Carolyn Maher and the Pips
Trip Start
Feb 01, 2008
1
15
17
Trip End
May 31, 2008
Lourdes, France
Monday, April 14, 2008
After a quick dinner later that night, headed out to the train station for my midnight train to Paris. I'm going back to find, going back to fihhnd, oh a simpler place in time.
Now, before I left a particular academic situation arose that I was pretty peeved about. Namely we had our cinema midterm on Tuesday (the 25th) and in preparation for such, our prof had told us he'd give us a copy of Pedro Almodovar's Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown so that we could watch it a few times before the midterm. The midterm would be a clip from that film and we'd have to answer specific questions on it. He gave us the copies of the film Friday. I had no time to watch it (okay I could have done it Friday night, but I chose to make things impossible) and so tried to on the way back. On my train that left at 11:30ish and got in at 6:30ish.
A superstar, but he didn't get far.
My battery died about an hour into the film.
So I tried to get some sleep instead. And study for our cinema quiz scheduled for the same day as our midterm. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr.
The guy who sat across from me on the train back had a great leather jacket. Worn brown with a warm looking lining that had a dated-looking map of the US printed on it. Big black dots marked major cities with their names labeled next to their place. He took it off and used it as a pillow, with little bits of the states visible in the folds of the fabric. I secretly took pictures of him while he slept and I couldn't. As I reviewed the pictures, I realized that about an inch above Charleston was "Wilm-ton" the ing lost in the crease. There it was, home in that little awkwardly shaped state of North Carolina. Somehow was able to catch a few hours sleep after that discovery.
Pulled into Montparnasse already exhausted from the day I was about to face. Went home--tried to buy a bag of chips in the Metro vending machine but the damn bag got impossibly stuck as it fell. Got a second one to knock it out of its precarious place. I forgot that chips don't have much knocking power and the second one got stuck. So hungry and sucker-punched by the mother------- vending machine. I'm sure more than one eyebrow was raised when the travel-worn girl with bloodshot eyes and a giant backpack started hammering on the relentless machine from hell. I was so hungry. Some guy came up to help me and had just as much trouble. Someone one of them fell. The second one naturally. But the first one just stayed there like a giant middle finger saying, well, you know.
Fell into my room, finished watching Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and got 30 minutes of sleep before I had to go take my midterm. And quiz. I made it through that almost made it through grammar, but went home to sleep instead. Sleep is amazing.
Wednesday we had the best conversation class yet where we played an improve game. Someone made up a movie title, then another person made up the story, another person finished it and then two people had to act out a scene from it. Doubtless the best was from the feature-length film titled "Oų est le fromage?" about a mouse who eats all the cheese in a fromagerie. I got to play the shop owner who in our scene opens his store to find all the cheese gone and that a talking mouse has eaten it. In theaters this summer.
It was also, during this week that I had to decide where in the world I was going to go for spring break. Everyone was going to places like Greece, Italy, Amsterdam, Prague, Portugal and other fascinating places. But somehow, those places just didn't interest me. I didn't want to spend spring break hopping from place to place without really wanting to be there. One day, but not today. I want a vacation in my vacation.
So I decided to spend a few days in London and five days in Cork, Ireland. I miss English. The rest of break I'll spend in Paris and not have to worry about school, hostel security, lockout or missing trains and see Paris as it turns to May.
And the other country I've been wanting to visit since I took spanish in 5th grade I'll be visiting on our 5-day weekend after spring break. Espaņa. Andalusia with fields full of grain.--my favorite song.
