HOME IN A WEEK. WHAT THE WHAT?

I got to the Dublin bus stop in plenty of time to catch the bus to the ferry. I asked information where it would be and went there half an hour beforehand. I found other people also catching the ferry bus. When it was 15 minutes late, one of the other people went back to information to ask. Everyone was talking about how the bus doesn't run if the ferry's cancelled and one time they didn't make it to London until 9 the next morning! I was certain everything was going to be ruined and I wouldn't even make it to Paris.

Turns out, we did miss the bus (it did NOT come where they said it was going to come), but we just shared a cab instead. Me, an old English woman, an old Irishman, a middle aged Irishman, and our cabbie. They were hilarious and vulgar and I loved them. The old man was adorable and the woman was spitfire. Fantastic time.

Then the entire day was spent travelling, which really wasn't so bad. I got pretty used to it in Africa, and then I'd be in a truck on a bumpy bumpy bumpy road, with bugs around. So hours on a train isn't that big of a deal.

The hostel in London was awful--bad management, too many beds in a room, the person next to me reading with a giant fluorescent light on over my head. But all I did was sleep there, then the next morning on a train to Paris.

I really do love that city. I love the river and the streets and the people. I love that I know it well enough that I got around without a map, and that there are places of which I have memories. I walked from Notre Dame to the Eiffel Tower, which was good but cold & difficult to do with a rolling suitcase. Then to the train station via metro.

Honestly, Europeans need to learn how to make train stations. Or really, just how to make them INDOORS. Open air train stations do me no good when it's freezing outside. Mont Parnasse was cold and the only place to sit was in chairs without backs. Not. Cool. When I got too cold I just went into a heated bookshop and flipped through People magazine's Sexiest Man Alive issue, so it wasn't so bad.

And then NANTES! It took a bit of time to find Emily at the train station, but I found her and I love her and I'm so happy to be with someone I know! We went out for food with one of her friends and talked for a really long time, then Skyped with our parents on a horrible connection that made them sound like robots, and then bed. Today has been her studying and me interneting mostly. It's nice to have a down day after so much travel and ado. (I may or may not have already watched all of 30 Rock that I missed).

Whenever I try to speak French it comes out as Swahili, Sijui and Ndiyo and Hapana instead of Je ne sais pas and Oui and Non. So I just smile awkwardly and let Emily talk.