Well, that’s that. While Stewart heads east, I have turned back. I have my eyes on the Atlantic now. Tomorrow I go to America!
On our last night in Berlin, Stewart and I had dinner and hung out with Sylvie’s family, who are awesome. Her dad bought different beers for us to try and we watched the soccer game between Holland and Portugal, which was ridiculously violent.
We chose Dublin and Berlin without expecting there to be any great correlation between the two, just because those were two cities we wanted to see, but what we ended up learning was striking. Ireland and Germany are both dealing with a sort of identity crisis, trying to sort out the fall-out of internal conflict. More on that later ; I am still gathering my thoughts on the whole thing.
But BERLIN! That place is fantastic. They’ve got some incredible art collections, lots of trees and wide boulevards, grand old buildings snuggled next to some of the most incredible modern architecture I’ve ever seen… plus, they’ve got a killer ice cream shop – so the greatness is complete. For two evenings we ate and had drinks around Hackescher Markt. It was incredible. There was this kind of shantytown selling carnival food (beer and currywurst sounds like a gastric catastrophe to me, but who am I to say?), tons of restaurants and bars and TV screens everywhere showing the soccer matches. We spent time exploring Tacheles, an enormous artists’ community / squat right in the middle of everything. They had dumped a ton of sand out behind it in beachy fashion and set up a bunch of bars, so we relaxed with Sylvie and friends under the stars.
Berlin now. German kezboards are easz – onlz the z and the y are out of place.
We are no-sleep-party-traveling mastas. What I mean is that we have been doing party things and traveling things but not a lot of sleeping.
Talk about a good trip. Dublin was beertown and crap weather. Berlin has been soccer fans, GOOD art, and faux beaches everywhere.
This is the last day for me in Berlin ; tomorrow I shall fly fly away back to Toulouse. See you soon, kiddos.
Also – you are good to go for the airport. The Pa will be glad to have you. Organize thyselves.
Internet cafe in Dublin. English keyboard? PSHQA<
Stew and I speculated about how this trip would feel. Dublin was supposed to be familiarity and an easy transition. Instead we keep realizing how accustomed to France we've become. Smoking bans and stores open on Sunday seem like such transgressions of people's rights. The first day, we made mental notes of every place we saw the word "bagel" until we realized that they really are common currency. We clutched our first cups of take-away coffee like secrets, but as we looked around, we remembered that the revelation of coffee in a paper cup came to Ireland long ago, so that nobody else was impressed by our treasure.
We saw "Thank You for Smoking" at the movies yesterday - and were the only ones laughing at some of the jokes. I wonder if we stood out as cackling Americans among all of those mystified Irish.
I can see why people warn against coming to Dublin if you want to see Ireland. It's quite the tourist's playground here, but it feels like a good decompression point for me, a first step to rinsing the aftertaste of France from my mouth. Being so disconnected and uprooted here is preparing me to look forward to that final atterrissage in Philly, just eight days from now.
Poked my finger with a needle and got cat-scratched again.
“Cleaned” my room :
Putzed around a lot.
YIKES. This is goodbye, Toulouse!
Umm…
The cat clawed me severely this morning. I didn’t realize how well he’d gotten me until I looked at all the dried, crusty blood on my leg this afternoon.
I burned three of my fingers during my first ever attempt at making granola bars (success – burned fingers aside, of course).
Among other things, I have amassed an unreasonable quantity of postcards during my time in France. What was I thinking?
Tomorrow I will do EVERYTHING. Everything must happen tomorrow. Crap.
Saturday I am getting on a train with a food processor and when I get off the train Stewart and Hianta will be waiting for me!
It’s VERY strange to be awake at midnight. I keep thinking I should get to sleep so I can wake up early and work on my mémoire.
The mémoire is history. Que les vacances commencent.
Sort of a rude awakening – all of my friends are gone. I have a few hours to collect my belongings and make them as small as possible, so that I can disappear.
TODAY IS THE DAY. All that’s left is the conclusion, and oh, will I be glad to be free.
Of course, the day I finish is the day Stewart splits to go bask in Basque art museums in Bilbao. My playmates are all gone now. The next two days will be a flurry of paperwork and closing things, and then I’ll be in Bordeaux… a goner!
The other day I found a paper on my nightstand where I had scribbled three words in my sleep : “geggplant,” “spiriwood” and “bestspeller.” My subconscious intrigues me.
Three days and three more pages to freedom. The end is so easy! I feel like I could keep writing about this for months! Am I cut out for academia, after all?
Home stretch! This paper might actually be worth something when I’m done with it. Months of toil, you haven’t been for naught.
One good thing about being chained to my computer is that I’ve listened to a lot of good new music. Summery, windows-down, fist-pumping mix disks are in the making, chéris. All that’s missing is YOU (or me, I guess, since I’m the odd one out over here)!
It’s funny how quickly my warm little American enclave has been depeopled. There are so many feet that will never again stomp up my steps. In eighteen days, I will look my last on the dusty chandeliers and gaudily-framed mirrors of my apartment, and that’ll be it : a burst bubble.
1. Nine days left on this paper. Will she do it? It’s looking like a close one.
2. Stewart and I are going to travel for ten days or so before I come home. Dublin, Berlin (and Bordeaux?), ho!
3. Check that date, my friends. 6/6/06. Did you stock up on flashlight batteries and duct tape?