I have a short history of being pushed aside by celebrities. Brad Gilbert once stole my table. Lupe Fiasco and crew pushed us aside to get out of Old Campus.

In Paris, I was smooshed almost face to face with Chloe Sevigny as I was trying to the French pastry shop Laudurée (methinks). My sister said "I think shes an actress!" pretty noticeably while she was still inside.

Denise and the Sun

Mr. Sun and I don't always have the best relationship. Usually, Mr. Sun likes to hide behind clouds and rain no matter where I go...New Haven, San Juan, New York, St. Thomas, France, freaking Spain (it never rains in Spain!). But Mr. Sun is finally behaving and I'm just missing out on beautiful days outside b/c I'm pure lazy. Lazy incarnate. And now that I've rediscovered Sims 3 I've managed to cure my jetlag and went to bed last night at 4 am (pushed back from 8 pm, and in my defense I was reading stuff on reddit. more on that later).

I talked about how I gained weight on the trip. Well it seems I've gained even more since I got back. There's a number of things that could be contributing to this as well that I won't go into but mainly it's that I'm lazy lazy lazy (I know). My brother has taken it on to start jogging/running and told me that he's been following the Couch-to-5k challenge which is actually pretty neat! He told me to go ton the fitness thread on Reddit to read up on it and see what else they had on starting to do exercise. But seeing as how I've been completely inert for some time, I don't think I want to start by running for 60 seconds every 90 seconds for 20 minutes. That actually feels like a lot to me (especially since I hate running). So I decided I would start with walks. Walks on the beach. Walks on the beach that I never take because I'm a lazy lazyperson that doesn't take advantage of her surroundings.

I don't go down to the beach a lot because Mr. Sun doesn't like me and as soon as I put on sunblock he's like "Fine, you don't want me to burn you? I'm leaving" and it starts to rain. Plus when Mr. Sun is out its like it's raining hot needles. Feel that UV index. It's also just a giant project. Anything in my house needs to be approved and stamped forty times before we can step in the elevator. But I was determined to go on a walk this morning and did. My mother did protest.

I put on that can sunscreen which is much faster and easier and protects me pretty well (That's another thing, being the child of a dermatologist and my mother I was never allowed outside without 2 tons of sunscreen or "sonbloc." I never got burned as a child and aloe was foreign to me. Any sunburns later in life were from my own malapplication or lack thereof). I was going to take my Penn Chem bag with a towel keys and phone (also to stuff my flip flops in) but my mom saw me and screeched "DENISE, WHY ARE YOU TAKING A BAG? LEAVE THE BAG." So I left the bag. Attempt to leave house #2: "DENISE, WHY ARE YOU TAKING YOUR KEYS? YOUR BROTHER LOST HIS KEYS AT THE BEACH ONE TIME. LEAVE THE KEYS." So I left the keys. Can't possibly be detained further can I? No bags no keys? Attempt to leave house #3: "DENISE, LEAVE YOUR FLIP FLOPS. WHY ARE YOU TAKING YOUR FLIP FLOPS? LEAVE HERE YOU'RE GOING TO LEAVE THEM IN THE SAND." Finally to this I responded that I was not 2 years old and that I could keep track of my $2.50 Old Navy flip flops. As I was heading down the stairs..."DENISE. USE THE ELEVATOR. USE THE ELEVATOR NOW IT'S FREE." Just keep going down those stairs...

Eventually made it outside. Instantly regretted not bringing a hat or sunglasses. But it's a beautiful day and I'm totally like dude what am I doing playing sims all day? Totally. So I walked a while eastwards where the beach gets sort of nicer. I passed the sea turtle nests but I didn't really notice them because I had to keep my eyes down in order to see anything at all (sun got better later). Oddly enough I didn't feel any sun-needles. I also saw about six different people with metal detectors on the beach. I thought they only did that on Spongebob!

So on my way back I did what Denise does not typically do: talk to random people. I asked one of the girls with a metal detector if it was hers or if she and her father had rented them or something. They were in fact their metal detectors. Turns out the like to walk around with those for fun and they occasionally find change and other loose bits. Sometimes there's a profit the girl said. Then I walked past some tourists (you can tell by the unnatural tan and ridiculously skimpy bathing suit in the middle of a week day. had it been a weekend I might have thought twice. Also they were next to a hotel. I was justified). Anyway, awkward tourists aside I came across a weirder sight...There was this girl in a weird 2-piece get up. The top was like shocking coral and the bottom looked like some outdated bathing suit from those old Angelina Jolie photoshoots from the 80s. They don't match, doesn't matter. Like a cow's opinyun. What was strange was that she had a cat. On a leash. On the beach. A wet cat on a leash on the beach covered in sand. She left the cat on the beach as she went for a quick swim and I tried petting the cat when I walked by. The girl got out of the water and Denise did the strange thing again and talked to a stranger. We talked a bit about pets and how she used to be a dog person but now she loved having her cat. "Cats have personalities. Dogs are like your bitch you know? You give a cat shit and it reacts. A dog, no. A dog takes whatever. Because it's your bitch." It was funny how she talked because we were essentially conversing in Spanish but she kept saying things in English, like "bitch" and "personality" and other random words that I don't usually use. I'm just astonished whenever I meet other locals that use more English words in Spanish than I do (Just to clarify: Freshman year Linna asked me if I spoke real Spanish. Yes I do, and I speak it quite well with proper if foreign-to-yous pronunciations, maybe a bit fast, and grammatically correct. But I went to an English-language school and studied in the states, and I use English words a lot more in Spanish than I used to. I can still speak proper Spanish, but my speech is more like my handwriting nowadays: half cursive half print. Anyway, not all schools teach English very well in PR so I'm constantly surprised when I meet locals that I know didn't go to one of these schools and use more Anglicisms than I do).

Kept walking home and decided to go in the water for a bit. It was actually warm. If you thought waters in PR in May were warm, you have no idea what warm is. Waters in August are niiiiiice. The current was pretty strong and I felt like I was being dragged in a lot so I didn't go past my waist and got out after just a bit.

I don't think I'll ever get tanned if I use that 45spf spray-sunscreen. Also I think that spray damaged my contacts because I'm having a really hard time seeing. It's all blurry!

Quick Note: Photos

Since we've been back everyone (internal, as in siblings) has been asking to see photos. Send me this one and that one. David sent my dad an email from England (he's at another pre-olympic regatta over there) asking for the pictures of him in front of the Arc de Triomphe, photos of him in the water, photos of him at the Eiffel Tower, and every other photo in which David is present. David is really demanding, but I do't think it's the magnitude of the request that has my dad kind of miffed. In order to get the coveted photos, my dad would have to take the time to get out his camera gear, look for the Scan Card (I think?) adapters, and then sort through hundreds of pictures. He uploads them using a file wizard and because it's a pretty nice camera, the files are huge. Which means it takes a while to transfer them all to his laptop. Then more time looking for David's pictures, picking out which ones are worth it (he doesn't need the 10 different shots I took of him ironically "supporting" the Arc de Triomphe like it was the Tower of Pisa...just the one). AND THEN comes the even more annoying part of sending them. If David were here, it would be as simple as finding him and my dad at the same time in the same room to transfer the files on to a jump drive. But David is in the UK so my dad would have to send them via email or Facebook or some other file sharing site and that takes sweet sweet time and computer/internet power.

Madeline amongst birds.

We didn't take that many pictures with my dad's fancy camera anyway. We hardly took pictures at all. That camera is heavy and annoying to carry (plus it's just asking to be stolen) and I always feel like I'm going to break it. Now, we've all been taking photos and videos with our iPhones. The quality is passable, not that great in darker surroundings. You know, it's a phone camera. Definitely better than some of the first digital cameras that I had but still on a phone. No lens, limited zooming/speed/aperture abilities. It's a handy tool to have. But really it's all I need.

Hands down one of the cutest pictures ever. Taken at Spring Fling.

Half the pictures I took are somewhat blurry...but you wouldn't be able to tell by looking at it on my phone. Maybe even on facebook. And that's just the thing. We can take giant 10MB pictures but unless you're a professional photographer no one is going to see that resolution. So really, iPhone and other cell phone cameras are replacing other digital cameras for a reason. They're integrated, convenient, and on devices designed for sharing. You could have your super awesome +$1000 camera but unless you're into it (not saying people aren't...because they are. and they're nice toys, not gonna lie) and are willing to put time into editing and resizing and organizing and printing and moving around no one is going to see those photos. So that camera is essentially useless. I don't have that time. My dad certainly doesn't have that kind of time. The photos that my dad takes on his camera only he sees when they show up as his screen saver. I have yet to see the pictures from my prom or any of my brothers' proms and graduations (I know you guys find this weird).

Display at the AMNH in NYC. Look at them crazy creatures!

So crappy camera or not, the camera I have used the most has been the one on my iPhone. Other people actually see those pictures. It's so much easier to post them online or email them. They're smaller and easy to resize. Also, I'm not denying that my laziness and otioseness features in my bias.

Beach. Ahhhh. Taken at Rio Mar.

Paris, take 2

I am such an overemotional wimp.

Today was cold cold cold then hot hot hot.

La Ville-Lumière

Finally, Paris. We got here late, went to dinner late, and I had my first onion soup in the entire trip. David is the only one of us that hasn't been to Paris before so we walked around with him a little bit. We're close to the Rue de Rivoli which runs along the Louvre and other sights. There's a big fair mounted up in the Tuleries gardens. We couldn't see much but we kept walking until we got to the site of the Louis Philipe obelisk. All the famous buildings in Paris are lit up. On one, only the French flag is illuminated (David called it awe inspiring). After probably the most stressful afternoon of the trip (hard to believe, even after such a nice morning) I got here wanting to leave and never come back. Go hide in a hovel. Standing there by the obelisk and the fountains looking at the Arc de Triomphe, some random Romanesque buildings...I couldn't stay mad at Paris for too long. And the temperature is just right. I felt like I was at Epcot when I was little waiting for the fireworks. We walked around there in complete darkness just looking at the pretty lights on a crisp cool evening.

Of course, on our way back I stepped on a wad of gum that is still on my shoe.

Stupid gum glob or not, I'm sad. I tell myself I'm mourning what this trip could have been. A nice opportunity to see a different country with family. But since everything with my family is so complicated and strained and difficult, I really can't enjoy myself. It has a lot to do with how wound up I am about anything in life and how relaxed is not my normal state. So to me, all of this traveling feels like one giant waste of money. Why pay to travel to an expensive foreign country with a better coin and strange food where I'll be three times as stressed as I am during October at Yale? Trips make me feel trapped and childish with a complete lack of independence. I don't even have any money on me. Did you hear that petty thieves? Now is the time to steal my bag because I left my kindle in the room and my bag is *empty*. Seriously. I don't have even a Euro centime. I have an American Express card (cue laugh track).

So now we're in Paris seeing it at night quietly and calmly. I finally feel like I'm in that magic pretty city we've all heard about. Not the dusty oven that I saw before. And I'm sad because we're only here three days. I'm sad because it looks like I won't be traveling for a really long time (especially since traveling with my family is rapidly running out of the picture). And even though I felt warm and happy hugging my mom while David looked around and felt all inspired, I'm sad because I'm not here with someone else. When I was little, I thought it was written in stone that I would study abroad in Paris once I got to college. I would eat cheese, perfect my French, dress à la mode française. Of course, my predictions have been wrong before (I didn't have a big poofy quinceañera dress with a party and the requisite boyfriend that all quinceañaras have to have as viewed by my preteen eyes). But this one felt like it was going to happen and was within my reach. And now I've lost that feeling.

Tomorrow I will feel really happy at some points and incredibly miserable at others. I'll most likely think back on this moment and realize that I'm exaggerating. But...maybe I've jumped too soon into grad school.

Poitiers

UPDATE: I wrote this on my phone and it has auto-correct errors and all sorts of funky stuff. Don't care enough to fix it, :P

We stopped overnight here in Poitiers after getting really lost trying to find this hotel. This city or town is about as far north as La Rochelle but further inland as we're making our way to Paris. The weather is lovely now-cool in the shade and getting rather warm in the sun! I greeted this weather by trying to wear Bermuda shorts only to realize that France and Spain and croissants have taken their toll on me. This is so different from my other vacations. Usually it's not that I eat less but I don't snack as much and walk around a lot more. I blame France. And croissants.

So last night we ate really late around ten pm. I'm still not used to eating dinner during the day time. Even after Yale. Mads knows very well that I feel really strange ordering a pitcher cocktail drink at eight pm when the sun is still out making fun of all of us mere mortals. Regardless we walked around a bit and my mom declared "no me like it. No me like it Poitiers" which got me a bit upset (I'm not a fan of judging). This morning I just wanted to get out of here. Even skip out on Notre Dame la Grande which is the main sight here. My mom and I set out to walk and got the biggest surprise of our trip. The weather is beautiful...and so is Poitiers. We saw a lot of construction (my mother insisted that it meant the town sucked while I said it meant the town was alive. I won) but beyond a few streets of rubble we got to a series of nice cobblestone pedestrian streets with...affordable stores! We bought berets. Yes. Berets. One for me and one for Nati. I never thought I would but I now own one and it shall keep my head warm in harsh new England winters.

We got to the main plaza around the church we wanted to see. The church has to be my favorite. We've seen some crazy ones but this one is so old and elegant. It's designs are mostly Moorish in influence. Aside from the windows which are more traditional stained glass the church looks a bit like a mosque with brightly colored geometric designs on plaster. Every column was different. We got there at noon for midday mass by mistake but stayed for a while. That's the first time I've been to mass since I don't know when. It was strangely nostalgic. Church always sounded like a foreign language to me anyway. I took a video which I guess I'll post eventually. It was so surreal with those columns and debris. The dimly lit church. I think we're actually going to stick around a bit more.

We bought white nectarines.

Internet Woes

updating by Kindle by email. No internet in Spain. Its still
raining. We're all sick and discovered that pills here are not coated.
Yuck. Also finished A Dance with Dragons. wowow.

La Rochelle

La Rochelle is a small port town on the western Atlantic coast of France. My dad constantly says "These are the waters that the Americans sailed up to for their invasion on D-Day. This is the English Channel and that in the distance is England." This is why you can't believe a thing my dad says. We are hundreds of miles from the cliffs of Normandy. However, boasting about my geographic knowledge only lands me as the navigator and thus blamed for any sort of road/direction mishap. So I try to keep things to myself. Anyway, La Rochelle was an important port town for France until it was burned and sacked by the British at some point (hah, remember what results you get when you google "French military victories"?). Evidence of other sea attacks and battles or invasions is present throughout the town.

Along the city walls is a canon ball presumably from some attack and the largest church boasts architecture from different ages.

The church was built first to replace a Roman style church (if I remember correctly). It was burned down and only the bell tower and part of the façade remained. The rest of the church was rebuilt in a different style. When you enter through the doors of the narthex you can see the rubble and ruins of a previous archway. Regardless it's still been a major center for the French navy and it has an interesting system of locks and gates to accommodate its various marinas.

Walking around the town is pretty easy. It's a small inner town and there are several streets for only pedestrians. One of these was a tiny little alley (Allee de Canards, I think, Alley of Ducks). What did we find there? None other than a Cuban cafe-theater called Mojitos. Cubans, they're everywhere. There are also these quaint little light houses, one green and one red, that used to guide sailors into the port. I'm not sure if they still light up since it stays light out so late. Shopping is really the same here as it is elsewhere. My main purchases were postcards and some concealer from Sephora. My adventure at Sephora has actually been one of the highlights of my trip since the girl that was helping me out didn't speak any English or Spanish so I really had to work out my French. I got what I needed in the end and probably creeped her out after thanking her a zillion times. It's still a bit awkward for me, however, that people here say hello and goodbye to you when you enter or leave a store. It's not that strange since a lot of them are small but what I usually say when I leave (if it's a small store) is something along the lines of "Thanks" or "Si, gracias" in response to "come back soon!" Here it's all bonjour and au revoir. I use "goodbye" and "adios" so infrequently that I hardly know how to use them anymore.

Another interesting encounter was on our first day here. I spotted a guy wearing a Yale Bulldogs sweatshirt. I'm a Yalie through and through, you see, and I can recognize the Yale bulldog and Yale blue from quite a ways away. I pointed him out to my mom who told me that I should ask him if he was a student even though both of us thought he probably wasn't. So I didn't because I thought it would be awkward.

Later we stopped by a candy stall where we bought banana and strawberry gummies and one of those alligators. Some sour key thingies too. Just as we've paid I turn around and find myself face to face (or bulldog since the kid was really tall and the bulldog was at my eye level) with the kid. I had to ask there was no excuse! Surprise surprise, the guy is not a Yalie, nor is he American. What he is is a Dutch teenager on vacation with his family (neither parent was anywhere close to how tall he was. He definitely didn't fit in the little candy tent). He had bought the sweatshirt in Holland along with some other US school jackets. I showed him my humble little Y for Yale on my jacket (which I've been wearing every single day since it's soooo cold) and he asked me if our mascot was really the bulldog. "So this is what they call you?" He took off his outer coat (seriously it's been that cold. These people were Dutch and freezing) to reveal "Bulldogs" printed in caps on both sleeves. I didn't laugh but it just seems so ridiculous to me that some Dutch kid decided to buy an ostentatious Yale sweatshirt with no intentions of seeing the school (he didn't know where it was. I don't blame him but he was wearing the sweatshirt, come on). This is just one example of the ridiculous euro-fashion where patterns and prints and excessive details are still in. It reminds me of German dude in my chem class who frequently wore printed shirts and pre-torn, pre-bleached jeans with even more decorations. American gaydars don't work in Europe. I've also seen about four different people wearing Franklin & Marshall shirts and jackets. Somehow I get the impression that these were bought because it sounded like a brand...maybe like Abercrombie and Fitch? One of these people I saw coming out of a residence so I'm pretty sure he's local and didn't go to school in Pennsylvania.

One of the water locks. Very steam-punkish

I'll write another post on La Rochelle later on since we walked the city again today. There's this giant beautiful aquarium that we didn't go see because we were too tired. I'm tempted to feel bummed but hey, there's always Sea World! Also coming up: FOOD (I was going to make an acronym with that but realized that if I used "oral" which I basically had to if I was going to make it about food it would sound really sketchy) and our day trips to Rochefort, Cognac, Ile de Re, and Meschers and Talmont.

We leave for Spain tomorrow morning and I don't know how internet will be. And my sister has also TAINTED US ALL so we've all got the sniffles. I want to take the cold medicine we bought here (the gooood stuff as my mom says, since it has pseudoephedrine) but it might knock me out beyond the point of waking up at a reasonably early time tomorrow.

Scene from the food market (La Marché). More on this later... I have to feed you pictures or else you wouldn't make it through my posts, n'est-ce pas?

France: Getting There

The next few entries are going to be about my stay here in France (and later Spain? Unclear). They'll be divided up a little bit, following my friend's friend's travel blog. That seems like a fairly good way of keeping things in order. And I don't have too much time to write giant entries anyway. So here you go: Getting there.

As some of you already know, we had a rough time of getting to France. Our flight was canceled and we took a detour through London which essentially took 12 hours longer. Given that we spent so much time in the Miami airport, I went to as many stores as possible looking for a kindle case. After I had dropped it a few times, I decided it needed protection. I did not spend an entire day negotiating with UPS and bugging the Yale Summer Office and finally chasing down a UPS truck all the way across downtown New Haven to lose my kindle because it got squished in my backpack. No inky screens for me. So when we were switching terminals (the result of switching our flight to British Airways) I would stop at every store asking if they had kindle covers. One did but it was for Kindle 2 so my wee bitty kindle would fall out. BUT, London is really spiffing up its airport for the summer Olympics. London-Heathrow is essentially one giant shopping mall. The only downside to this place is that each terminal in itself is fairly small so there aren’t too many gates per terminal. This means that you have to wait in a common waiting area until 30 minutes before your flight when a gate will finally be assigned for your flight. Luckily, the first store I went into had an entire collection of M-Edge Kindle covers of varying sizes and pocket quantities. I bought a simple one with just a cover, no straps or buckles or pockets, which is hot pink and matches my bag. It really was one of the two colors that was available for that style, but I might have chosen that color anyway. I think I’ll get an amazon one with an integrated light later on, but for now this is good. I said it was lucky that the first store had covers because at that point I was running on something like less than four hours of sleep over a weird 30 hour period and having slept very little before that (curse you late night packing!). We sat down in the common area and all proceeded to slump forward and fall asleep on our backpacks. I think that weird nap was what got me through the six+ hour drive to La Rochelle.

Last time I was in France, which was six years ago, it was one of the hottest summers of my life. When Europe gets hot, it’s dusty and stuffy and smelly. I don’t mean to group all Europeans under one stereotype, but it is very true that a larger population of Europeans do not wear deodorant/antiperspirant which leads them to smell. Luckily I have my Burt’s Bees lip balm so whenever I get an unfortunate whiff of someone’s BO, I pull out my lip balm and smell it. The mint smell is so strong that it has an astringent effect.

Well this time around, the people are likewise as smelly (although maybe fewer than last time) but it’s freezing. It’s been in the fifties at times! What is this? Ceci n’est-ce pas été? I don’t even know if I wrote that right but the point is that it is summer and I should not be wearing long jeans every day (I don't want to hear about me writing things here in French. It's just a few words and by now browsers are pretty good at translating. I'm looking at someone in specific here). Especially since I brought two pairs and I refuse to wear the other one because I wore it all through our 24+ hours of travel to get here. Those other jeans are basically falling off and smell like plane, probably. The problem is that these other jeans, although dark, will get dirty and I’ve already spilled some chocolate on them. I tried to wash it off but instead the towel came out blue. I don’t know if I got the chocolate or not. It’s also been raining a lot. La plui, the rain, it follows me everywhere. I feel like the rain god in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Next time: Pictures of La Rochelle and maybe some anecdotes!

Blue checkered-print sunglasses

I saw this and laughed out loud:


Madeline didn't hear me because she is a-nappin'!

I'm currently in New Haven. I left San Juan early Tuesday morning (flight left at 6 AM). I was really tired (and still am tired) but I think it's worth it because there are few things that irk me more than losing an entire day because of travel. If you can avoid spending all day traveling...you should. I'm really glad I took this trip and got to see many good friends. New England is beautiful (but pretty hot, meh whatevs) in summer and walking around New Haven makes me really nostalgic. I miss last summer and just Yale. It's funny because often I feel completely detached from Yale and as if I could just leave that time behind me (which, of course, is silly nonsense). It's really easy to lose sight of good times and friendships when Yale held some of the most difficult and stressful points in life. When you're here during summer and not under the constant pressure of exams and papers, it's much easier to focus on the positive. Hence the feel-good-ness of this little paragraph.

I spent Tuesday-Friday at Steph and Val's home in New Jersey. I really have to thank their family, their Mom, especially. I had a great time and was never once hungry :D (this is my main concern at home...survival-by-scavenge first, then social interaction). We played laser tag and mini golf with Anthony and Timmy. "Solo sole" Steph lost a shoe when she accidentally stepped in a bit of mini-golf pond in an attempt to rescue Val's golf ball. It's okay because she went on to win the game. There were some pretty spiffy pars and more than one or two occasions where some of us were forced to "take the six." The six was either an earned six or an undeserved six (ie. you had putted the ball six+ times and just gave up after the third time it landed in the water. Or if you just guided the ball into the hole because there were people catching up...that's it). However, probably THE MOST IMPORTANT THING...I saw a bunny on the course! I totally forgot I had seen a bunny until Steph and Val reminded me a few days later. I also saw a chipmunk, some Canadian geese, a turkey vulture (haha yes it's real), some really adorable deer nomming on grass, and turtles-on-a-log(!).

Went to a free skate session. We also met up with Anthony, Cori, and Erin. I really enjoyed playing speedmiton :P and blongo and Telestrations which is sort of like telephone meets pictionary.

Let's see...We did a lot of stuff this week. Friday we spent in the city where we went to the Central Park Zoo and then the Museum of Natural History. I swear, I've been to the AMNH before but I somehow missed the marine life center and the biodiversity hall and basically the first three floors. I had seen dinosaurs there and maybe some halls of North American mammals. We saw the mineral hall which is always one of my favorite areas in museums.

Now I'm in New Haven and what I can say is good people good food. In fact, this entire trip can be summarized by great people and great food. It's really nice to see friends again and not scavenge around in my kitchen (my typical lunch at home is one or two Kellog's bars, some cheese, and toast. Oh, and maybe some fruit snacks). When Madeline and I went to Mia's last night our waiter brought us a complimentary miso soup and then a free sake bomb which we drank at the same time with the (Korean?) girls that were sitting in the adjacent table. When we first sat down, I kept making faces at how ridiculous the waiter was with these girls and how he started bringing them free stuff (on the house Tokyo Fro and Miso Soup). I thought that he might have caught me making faces which led him to bring miso soup but I think he was just nuts. Somehow Madeline and I ate everything. And drank everything. It was good :D Earlier I went to Seoul with Ben, had some stone pot bi bim bap and now I know how to say thank you in Korean: "Kam sam ni da" ... at least that's my romanization of it. Ben was speaking Korean up and down all over the place but I felt pretty proud of my "thank you" at the end, haha. Then we went to FroYo World where I sort of, kind of, maybe accidentally served myself $6-something worth of froyo and toppings.

Linna and Madeline and I made it all the way to the Pantry this morning for breakfast. We got there super early, but alas! there was already a wait. Regardless, it wasn't too long before we got to sat down. We all had eggs benedict and some peach pancakes. After we left I thought I was going to pass out on the sidewalk from so much eating.

The days are so long and we've done so much that I feel like I've been here much longer. I like the eternal feel of summer when it's still summer. But it's so sad at the end when you realize that the days are dwindling, the winds are picking up, and you'll stay in one day and emerge to a landscape of autumn trees. True story.

Peace, yo. My kindle gets here tomorrow :>

The bitterest bitter melon

I got back to San Juan Sunday evening. Sailing went well. We were essentially running away from some really heavy rainfall that was following us westwards. So other than my boring zillion-get-them-out-of-the-way doctor's appointments, I've also been to Costco a billion and two times.

We've had a house guest, Canche (which apparently is a slangy way of saying Blondie. That's obvs not her real name) from Guatemala. On Monday, the Brazilian coach flew in (his wife flew in today, but I haven't seen her. They're both moving in to my grandmother's apartment). I think on Tuesday the other Guatemalan kid flew in. I say kids but both the guy and Canche are 22 (we're all old, aren't we). I tried being nice and friendly. I don't think I necessarily failed (I wasn't mean) but it's tough being quiet and only being able to talk about school and things olympic sailors don't care about. I'm listening to them yell while playing XBox (we've got a ton more people here today, more stinky salty sailors). It's funny but it's the kind of thing where I would like to join both for fun and to make friends. Right? Wrong. I'm too awkward for this, apparently. The result is that I feel like a stranger in my own home.

Earlier today, apart from starving, I was learning how to play Beethoven's Sonatina in F minor. I felt like everything I was playing was too happy so I looked for something in a minor key. This was the only one and it's pretty epic, honestly. And not beyond my grasp! Here's a video:



In other news, my mother hates me. I am the only one of her children that has taken any sense of responsibility and direction in life. Yet I am the inconsiderate one because I help her do all her shopping, cleaning, dealing with her manias, taking care of my sister, etc. Meanwhile, my brothers are playing XBox. Well, they have company. But some of you know what happens when I have company.

A cool rock I found on the beach. You might not be able to tell but it's black and green.

I borrowed this book from the yacht club. It's essentially an Arab version of Gossip Girl/Sex and the City.

This boat is moving a lot.

Blogging zombie excellence

Ok. I know I can be amazing. I did just post images from this morning using my phone. However they didn't have a frame. Now they do. Why? Because I was able to ignore my reading small letters headache long enough to find out how.

But that's about all I'm willing to do to fix my blog. I could fix the order of photos on the last blog..,or I can let you figure it put until I have a real computer at my disposal.

Ciao babes.

St. Thomas and Christmas Cove

Here are a few pictures taken this morning. We're currently moored at Christmas Cove on the greater St. James island. As far as I know it's uninhabited. The beach is a bit rocky but the water is calm.

This is a cay close by. I want my dad to take me there so we can see some wildlife:

Our pirate neighbors (infinitely better than our nudist neighbors yesterday. Ick.):

The bow (front) of the boat. Proa in Spanish:

Christmas Cove. I have yet to walk those rocky sands:

I'm a little bored but I don't think my dad would be too happy if I swam to the shore by myself right now. My niece and her friend did that yesterday (my friends are all lucky ive never inflicted the pain of a seven hour upwind sailing trip. I don't get sick but you can bet that a newbie will. My neice, nephew, and their friend all got nauseous in the original meaning of the word.) I want to put sneakers in ziplock bags and bring them to shore for some exploring.

My dad and I are just chilling here while my sister and her family watch my nephew sail. I think I have the better deal (shade!) but I'm hungry and they'll get to go on land for a hot lunch whereas we'll have a cold meal most likely. Yesterday I ate cold hotdogs. Not hotdogs that were hot and then left outside. Hotdogs that were fridge cold! Unpleasant indeed.

See you later, mon.

Boats, blood tests, and Barea

I'm blogging from my phone, fearing for my life as my dad drives us to Fajardo. I'm leaving with my dad and my older sister's family for St. Thomas today. I almost didn't come along because I nearly fainted this morning after getting a blood test. This was five tubes!! I'd also been fasting for close to twelve hours (I woke up late XD). It was really scary. After the tubes I felt fuzzy and then noticed that I was seeing spots. I began to see less and less and soon I was feeling feverish and freaking out. They made me eat some candy and sniff smelling salts. It's just a really pungent smell. I'm ok now. I had a Pinky's sandwich and smoothy. Just and necessary.

As for Barea, he's the PR player on the Dallas NBA team and he just flew in today. There was a caravan and the highway was paralyzed (worse than the Obama visit because we couldn't do anything so no one did anything). We're out of that now, and I saw Barea.

I should have service in St. Thomas. I don't see why not. But I might not when we're on the high seas (actually the USVI are only a few miles away. Three hour ferry or six hour sailboat ride). So I think I'll be fine in terms of the ride but the boredom might get me.

Peace out!

Lines from Britney's song were too inappropriate to use as a title

I do this "thing" where I go through old entries in my blogs and journals and reminisce. I mean, that is what they're there for, n'est-ce pas? Recording our every move and thought. Very meta. And it is that act of browsing through memories past that gets me in the mood to continue documenting my life...bit by boring bit! As it sometimes turns out, the more interesting things in life do not make good blog fodder. I occasionally google my name and usernames to make sure that my name isn't tied to anything embarrassing. What is terrifying about that is how good I am at digging up stuff and connecting my name to different web aliases. How do my searching skills compare to those of others?

I mainly wanted to write about the last entry I put in here. It was a wee bit depressing. I did end up crying during graduation weekend. I never thought I wasn't going to cry (because crying is what I do, yo) but I guess when I wrote that I just couldn't imagine the end-of-Yale situation and thus the end-of-Yale feelings. But they kicked in after that. They led me to become quite fond of Britney's "Till the World Ends" song and video:



You know, because leaving Yale is akin to the world ending. I'm a sucker for last chance nostalgia, as much as I don't want to believe in firsts or seconds or thirds or lasts (as in, why be upset if the first time you went to New York city was a disappointment if you supplant that memory with a future, better experience?).

Although summer has been quite boring at times, it hasn't been not-busy. But for those not-busy, boring times writing here wouldn't be such a bad idea. As Carla and I talked about, writing in a blog helps you focus on brighter and more interesting aspects of recent haps. It can also help improve writing and communication skills...but most importantly it gives you something to do. You can also work out your party stories before hand to have them ship and shape and ready to deploy in awkward social gatherings!

(O-oh ohx5 Oh-oh! O-oh OHx5 Oh-oh!)
(Britney fever)

The zombie moves north

Among April showers and with May right around the corner, graduation will soon rear it's ugly head. Although, as I was telling Stasha earlier today, there are moments (like today's) in which I just want Yale to be over. I want to get over this part of my life. I've made all the friends I'm going to make. We all want to get on with exciting new segments of our lives. I'm moving ever north to the great red school where I will probably betray my entire training as a chemist and turn to something organic.

I'm the most exotic friend I'll make (and believe me I don't think I was friends with myself before). I'm done with Yale's sleepless night's (say hello to Harvard sleepless nights). There won't be more significant encounters, only a close encounter which is the horrible mindset that takes over when there are a lot of people and a lot of events crammed into a short period of time.

More time I spend at Yale is more time for things to go wrong.

So I'm sad. I'm happy. I'm confident I'll finish. I'm confident I'm vain. I'm confident I will not like any of the pictures that will go up.

These past four years have been my happiest, only because I feel like every year I leave behind me was a shame or a waste so I think that next year, with a fresh start, I'll pull it all together.

--

Bright College years, with pleasure rife,
The shortest, gladdest years of life;
How swiftly are ye gliding by!
Oh, why doth time so quickly fly?
The seasons come, the seasons go,
The earth is green or white with snow,
But time and change shall naught avail
To break the friendships formed at Yale.

In after years, should troubles rise
To cloud the blue of sunny skies,
How bright will seem, through mem'ry's haze
Those happy, golden, bygone days!
Oh, let us strive that ever we
May let these words our watch-cry be,
Where'er upon life's sea we sail:
"For God, for Country and for Yale!"