this doesn’t have meat in it. It’s smothered in cheese, but that’s okay. No meat!”

Thursday morning we got up and drove to Edinburgh. Anna made us breakfast before we went and it was so good! When we got down there, she was still making our actual breakfasts, but the table was set with fruit salad and cereal and toast for like a first course. I wanted to scream hallelujah when I saw the fruit. I was feeling a definite lack of fresh fruits and vegetables. So that made me very happy. And I had beans and tomatoes and fried mushrooms for breakfast. Kind of strange but it was good. The mushrooms were super good.

Edinburgh was sort of not my kind of place. It was SO crowded, mostly because it’s Edinburgh Festival right now. I don’t really know what the festival is for but apparently everyone and their dog wants to be there. There were people shoving flyers in our faces for shows and plays that night. We saw a lot of Harry Potter stuff. J.K. Rowling is from Edinburgh. We went to the diner place where she wrote the first book on a napkin. We went to the graveyard where she found the name Tom Riddle. We saw a school that inspired the castle for Hogwarts. And we ate cotton candy the size of our heads. Seriously, it was huge and sugary and delicious.

We went back to Berwick that night and stayed in the B&B again. We walked out to the seashore and collected shells and cool rocks. It was a lot of fun but it was freezing. Then we ate at an Indian place for dinner. I didn’t really eat anything, because it was 9:00 already. I got naan bread stuffed with vegetables. Naan is really good and it was HUGE! I wasn’t really that hungry and then I was totally stuffed. When we got back to the B&B, it was like 10:00 and Anna had locked the door! She thought we were in. That was kind of embarrassing to have to knock on the door and have her come out of her room. Luckily it didn’t seem like she was asleep.

On our way from Berwick to Doncaster, we stopped in Durham and met Mom's cousin, Paige. She looks just like a Tovey. She actually looks a lot like Mom. She was the same height as me, maybe a teeny bit taller, and she was dressed very stylishly and seemed to live a pretty glamorous life. Cherisse thought she was the coolest person ever. She showed us around Durham, which is a historical site in Britain. It was cool, but, to be honest, I'm getting a little disenchanted with the whole cathedral-castle-cobbled streets thing. They're pretty but dang, people, give me some nature and sky and air! I guess I'm just very much a country girl and we were in cities. But she told us a lot of the courtyard scenes in Harry Potter were shot in the courtyard of the cathedral, and we even recognized it, so that was cool. I definitely wasn't as excited as Cherisse. It's funny that even in a foreign country, you can still find Toveys pretty much anywhere you go.

We got back to Doncaster and stayed long enough to unpack, repack, and sit for a little bit. Then it was on to London. Traffic was pretty bad, so it took longer than usual to get there, so we didn't get there until like 8. Setting up the tent was an experience. I never considered that tents would be different in different countries, but their tents are different! You have an outer tent, which is the big part, that actually looks like a tent, and you put that up first with the poles and stakes and everything. But then you clip on another smaller compartment inside, so the tent ends up being separated into two spaces—a sleeping area and a sort of foyer type thing for your stuff. It was weird but kind of a nice idea because the double layer of walls kept dew out. Even with a rain fly you still get dewy. But the poles were ridiculously huge and heavy. You could definitely not take one of those tents backpacking. And Catherine said all their tents are like that, even their small tents. Weird. I'm sure they have light backpacking tents, too. It's funny what you don't think about until you see it.

We walked to the train station so we'd know how to get there in the morning and got some food and then went to bed. We turned on Harry Potter but I fell asleep before they even got to the troll at Halloween. We had planned to get up at 7 but, as with pretty much every place we've visited, we didn't get up on time. We got up at 7:45. It wasn't a huge deal, because we didn't have set plans, but it was a little annoying. Catherine's mom had to get up at 4:30 and go to work at the Olympics, because she was a volunteer, so we took down the tent and packed the car before we caught the train out. We didn't know what time we'd be back, so we didn't want to have to worry about it.

While we were on the train, Catherine's mom text her to tell her she got us free tickets to the men's pentathlon! I didn't have a clue what happened in the pentathlon, but who cares? I got to see the Olympics! So we met up with Catherine's mom and went over to the Olympic Park! It was so so cool. We had to go through security, which at first seemed strange but then I remembered there have been bombings and stuff at the Olympics. We had to dump out liquids and our stuff had to go through a scanner like we were flying or something. But just being IN the Olympic Park was amazing. I just kept thinking, “I could run into Jonathan Horton!!!” (Spoiler: I didn't.) The volunteers were all really fun and they'd see our USA shirts and say things like, “Team USA!” or “Oh, who are you rooting for? I can't tell.”

Our first stop was the Copper Box, where the first event of the pentathlon was—fencing. Yeah, so...fencing is not super exciting to me. It's like watching the beginning of a wrestling match where they're just tying up the whole time, and then as soon as someone lands a shot, it's over. Seriously, those are the rules—as soon as someone gets a point, the match is over. Snore. I'm sure it takes a lot of athleticism and focus and strategy and blah blah blah, but I was bored. There's a reason fencing isn't big in America, I guess.

After fencing, we went to the Olympics mega-store thing and bought T-shirts. There was not a size small to be found in the entire mega-store. Awesome. So, I went to my fail-safe: the kid's section. Size 11-12? Sounds good. (Later, I tried on the shirt, and it's even a little roomy. What the crap?? Europe continues to humiliate me with their sizing.) As we were walking through the Olympic park, Cherisse got interviewed for some Asian news station! They were asking her what she thought of the judges and how this Olympics compared to others in terms of venue, officials, and so on. She didn't really know what to say, because obviously we'd never been to the Olympics before, but maybe she'll become a big hit in Korea or something haha. We went to McDonald's to get lunch (sidenote: I always find it ridiculous that McDonald's is a sponsor of the Olympics. I mean, come on! Athletes do NOT eat there. Also, it was the only place to eat inside the Olympic park! There were little booths but they were super expensive.), and I ordered a veggie wrap. The patty was supposed to be made of beans. Instead, they gave me a chicken wrap. Thanks. Tip: usually when people order a veggie wrap, it's because they DON'T want chicken. Whatever. I picked the chicken strips out and gave them to Cherisse and ate salad in a tortilla. That's pretty much a staple in my diet anyway, and the spicy sauce stuff on it was good, so it wasn't a huge deal.

We headed over to the Aquatic Center for the swimming portion. That's right, I was in the Olympic Aquatic Center!! It was so cool. The whole day at the Olympics I just kept thinking things like, “Athletes have been here!” and then remembering, “Athletes ARE here!” It was definitely one of the coolest experiences I've had in my life. Swimming, thankfully, is more exciting than fencing, though the USA guy sure sucked it up. Turns out America is not a heavy-hitter in the men's modern pentathlon. Oh well. We still cheered really loud for him anyway.

After swimming, we had to catch a train over to Greenwich Park for the show jumping, running, and shooting events. I have to admit I was sort of doubting how exciting show jumping would be. I mean, seriously. I like horses and all, but I just thought it would be boring. WRONG! It was way exciting. And the poor tiny Korean athlete's horse reared up and fell backward on him! He could have been crushed and killed! Luckily he was fine, and I was absolutely amazed that he got back up and finished the course. I guess that's why he's an Olympian.

The running and shooting was combined, so they'd go off and run for a bit and then come back and have to shoot 5 targets and then go run some more and come back and shoot some more. Most of their running was done out of the stadium, so we were just sort of chilling there waiting, and the shooting was with lazers or something (what kind of space age do we live in??) so you couldn't even really see/hear/watch any of it, but it was still obvious the USA guy was not going to win. Sad day. We still cheered extra loud when he ran by us, though. It was designed so that whoever crossed the finish line of the run was the overall winner, and right at the end it looked like China was going to win. Now, if USA can't win, I don't care a whole super lot who does win (I was cheering for Ireland but he wasn't getting the job done, either, and the Great Britain guys were lagging, too), but there is one country that I always root against: China. I can't get over the gymnastics thing from 2008, and therefore I will cheer against them forever. Sorry, China. It's nothing against your people or your culture. Anyway, the Chinese athlete looked like he was going to win, and I'm serious when I say most of the stadium was against him. Tough crowd. But luckily the guy from the Czech Republic had a nice kick at the end and won. Sore throats from cheering for all!

The poor Korean athlete whose horse fell on him came in dead last. They staggered the starts, so that the person with the most points started first and every 400 points behind was a second later or something like that, and he was so far behind he started like 10 whole minutes after everyone else. It was pretty sad. I think almost everyone was already done when he finally came back in the stadium, running for the finish line. But of course everyone cheered for him. We were actually sitting behind a big section of Koreans and they were so proud and cheering so loud for him. It was nice. Then the USA guy passed us and Cherisse and I screamed "USA!!!" and he actually looked over and smiled! That's most likely the closest encounter I will ever have with an Olympian.

We drove back to Catherine's and went straight to bed. It was like midnight or later when we finally got back. We had so many late nights on this trip! Well, okay, late for me. For most people that's kind of normal. But hey, the late nights were worth it.

Sunday was our last day in England. We went to church in Catherine's ward and it was nice to have people remember us from the week before and say hi and ask if we enjoyed our stay and the Olympics and everything. I love the Church! And Catherine's ward was full of super nice people. After church we packed and tried to make sure we had everything. Catherine's ward was having a baptism, so we went to that and then Catherine's mom was so kind as to drive us to the hotel we were staying at right by the airport since our flight left at like...5 am? I don't remember. The baptism was nice. It's funny how I get choked up at baptisms even when I don't know the person. And DANG the spread of food was AWESOME! Those Brits know how to feed a crowd after a baptism, I tell you what. I ate SO MUCH. There were fruit skewers that I obviously went gaga over. There were these chocolate rice crispy things I couldn't get enough of. There was pasta and cupcakes and cookies and pie and lots of things I didn't eat because they were meaty or cheesy. But my very favorite were these tiny pieces of bread with butter on them. (I am not hard to please.) At one point I was asking Catherine to snag me some more bread and butter and I ended up chanting, "Bread. Bread. Bread and butter. Two please!" We laughed and laughed and repeated it forever.

Also, a creepy 8-year-old assaulted me at the drinks table. Cherisse was pouring him a drink and I was standing there waiting for a drink as well when I felt a hand on my behind! I looked down at him in shock and he gave me the creepiest smile in the world! I was quite scandalized. Cherisse and Catherine thought it was hilarious.

We drove to the Leeds hotel and said our goodbyes to Catherine and her mom. It was weird to be leaving Catherine when we'd been with her almost nonstop for almost three weeks! Cherisse knew she'd see her again in a few short weeks so it wasn't a long, tearful goodbye or anything. We got checked into the hotel and settled in to watch a bit of the closing ceremonies. The Spice Girls were set to preform and you know we were all over that.

We got up bright and early (actually it wasn't bright because the sun wasn't up yet) to catch a taxi to the airport. We had tooooooons of time on our hands after going through security and checking our luggage and everything, but we didn't want to buy any food when we knew they'd feed us on the plane. There isn't much to say about the plane ride--I slept some, watched some more movies, ate a lot, went to the bathroom a few times. I tried decaf coffee--sick. nasty. Seriously, so gross. Never trying that again. And when we touched down in the USA, I wanted to cry in happiness. I was listening to "Home" by Dierks Bentley and I said, out loud, "God bless America!" It was great. My overseas travel taught me that I'm of the United States. I'm all about the USA. But of course going to Europe would have to be one of the best experiences of my life. We were in pretty high spirits as we went through customs and picked up our luggage and walked aimlessly around the airport trying to find Mom. I felt like nothing bad could possibly happen. We were home! (Not home home but home in America.) And when we finally saw Mom at the top of the escalator I seriously was almost choking up. Remember how I'm a homesick baby? I just have a hard time when I can't be in immediate contact with the people I love! It felt sort of lonely. I don't know how Catherine does it, going to school in America, so far from home. I would die. Want to know something that's not a joke? JET LAG. For real. I fell asleep on the toilet at one point when we first got home.

All in all, Europe was awesome. We had so much fun and made so many irreplaceable, wonderful memories. We owe Catherine and her family and Luisa so so soooo much for letting us crash in their homes and helping us out so much! And we owe so many random strangers and bus drivers across Europe for their kindness and long-suffering patience for dumb American tourists! Moral of my trip: have fun adventures across the sea, but leave your heart in the USA.

Thursday, August 2, 2012 (Paris day 1)

We got up in the morning and caught the train to Paris. It was the first uneventful travel we've had while we've been here. When we got to Paris, Catherine was at the train station and we walked like an hour to catch a hop on, hop off bus that would take us to the Eiffel Tower, which was about a 5 minute walk to the hotel. Cherisse's suitcase caused problems and made me want to punch her again, but we got there. We learned in Dublin to use the hop on, hop off bus pretty much as a public bus, because it goes most places we want to go and you get a two-day pass, so it works great.

My first impression of Paris was that it's disgusting. It smells awful, like old pee and vomit and cigarettes and a hint of decomposing body. There is trash everywhere. I mean everywhere. And there are beggars all along the streets, plus these guys (most of them are just teenagers) who swarm you and shove mini Eiffel Tower key-chains in your face and try to sell them to you. I hated Paris immediately. There are so many tall buildings so tightly crammed together you can barely see the sky, so the whole city is claustrophobic. Everyone says Paris is romantic and beautiful. Um, what? How is that romantic? I guess it's romantic if your idea of romance is trash and cigarettes and a million people and concrete, but it doesn't really do it for me. I might just be a country bumpkin, but I'll take a wheat field and a fishing hole any day. Even Cherisse, who claims to love big cities, admitted that it was gross and really not enchanting at all.

We went and saw the Eiffel Tower. It's huge, but it's really not actually that pretty. And it's a TV satellite. Again, how is that romantic? There were SO MANY people there, too. I have issues with the general public, so this did not please me. We didn't go up, because the line was literally a mile long. At least. Plus it's really expensive, and even more money to use the elevator. So we took the obligatory pictures in front of it and tried to get the whole thing in it, which is really hard because, seriously, that tower is enormous. Then we went to the cathedral of Notre Dame. It was really pretty, but Dublin kind of Gothic-ed me out. It was free admission, so we were going to go in, but the line was really long and it was almost six by then (the hop on, hop off bus stops sometime around six, so we had to be on it by then so it would take us back to the Eiffel Tower so we weren't super far away from our hotel), so we decided we'd go in the morning. We walked around close to the Eiffel Tower and our hotel for a bit and found some food, then we went back to the hotel and watched the Olympics and got on the internet. Super interesting thing to do in Paris? Maybe not to some people, but it was fun and it was nice to have some down time, because we haven't really had a lot of that on this trip.

Friday, August 3, 2012 (Paris Day 2)

We got up in the morning and went to the Louvre. Now, I hate Paris, I'll admit that freely, but I LOVE THE LOUVRE. I love museums anyway, but this was amazing. I would love to spend like two days just in the Louvre! It's huge, so there would be plenty to see. And it's only 10 euro to get in—it's free if you're a citizen of an EU member country, so Catherine got in free. We looked at French sculptures first, and they are amazing. It's astonishing to me that they are SO detailed. I mean, they have muscles. I remember learning in history class about artists sneaking to graveyards and studying cadavers so they could get the muscles right, but I could never have imagined how detailed those sculptures are. And how can they do that with a chisel and do it out of a block of stone?? I was freaking out. I still kind of am. I wanted to touch them so badly but I'm a good museum goer and refrained. They just look so life-like! We also went through this part of the museum that's all set up in the style of Napoleon's palace. His palace was so ornate, and I remember thinking I didn't blame the poor for hating the rich during the revolution. It was almost appalling the amount of overkill in that place. So much gold everywhere! It was gorgeous, but so over the top. And we saw Hammurabi's code! I'm such a nerd that I was losing my mind. The first recorded set of laws! This is a big deal to me, obviously. It was so cool. I don't know if I've ever seen real hieroglyphics. I think every school needs to go on trips to museums all the time because kids would like history a lot more if they could see what they're learning about. It's so cool to make connections to what you're learning and it helps you learn. Plus you learn more and remember what you learn when you're excited about it.

Then we went to find the Mona Lisa—it took a long time to find because the Louvre is so giant, and I wanted to stop a lot and look at everything. I just wish the info cards had English. They were in French (obviously) and some of them had Spanish translations, so I could get the gist of the Spanish, but I just wanted to know everything about every exhibit and everything I was seeing. I wanted to stop and look at all the Renaissance art we were passing. I've never seen the real paintings—obviously I've seen pictures in history and humanities classes, but it's not the same. I could actually see the brush strokes and see the canvas underneath. Maybe I'm just hugely geeky (well, okay, no maybe about that—I know that for sure and I really am not ashamed of it), but I loved it. It makes it so much more real, so much easier to think of an actual person painting that, when you can see the brush strokes. I just think it's so amazing that people can do things like that, produce art. I can't do anything like that, so I'm completely in awe. I'm running out of adjectives to describe the things I saw, but that's because they're indescribable! I think the Mona Lisa was a bit overrated, though. Everyone in the whole museum was cramming into this tiny space to see one painting, but there were so many amazing paintings. And I know it's Da vinci and he's amazing, and I think he's super cool, from what I've learned in school, but I was more impressed with the sculptures than the paintings as a whole, plus there were other paintings I thought were more impressive. Plus I had to fight a crowd of like a million people to even see the Mona Lisa, and I could barely see over people's heads. I have a memo for Europe: there are things called air conditioning and deodorant. Please, if you won't employ both, at least pick one! Everyone would be happier.

I wanted to stay in the Louvre and look at every exhibit in the museum, but Cherisse and Catherine wanted to leave. I would almost be willing to go back to Paris just for the Louvre. It was really the only thing I'd go back for. We needed to go to the train station (about an hour away from all the touristy stuff) to print Cherisse's and my train tickets for the way back to Catherine's house, because it said to allow at least 45 minutes between printing the tickets and the train ride, and the train left at 7:45 am. We certainly didn't want to do it in the morning. We stopped and got food on the way, and stopped at a Starbucks to use the wifi, and I was excited about stopping at these shops along the river Seine. All along the river, they have these booths where people sell souvenirs and postcards and whatnot. I don't care about that, but they also sell second-hand books—that's what I wanted to check out. What I didn't think about: they were all in French. Bummer. If there were any in Spanish I would've considered that, because it would take me forever but I could read it (I'm still in like chapter 6 of 1 Nephi in my libro de mormon...it's taking me soooo long), but all I saw was French. I still like the idea of the used book shops though. I just love books in general. The bridge over the Seine has all these padlocks with people's names on them, and I guess it's supposed to be lovers or something? I don't really know what the deal is, but everyone says the locks on the bridge on romantic. Huh? I don't see the romance there. The bookshops are more romantic to me. I'd much rather have a guy take me to a used bookshop than write my name on a lock and lock it on a bridge, but maybe I'm weird (okay, again, no maybe about that, but whatever).

After we got our tickets, we got back on the tour bus and rode it for about an hour, going back to the Eiffel Tower to get to our hotel. We got dinner and went back to the hotel and watched Friends while we waited for it to get dark because Cherisse really wanted to see the Eiffel Tower lit up. You can tell we weren't in love with Paris, because we did a lot of TV watching. In Dublin we didn't stop at all, because we loved it. Paris? Meh. The Louvre was great and the bookshops were great, but I feel no pull to ever go back to Paris. I'm sure I'd love the countryside of France though. I pretty much love the countryside anywhere. When it was dark, we went out to the Eiffel Tower. As unimpressed as I was with the Eiffel Tower and Paris as a whole, I have to admit the Eiffel Tower was pretty all lit up. In the day, it's a brownish meta color, but all lit up at night it's gold. The beauty was ruined by all the people though—a million and a half people, and I'd say 80% of them were drunk or on their way there. They even managed to make the park at the foot of the Eiffel Tower unenjoyable (who knew a park could be unenjoyable?) by filling up every inch of it with either people or trash. So gross. And instead of little Eiffel Towers, the street kids were now shoving bottles of champagne, wine, and beer in my face. They swarm at you and like 4 of them will come at you at once. Besides being annoying, this is not a good business strategy. I felt like informing them they'd sell more if they spread out, but I don't think they really speak English. One guy saw us and said, “Lady Gaga, bling bling bling!” I'm not sure if he was calling me Lady Gaga or just saying whatever he associated with America, but I was not a fan either way. Anyway, the Eiffel Tower was really pretty but the people were not, and we hurry scurried out of there because people were drunk and getting rowdy and we don't even like crowds like that in our own country. We went back to the hotel and gathered up our stuff so the morning would be less hectic. We decided to leave by 6:30 so we'd have time to do stuff at the train station before the train left—we knew Cherisse and I would have to fill out immigration cards, since we're foreigners. We took a taxi to avoid trying to walk and catch buses and everything. It was hassle-free, but the taxi cost 10 cents per minute! I don't know if that's normal, but it sure seemed like a lot. But oh well, we got there.

It's good we got to the train station really early, because it turns out you have to go through security to get on a train. Who knew? We didn't have to from Germany to France, but apparently from France to London they're more antsy. It wasn't as strict as airport security, so it wasn't that bad, but the UK border control agent was grilling me and seemed pretty suspicious. I guess my 4'10” body, glasses, and 12-year-old boy outfit made him think I was a terrorist or something. Whatever, dude. Maybe he's just hyper-vigilant or maybe his shoes are too tight. Either way, I passed the test, he stamped my passport, and I'm now on a train to London, where I will catch another train to Doncaster, where we will walk to Catherine's house, where we will...I don't know what. Next week we're doing two days in Scotland and two days in London, but I don't know what we're doing Monday and Tuesday. We really want to go to Wales, but it might not be feasible. Catherine's dad got his car stolen Monday, so he obviously can't drive us, plus it's far. We might take a train, but that's pretty expensive, so we're not sure. I hope we do get to go, because I've always wanted to go to Wales. It's our ancestry! Plus we don't want to leave out Wales when we've hit the other three Celtic countries. But we'll see. Catherine was saying maybe we'd go to Cadbury World on Tuesday, which would be really cool—hello, real life Willy Wonka??--but that was before her dad's car got stolen, so...now we don't know. I'm sure we'll find plenty of fun things to do. Scotland is going to be awesome, and we're going to stand in line in London and hopefully get into the Olympics! We don't even care for what sport. I don't even care if we end up watching freaking table tennis—it's the Olympics! We're going to make USA shirts, because we didn't bring any and we can't go to the Olympics without proclaiming our patriotism!

Monday, July 30, 2012 (Frankfurt)

The first problem was Cherisse decided to bring her entire suitcase for the Frankfurt/Paris trip. She couldn't fit enough clothes in her backpack for the whole week (we did Germany Monday through Thursday and Paris Thursday to Saturday), so she brought everything she brought to England on the plane with us to Frankfurt. This irritated me a whole lot, because then we had to stand in line for her to check her luggage when we could've just gone with carry-on. Plus her suitcase weighs thirty pounds and we had to walk to the train station from Catherine's in the morning, because we took a train to London and then flew out of Heathrow. It was kind of far, like probably a fifteen minute walk, and lugging that thing was not easy. Then, when we got to Frankfurt, we had no idea how to get to our hotel and oh yeah, we don't speak German. The directions she had said it was a walkable distance from the airport, but we couldn't even figure out how to really get out of the airport, and we were walking around, dragging her suitcase, for like twenty minutes. She kept wanting to split up, which I kept saying was the stupidest idea on Earth, and we almost had a fistfight in the middle of the street. There was much screaming (both of us), much frustration (both of us), teary eyes (her), and some cursing (me). Finally, we went back in the airport and asked the info desk, who pointed us to a free shuttle from the airport to our hotel. Once we got to the shuttle, the ride was literally a minute. We probably actually could've walked if we could've found it. We were not speaking to each other at this point.

We got up to our room and found it was super super nice, which was a big plus. It's not like we were staying in dumps before—the hotel in Dublin was really nice, too, minus the no wi-fi in the room thing—but this one was probably one of the nicest hotels I've ever stayed in, and it was super cheap. We sort of settled in, and I wrote a long, fuming Facebook message to Mom complaining about Cherisse and telling Mom she'd probably only get one daughter back from this trip. I just wanted to scream and cry and go home. I didn't even want to go to Germany in the first place and it was a total disaster. I didn't even really want to go on the trip as a whole, but Mom and Dad didn't want Cherisse to go alone, and they were paying, and it's the kind of trip everyone says is “once in a lifetime” and “a great experience” and I sort of felt obligated to go, so I was super frustrated that I was so miserable. I loved Dublin, and we only got to spend two days there, and we didn't even get to leave the city and see the pretty part of Ireland, so I was mad that we had to go to stupid Germany instead of spending more time in Ireland.

We had calmed down somewhat by this time and needed to get something to eat, so we decided to venture into Frankfurt. The boy at the reception bar thing didn't speak great English, but his broken English and pantomiming told us how to get to the bus stop. We got to the bus stop and realized we had no idea which way town was and no way how to find out because everything was in German. Remember how we don't speak German? Cue more annoyance and frustration. My thoughts were sort of like: THIS IS STUPID. WHY AM I HERE? I DON'T SPEAK THIS EFFING LANGUAGE. I HATE THIS COUNTRY. I may have been overreacting just a tad. We ended up just getting on the first bus that came and riding it until we saw stuff that looked like places to eat. That's probably not the most street-smart way to do things, but we didn't really have much choice. We tried asking the bus driver where we were going, but he either didn't speak English or just didn't want to talk to us, and he charged us 4 euro each for the ticket. We were annoyed because the bus tickets in Dublin were only 2, so we didn't exactly love Germany at that point.

We got off the bus and wandered down the street. There were no food places. We were starting to get very frustrated and annoyed again, but we finally found a square thing with a bunch of shops. But then we couldn't figure out what people were selling because of the whole WE DON'T SPEAK GERMAN thing. I don't remember super clearly, but I'm pretty sure I angrily screamed that at Cherisse at least once every five minutes. We found a Chinese guy who was selling hot dogs (yeah, I don't know either) and bubble tea and both got hot dogs. Cherisse also ordered bubble tea, but when the guy was asking her what kind she wanted, we discovered there was actual tea in this bubble tea, unlike what we were used to. But we couldn't really understand what he was saying (his broken English was split between a German accent and a Chinese accent...it was weird) and ended up just getting the tea anyway, even though we had no idea what was in it. Sorry, word of wisdom. We didn't know what to do! It tasted good, anyway, so hopefully it wasn't too horrible for our bodies. The hot dogs were pretty good—Renae had told me they put mayonnaise on their hot dogs, so I was prepared for that, but it turned out to taste pretty good. Then we went to this organic, all-natural grocery store across the street (we're pretty sure it was organic, anyway...WE DON'T SPEAK GERMAN. But I'm pretty good at spotting hippie food, since I eat that stuff now.) and bought some plums for breakfast in the morning. Then we traversed our way back to the hotel, which included finding a bus stop that said exactly what our earlier ticket said, asking the bus driver if he was going to the airport (he stared blankly for a minute and then nodded yes), getting off at the airport—he literally went to the terminal—and taking the shuttle back to the hotel. While we were waiting for the shuttle, we met a girl from Canada and a girl from Boston who were both staying at our hotel. We talked to them for like five minutes, and they were normal-ish, and Cherisse wanted to give them our room number. Insert me rolling my eyes and sighing and shaking my head. We did not give them our room number. We watched some Olympics, but the commentary was in German, and the only thing on was fencing and weight-lifting, so we weren't super interested and had no idea what was going on.

Tuesday, July 31, 2012 (Germany day 2)

We got up in the morning and found our shuttle to Heidelberg with only one minor mishap (we were standing in the wrong spot, but we got to the right spot with plenty of time). But then the shuttle dropped us off at some random hotel in Heidelberg, and we didn't know where we were, and Cherisse's friend Luisa (with whom we were staying), doesn't actually live in Heidelberg, so she didn't know where we were or how to get to us, and we ended up wandering down the street, again, dragging Cherisse's heavy suitcase, again, and yelling at each other a bunch, again. But eventually we found Luisa (more like she found us) and found some lockers in the train station to lock up Cherisse's suitcase, since Luisa's house is an hour train ride and we couldn't exactly drop it off and come back, and went into the heart of Heidelberg.

It's a pretty big tourist spot, so there were tons of shops. We looked at stuff for a little while and then decided to go see this castle at the top of a hill. Literally at the top...and the hill was steep. But luckily it was just a hill and it only took like five minutes to get up there, so it was no big deal. We had to pay like 5 euro to get in, which annoyed me, because it wasn't even a whole castle—it was the ruins of a castle. But whatever. It was cool, but there were no info signs anyway, which was kind of a bummer. I like when they tell me what stuff was used for and stuff like that. I'm a nerd.

After the castle, we shopped for what felt like forever but probably wasn't. I'm not a big shopping person, so anything longer than an hour feels like forever to me. The only shop I chose to go into and got excited about was a running store, where I drooled over the shoes and almost legitimately blew 85 euro for a pair of new shoes. They were pretty fancy, so 85 euro was a good deal! Plus they were yellow—how could I not want them?? But we still had the whole Germany trip, plus Paris, and then all the time left in England and Scotland. And they were Nike—I've never run in Nike, but I've heard they're not great for distance running. They didn't look like they had great shock absorption, and I wasn't so sure they were wide enough for my super fat feet. So I decided to be practical and sadly put them down and left the store. I really only wanted them because they were yellow anyway.

We went back to Luisa's and went to the grocery store, where we stocked up on German chocolate. We spent the night in and watched some slightly strange Alan Rickman movie, because Cherisse is obsessed with him. I fell asleep. We had planned to go to some lake and leave at like 8.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012 (Germany day 3)

Well, we didn't get up until 8. And the lake was 3 hours away. So we decided to go on a hike and see another castle. Honestly, the appeal of castles has pretty much completely worn off for me. (We're stopping at the Harry Potter castle on our way to Scotland, but I'm pretty sure I'll still be excited for that. And we might go to the Downton Abbey castle. I'm down with that, too.) But the hike was awesome. It felt so good to be out of the city! I am not a city person at all, and that's all we've been doing—big cities. So being up in the mountains and smelling the dirt and the forest and feeling the sun and breathing fresh air with no cigarette smoke in it was so wonderful. And it felt nice to stretch my legs. We've done a lot of walking, but just city walking. This was hiking, and it felt so nice, even though I got super super sweaty. It took about an hour and a half to get up to the castle and another hour and a half down. Plus it was an hour bus ride both ways, and we spent time up at the castle, so the excursion took pretty much all day. We got back and ate dinner and cleaned up and then went to a pub for karaoke. I'd gotten used to the English and Irish version of a pub—more of a restaurant, but obviously with alcohol. But this was a bar. I've been in bars a good deal this summer, going to Mark's shows, but they're not exactly my favorite places.

This was super fun, though. Cherisse and I sang “Say My Name” by Destiny's Child and realized while we were up there that we really only know the chorus. Awkward. They had the words, obviously, but the verses have sort of awkward rhythm and we felt silly. It's probably less embarrassing when you're drunk. Luisa's friends were all really nice and her boyfriend and his friend sang like 50 songs. It was kind of hilarious. Cherisse sang another song with one of Luisa's friends, and they ended up getting third place—it turned out to be a competition—and Luisa's boyfriend and his friend won. The prizes were free shots, so Cherisse just gave hers to someone else. We stayed for like three hours. It was really fun, but I wish I would've taken my contacts out or something, because they were so dry I wanted to die. And after 11, they had to shut the doors and windows because of a noise ordinance, so it was SWELTERING. Everyone was sweating and jeez, people do not believe in deodorant. I sure wish they did.

Ireland

Saturday, July 28, 2012 (Ireland day 1)

We got up at 3 this morning to catch a taxi at 4 to the Manchester airport for our flight to Dublin. I didn’t sleep very well last night because I was worried about getting up on time, so I slept for the whole cab ride. I really don’t remember anything except I was slightly worried to fall asleep. The dude could totally have killed us without a second thought or anyone noticing. But I couldn’t stay awake. We got to the airport with like 2 hours until our flight, so we went through security (we got to keep our shoes on!) and everything and wandered around shops. I fell asleep on the plane, too. The plane ride was only like 45 minutes or something. So then we were in Ireland! We landed in Dublin but then we realized...we weren’t REALLY in Dublin. We were outside of the heart of Dublin. So we thought we’d walk into town. After about ten minutes, we realized the sidewalk ended and we couldn’t. So we went back to the airport and a nice Irishman helped us figure out which bus to take. We paid 12 euro for a ticket into Dublin city center with an open return included, which was great because we wouldn’t have to pay for a ticket back and we’d have a for sure ride back to the airport. On the bus, we realized how impossible it would have been to walk to Dublin. A. There was a “no pedestrians” sign and B. it took almost 40 minutes driving, so walking? Yeah, not so much.

We got into Dublin and decided to get some breakfast. By then it was about 10:30 I think. We found a store that was advertising a 4-item breakfast for only 3.95. Sounded great. We went in and it was like a swanky cafeteria, basically. So we went through the line and the cafeteria lady asked what I wanted. All I saw was unidentifiable fried stuff and lots of sausage and bacon. But there were little half Roma tomatoes with seasonings on them and beans, so I got that. She seemed confused that I didn’t want more but I said no. Then I grabbed an apple Danish and there was a fruit salad, so I loaded up a plate. 4 items. I get to the cash register and the girl tells me the fruit salad is 3.50. What? I only had 4 items. Nope. The 4 items applied to the fried stuff only. I paid 8 euro for one tiny tomato half, a scoop of beans, a Danish, and a little plate of fruit salad. This did not please me.

We wandered around O’Connell Street (the main central street) for a while, looking at shops and statues and stuff. We went into a touristy store and spent a long time looking around. We were all super tired from getting up super early and wandering around forever, but we couldn’t check into our hotel until 2. We had bought tickets for this hop on, hop off bus tour, so we rode that around for a while. We checked a map and thought if we got off on one of the stops, we could walk to our hotel from there. The tour was cool. The architecture in Dublin is amazing! A lot of stone buildings and cool colored doors. And obviously there’s a ton of history. But we were so so tired and freezing because it kept raining and the wind was blowing and the bus was a double-decker and we were on the top deck, which was open, so we were soaked. So we got to the stop we thought would take us to our hotel and started to get off. Luckily Catherine asked how to get to our hotel from there, because the bus driver looked at us like we were nuts and told us we were miles away. We had to get back on the bus, get off at a different stop, and take a regular city bus to our hotel. What? Not cool. So we did, but figuring out which bus to take was confusing and we were supposed to have exact change and we didn’t know what was going on. Eventually we found the 66 bus we needed and struggled through finding exact change for the fare. But then we realized we didn’t know which stop we needed to get off at. Our tickets said a street, not a stop number, but then none of the streets or the stops had street names anywhere. Apparently Dublin doesn’t believe in street signs. So we rode for a while and then a sign said we were heading toward Galway, which is a whole different city, so we got sort of freaked out. We went down and asked the bus driver if we needed to get off and he gave us this sort of exasperated look that said we were idiots and told us it was the next stop. Once we got off, he pointed in the general direction of our hotel, but apparently we were trying to go the wrong way or a dangerous way or something, because he stopped the bus again and pointed out the pedestrian path for us. Supes awk.

We finally saw our hotel, but there was a big wall around it so we had to keep walking to find the opening. Walking. Walking. Walking. Where’s the freaking opening?? We had to walk into this shopping center and then walk around to get to the hotel. By this time we were all tired and hungry and frustrated and annoyed. We finally got into the hotel. We got checked in and they handed us three room keys. We took the elevator to the first floor, because apparently Dublin also doesn’t believe in making your room number (343) match up with the floor. Floor one for a room in the three hundreds? Okay. We took a two hour nap and then tried to figure out what to do. Cherisse had booked us tickets to this traditional Irish show thing in Dublin. I really didn’t want to try navigating the bus again and going to some stupid party thing. I was tired and cranky. But she (well, actually, Mom) had already paid for it. So we paid another 2.15 for the bus and the nice bus driver helped us figure out where to go and even let us only pay 2 euro each because we didn’t have the right change. We found the exact pub it was at and had like two hours until it stated, so we found this convenience store thing and bought food. Cherisse and Catherine bought sandwiches, but they all had meat in them, so I bought a pastry and an apple. The pastry was called a flap-jack, but it was nothing like a pancake. It was oaty and full of different fruit and SO GOOD. The apple cost 50 cents. Seriously! For one apple. Is fruit hard to come by in Dublin or something? I don’t know what the deal is with their fruit being so expensive. But we were all much more cheerful with full tummies and it was a nice night and it wasn’t raining (at that exact moment, anyway). We wandered around and then went to the show.

I was grumpy about going to the show, but it was awesome! Super cool music and the guys were funny and talented and it was tons of fun. One of the guys were really cute, too. He played the illin pipe, which sort of looks like a tiny bagpipe but is pretty different. It’s the really distinctive sound in Irish music. You don’t breathe into it; you pump it with your elbow. And you play this pipe thing with your fingers but you have to use the palm of your hand to play chords on these other keys, all at the same time. It seemed crazy hard. We bought the CD of the band because they were so cool. And the Irish songs were pretty funny. Then we successfully caught our bus back to the hotel and were pretty proud of ourselves. We were sitting in the lobby using the wifi (our hotel didn’t have wifi in the rooms) and trying to figure out what to do for Sunday, whether we were going to church or what, and we were getting grouchy again. There was no way to figure out how to get to church because we didn’t know street names or anything. Cherisse wanted to go see the Cliffs of Moher, but it’s like 4 hours away and would’ve cost like 60 euro just for the way there. Mark said his group was going to Blarney Castle, so we were thinking of meeting up with them, but we weren’t sure how we’d do that.

While we were sitting there trying to decide what to do, this guy who was sitting by us also using the wifi asked if we wanted tickets for the red hop on, hop off tour. We'd gotten tickets for the green one and the red one was definitely better. It went to more places and a bus came right to our hotel at 10 every morning (or so he told us). He said it was for two days but he and his family were heading to London and couldn't use the tickets for the next day and asked if we wanted theirs. We said that would be great and he asked what our room number was so he could leave them at the front desk for us in the morning. That sort of sketched us out a little, because we didn't want to tell him our room number, so Cherisse just told him our reservation was under Gore and we hoped he wouldn't find us and kill us. So we decided to stay in Dublin and go along on the tour. We set alarms so we could be up early enough to check out and catch the red bus at 10 from the hotel and figured if he didn't actually leave the tickets we could just take the city bus and keep doing our green one. I kept tossing and turning because I was worried that guy was going to break into our room or something.

Sunday, July 29, 2012 (Ireland day 2)

Catherine woke us up and said, “It's 9:00.” None of us had woken up early like we'd planned. I hurried and took a shower and we rushed to get dressed and out the door. We made it to the lobby by 9:40 and checked out and went outside to find the bus. No bus. We stood around for a little while and then went back into the lobby and asked one of the desk clerks. The bus actually left at 9:40, not 10. The guy was wrong. That sucked, so we still had to pay our 2 euro for the city bus, but it was super nice of him to give us the tickets and the red tour was a lot better. I am 90% sure that the recorded narration on our tour was Allen Leech. I've done a lot of listening to his voice and he's from Dublin so I'm pretty sure it was him. I wish it would've been a live guided tour and he was the guide. We decided to just ride it all the way through before getting off anywhere, because we hadn't been all the way through yet. We saw more cool architecture and places of interest. Phoenix Park looked really cool. It's huge—twice the size of Central Park, according to Allen Leech. And we passed the American embassy and the home of the Irish president (also a white house...I think they even call it the White House). They don't plant any of the trees or flowers; they just let them grow naturally, except in one place. And the entrance has no gates. Apparently, legend has it that in the 30s there was a big Eucharistic conference going on at the park and the people in charge took the gates off to accommodate all the crowds, but then they did such a good job storing them they never found the gates again. And the first Irish president, who established the park, did it because he was a politician and a park ranger. Pretty cool. It got to the end of the tour and we stayed on for it to go back around so we could visit some of the stops we wanted to go to.

We went to Trinity College-Dublin, which is a big, old college. The grounds were super pretty and there were lots of statues and stones and everything that seems to be typical Dublin architecture. And (as Allen Leech told me on the bus), one of the provosts of the college (whatever a provost is), some guy named Lecky, had prophetic words: he said over his dead body would women be admitted to degree, and he died in 1903—the same year women were admitted to Trinity College. It sounds way cooler in an Irish accent. Allen Leech went to Trinity College, so I was excited about that. And he studied theater, which is in the same building as social sciences. We would have been in the same building if we had gone to school together! Cool. We bought some snacks from a vending machine. For some reason all the chips were cheese and onion flavored. We tried it—not my favorite. I bought a Mars Bar, but it's different than the Mars Bars we used to have in the States. It's basically just a Milky Way.

After Trinity College, we went to Dublin Castle. We thought it was free (Allen Leech said we could wander around the grounds for free!), and we were pretty excited about that because we didn't want to blow any more money. But then when we got in there, we found out that you can't go inside unless you pay for a guided tour. Lame. We didn't want to pay, so we just looked around at the cool architecture. We also got to go into a church on the grounds that super ornate and gorgeous. You couldn’t go into the actual church part, but you could look into the entryway. Really, really pretty. We walked up the street to Christ’s Church Cathedral, but it’s another one that cost money so we just looked around. As pretty as it was, I won’t lie, it wasn’t that different from everything else.

About that time, it started raining. Now, here's something we learned about Dublin: it rains on a schedule. It's like every half hour it will rain for ten minutes. Usually it's just sort of a drizzle, and all the buildings have little overhangs you can stand over until it stops. But this was not the light drizzle we'd gotten used to. It started pouring. We stood under some trees for a little while, because we weren't close to any buildings to stand under, but it wasn't super effective. St. Patrick's Cathedral was up ahead, and we wanted to go there anyway, so we booked it over. But there was a guy outside saying it was closed for about two hours because they were having services. Uuugh. Some guy in front of us went in, and it occurred to me we could probably go see the service, so I asked and he said yes, as long as we stayed for the whole thing. Done. So we went in and immediately saw one of the most impressive medieval-y looking churches I've ever seen. It was crazy—all stone bricks and stained glass and candles. It looked like a movie. It wasn't mass; it was something called evensong, where they just sing songs and read passages from the Bible. I was kinda bummed, because I've never seen Catholic mass and I really want to, but the evensong was cool. They handed us programs that told us when to sit and when to stand and when we should kneel. The pews had little cushioned bench things in front for when you kneel. I was surprised that the priest guy didn't actually preach...the program called it “lesson one” and “lesson two”, but all he did was read a few verses from the Bible and then the choir got back to singing.

After the service, we wandered around the cathedral. It was pretty awesome. They had a lot of history in there. There were memorials for people who had died and a bunch of memorials to different groups of soldiers. There was also this huge wooden door with a big hole in the middle and a plaque explaining that two families had been fighting (like the Hatfields and McCoys, I guess) and one of the families went to fight the other family, who was hiding behind their giant door. A guy in the first family realized that the bloodshed was pointless and wanted to declare a truce, but obviously the other family didn't trust him and wouldn't open the door, so he hacked a hole in the door and put his arm through as a show of good faith. It said that explains the expression “to chance your arm”, meaning to take a risk. I've never heard that expression, so it must be Irish or something. They also had the place where you could light candles, like I've always seen on movies (Rudy was the first one to come to mind), so I lit a candle. There was a sign saying something about the welfare of the homeless, so I lit a candle for the homeless. I'm a fan of social services and such.

We kind of spent too long in the cathedral and the gift shop, so then we had to hustle back to where we were going to catch our shuttle to the airport. It was raining again, of course, but this time it wasn't stopping. We got kind of lost wandering around, trying to find O'Connell Street. I don't know what Europe's problem is, but they're not huge fans of street signs. So we were wandering wandering wandering, getting irritated because we were hungry and tired and lost and trying to hurry so we wouldn't miss the shuttle because we (obviously) needed to get to the airport. We never actually made our way to O'Connell Street, but we found a different stop for the airport shuttle, and there was a sandwich place right next to it, so we got food and waited at the stop. Eating definitely eased the grumpiness and we got on the shuttle and everything was fine. I fell asleep on the shuttle (of course...I fell asleep on any ride that was longer than twenty minutes if I didn't have to worry about getting off at the right stop) and when we got to the airport, I made quite the commotion getting off. I sort of fell out of my seat, and then I didn't notice the step to get into the aisle, so I tripped going down that, and then I accidentally hit someone with my bag, and then I tripped again going down the stairs to get off the bus. I left Dublin with a bang, that's for sure. There's really nothing to report about the plane ride or the taxi ride back to Catherine's, because I was asleep for both.

We got back to Catherine's at like 11, unpacked our stuff, and repacked for Germany in the morning, then went to sleep. Traveling is tiring. I've been exhausted this whole trip. Part of it stems from not sleeping well, because I haven't been running. Not running has just thrown everything off for me. My emotions are a lot harder for me to control because I don't have running to mellow me out. I get grumpier way easier and I can't control my temper as well. This has caused a lot of friction between Cherisse and I when we're traveling, because security and planes and bus rides are already sort of stressful, so me being impatient and grumpy doesn't help. I honestly almost killed her in Frankfurt.

England, Days 1 and 2

Friday, July 27, 2012

We got to England yesterday. We left Wednesday at 1:00 and it didn’t actually take two days to get there, but we lost most of Wednesday because of the time difference. On the 9 hour plane ride from Portland to Amsterdam, I watched three movies (the Iron Lady, Big Miracle, and a documentary about a highschool football team called Undefeated). I didn’t really sleep, which was stupid. They fed us about 4 full meals, which was ridiculous! I do not need to eat that much. (But I did.) Then we had about a 3 hour layover in Amsterdam. The first thing I noticed was the undeniable smell of alcohol. Then body odor. Apparently Europeans aren’t so big on deodorant. The layover was long and boring and Cherisse kept wanting to leave the airport. (Obviously not gonna happen. Hello, stupidest idea ever. When you have a layover, you don’t leave the airport unless it’s like a day long. Plus we had to go through security again so it would take up more of our time.) By the end of the layover, it was noon local time and something like 4 am to our bodies. We were craaaaashing. I slept the entire hour and a half plane ride to Leeds. I was asleep before the did the video thing. One kind of annoying thing that happened was their seat numbering was weird, like ABE were together and CDF were together, so Cherisse and I didn’t end up next to each other. It didn’t really matter because we were both out the whole time. Then we slept for a lot of the drive back to Catherine’s house. I think it was like 2 hours? My sense of time wasn’t doing so hot anyway and falling asleep for most of it didn’t help.

They have kind of three stories to Catherine's house, with the kitchen, living room, and bathroom on the ground floor, two bedrooms on the next floor up, and just Catherine’s bedroom at the very top. The staircase is super narrow and steep and winds up and it’s kind of treacherous trying to find your way in the dark. I think Catherine said it’s a terraced house. The bathroom only has a bath, not a shower, and the hot and cold taps are two different faucets, so that seems interesting. I think I read about that in Harry Potter. Maybe it's a British thing?

We had fish and chips for dinner last night. They call the place you buy them a “chippy” but I kept accidentally calling it a fishy. I felt a little anxious when Catherine pulled them out of the bag because the paper it was wrapped in was literally dripping with grease. All I could think of was how bad that was and how I was going to feel super gross when I ate it and I hadn’t run in two days and I was going to smell like grease and fish. But I was kind of hungry, and it’s part of the British experience, so I ate some. They’re not crispy like American fries; they’re more like home-cooked fries because they’re softer. They were fine...I didn’t think it was spectacular, but I’m not really a fish person. We got a fish cake instead of the normal fish they give you, because they normally give you a fried fish. A literal whole fish. Cherisse and I couldn’t believe it. And the amount of food they give you is insane! So much food. After dinner Cherisse and I took like a two hour nap. Then we went on a looong walk with Catherine and her 13-year-old brother, James. We walked to this park that had an old Victorian mansion called Cusworth Hall. It was pretty cool but it was night when we got there so we couldn’t go inside. The walk was really pretty and it was nice to stretch our legs. We pretty much went to bed as soon as we got back. I was exhausted. I had made plans to run in the morning and James said he wanted to go with me, but the alarm went off at 5:40 this morning and I turned it off. I was so tired!

We got up and went to Scarborough today. It’s a town on the seaside. (The North Sea.) I took a bath--that was interesting. I was just trying to wash my hair and it was tough because of the water not mixing. I wanted to do it under the faucet so the water would be clean while I rinsed but the hot tap was too hot and the cold tap was freezing. I did my best and tried to be fast because it’s the only bathroom in the house. Catherine made us bacon and crumpets for breakfast. (I didn’t eat any bacon.) Crumpets reminded me of a cross between an English muffin (which isn’t really an English thing, turns out) and a pancake. Scarborough is kind of like Seaside, only way bigger. I think it’s probably comparable to beaches on the east coast, with shops all over and a boardwalk and all that. I had never been somewhere like that. The public bathroom had this sink that had a dryer attached, right in the middle of the faucets. (Apparently not having the hot and cold water mix is normal here.) We bought some donuts from a booth and they were pretty good. We walked around the shops and went into an arcade for a while. Arcades here aren’t really the same--instead of tokens, you use actual money. Their arcades are just full of gambling. It’s totally normal here. Cherisse and I blew about 15 pence (sort of like cents) on one game trying to win a Russian nesting doll. No dice. Then we went down and built a sandcastle and put our feet in the water for about one second--it was freezing! We walked around to some more shops and found this clothing store that was selling American and British flag spandex. Whaaa? Cherisse and I put them on in the dressing room and took pictures but we didn’t want to spend 5 pounds on them. But then we found another shop that was selling American flag shorts and we both bought a pair. They were still 5 pounds but we figured shorts were better than spandex. Then we bought some “candy floss”, AKA cotton candy. It’s exactly the same.

We stopped at a store called Morrison’s on the way back. It’s pretty much Walmart. Well, a Super Walmart. Cherisse and I were looking for phones so we can call each other if we get lost and we can get in touch with people we’re meeting up with and all that stuff. That Morrison’s didn’t have any so we had to stop at the one in Doncaster by Catherine’s house. We went there and spent like half an hour waiting for someone to help us and then pay 40 pounds for two phones. It’s not too bad. But then it took FOREVER to get the phones working. We had to “top up” before we could use them (fill up the pay-as-you-go thing with money) and that was a hassle because the shop didn’t take cards, only cash, and then we thought they weren’t working because Cherisse put the numbers in wrong so I spent an unnecessary two hours or so on the phone with customer service. Oh well. We’ve got them figured out now. We ate at a pub called the Sun for dinner. Again, everything was fried. I was pleasantly surprised to find the menu included vegetarian stuff, but vegan was basically impossible. I had salad, vegetable samosas (vegetables fried in like a wonton wrapped type thing) and these things called poppadums and dippers. I don’t even know how to describe poppadums. It looked like a big elephant ear, but super thin and white. It sort of tasted like mashed potatoes. The dippers (aka dipping sauce) were gross. I didn’t even eat them. One was a mango chutney. Catherine said chutney is like jam, but the mango chutney was sort of spicy. I don’t know how to describe it but I was almost gagging. And the other was some kind of ranchy type stuff but I didn’t like it. We also played pool at the pub. I was losing miserably--Catherine only had one ball left and I had only hit one ball--but she hit the 8-ball in so I won! It was pretty funny and this semi-drunk older couple was watching us and laughing.

We’re getting ready to go to Ireland tomorrow (technically today by now) and I’m pretty excited! Our taxi leaves to take us to the Manchester airport at 4. That’s in 4 hours. Yikes. Mark is in Ireland right now too and we’re hoping to meet up. That would be fun and we would feel super cool about being world travelers.