Impossible

In France, they have this thing called the Impossible which translates to "we're going to make this as difficult for you as possible and we're going to enjoy it". This refers to anything from taking two months to get a radiator knob so you can finally turn down the heat in your sauna apartment to having to allocate yourself at least an hour's time whenever you need to go buy stamps at the post office.

Recently, I've had some very fun Impossibles in my life. The first happened on the way to Bordeaux last week. Our train arrives at the train station so we walk up and down it to find car 6, our assigned car. We can't find car 6 so we go ask the train agent where car 6 is. She says car 6 is now car 16 so we go to car 16, find our seats and sit down. One guy comes by and says we are sitting in his seat. We say no, this is our seat because car 6 is now car 16. He walks away. Then another man comes by and says we are in his seat. We tell him the same thing but he argues back (toute en francais bien sur) until one of the other people on the train tells us that SNCF (the train company) CASUALLY, just CASUALLY, forgot half of the train, the part that had car 6, and so we were in fact in his seat. So we get off the train and go talk to the train agent who says they were searching for the missing part of the train but it should be there in about 20 minutes. An hour and a half later, the other half of the train rolls up, we get in car 6, and I collapse because I'm exhausted as this all happened at 7 am when I was running on very little sleep and definitely not in the mood for Impossibles. I love how they tried to fix the problem of the missing train by combining car 6 and 16, as if people wouldn't notice and put up a fight that people were in their seat. Impossible.

The other Impossible which has been an incredible nuisance is the French ability to close libraries when I need them most. For example, two Sundays ago I was madly trying to finish a paper due Monday at a library. I was on a paper roll, making good word count per hour time when the librarian comes up and announces that the library has to close due to "problemes d'informatiques". I had no idea what their problemes d'informatiques were but I did know that us being there, working at the library, would no way impinge on their efforts to solve les problemes. So they kicked us out which was extra super special because this, obviously, was the only library in Paris open on Sunday. And I am unable to do efficient work at my apartment (most of these blogs entries are written during apartment work procrastination).

Today, a Saturday, I had fine and dandy plans to go to the library as I have a ridiculous amount of work in the upcoming two weeks but nooooooo it's a fete du travail! So everything's closed! Impossible! Thank god that Starbucks is immune to French Impossibles or I would have gotten no work done today.

Standard paper writing procedure

I'm drinking champagne like a big tycoon

(delayed blog post re: easter weekend)

I decided that maybe it would be nice to stay in France for one weekend of my life so for the Easter Weekend I went to the Côte d'Azur with my friend Maddy. It was a beautiful sunny day so I was able to see the whole coast, the towns, and the ocean when we were descending; I knew right then and there that I had found the spot for my future vacation villa. We landed in Nice, took a bus to Cannes, found our hotel (cute and full of ye olds) and immediately went to the beach. I realized how much I've missed the ocean...I mean the Seine is great and all but if I went swimming in it, I would emerge with some sort of radioactive powers and probably be covered in rat feces. After the beach we grabbed lunch at a delicious Italian restaurant (eggplant pizza = amazing) then wandered around the town. Cannes is very small but all the buildings are gorgeous. The main stretch is la Croisette which is a palm tree lined boulevard with the beach on one sider and fancy hotels and designer stores on the other. The smaller streets and the buildings on them remind me of Italy; the streets are narrow and winding with cobblestones and the buildings are cream with colourful shutters and terracotta roofs. We wandered up to the main cathedral of Cannes that has a great view of the town. After we explored some more and eventually ended back at the beach with ice cream. That night we went for the most amazing french food of escargots, salmon, and duck.

The next day we took a 10 minute train to Antibes to meet up with a friend of mine who's on exchange there. It wasn't the nicest of days but it didn't really ruin our plans too much. We went to an incredible market where there was a huge selection of delicious food and great smelling soap. We picked up bread, cheese (the cheeseman described it as "atomic bomb" cheese and he was right), jambon cru, olive tapanade, and pastries and had a picnic lunch along the water. Then we went to the Picassco museum in the Chateau Grimaldi where he painted for six months in 1946. After we bussed to Cap d'Antibes and walked along the Sentier Tirepoil, an amazing path that runs along cliffs bordering the ocean.

Even though I've bought designer vintage, beautiful shoes, and more pastries than the Atkins diet would allow in one year, this still remains my favourite purchase from France.

Sentier Tirepoil

That night, we had more delicious Italian food in Cannes before taking the late night train into Monaco. Monaco is insane; not in the sense of actual insanity because the town that night was pretty quiet for the most point but insane in the sense that everything is so luxurious and opulent from the yachts to the cars to the buildings. The Monte Carlo, the ultimate example of luxury, is absolutely beautiful. We didn't gamble but we did buy not so cheap drinks. Yay.

The next day we went to the Ile St Marguerite, one of the Ile de Lerins that lie off of the coast of Cannes. There is a fortress on the island plus lush nature galore however it was raining so that kind of put a damper on things. For Easter dinner, we went to an apparently famous seafood restaurant and I had moules et frites. After dinner, we ate chocolate, drank champagne, and played scrabble. When we were heading back to our room for the night, we saw easter baskets outside of every door so we ran back to our room with excitement. Unfortunately, the baskets were gifts from the ye old convention staying at the hotel so we did not get an easter basket. Sad face.

The next day, the day we were leaving, the sun came back out so we ate our final breakfast on the beach. I was sad to return to old grey Paris (you know a place is beautiful when it makes Paris look dumpy) but like I said, I'll be back one day with a yacht and villa in tow.

Intolerant? Me? Never

Nothing infuriates me more than people who are total noobs at the self-serve checkout machine at Monoprix. The same goes for the metro station machines. There has been so many times when I've missed my train because the person in front of me is trying to pay by sticking their bank card into the slot that reloads the metro passes. There should be machines specifically designated for noob use only and those designated for self-service machine experts. At the very least, there should be mirrors placed above every machine so the person can see my look of utter contempt and know to hurry the hell up.

Paris, elle m'a change mais je suis toujours impatiente.

ps. It may also be that I'm just bitter as it's a beautiful day in Paris and I have to spend it at the library finishing a paper.

Let them eat cake

This weekend I visited Versailles

I understand why Marie Antoinette developed the taste for opulence and elegance. Living in a place like Versailles would make anyone crave only the most luxurious things in life. Her apathy towards the French peasants seemed inevitable.

ps. This is how I felt on Friday after walking up the Arc de Triompe and Eiffel Tower

Lalalalalala

When I grow up, there will always be a silver platter of Ladurée macaroons in my house

So it has been decided....

I'm living in the Côte d'Azur one day

* I'll write more about my weekend there later but I thought y'all should know

Haggis: So nice I ate it twice.

This past weekend I continued my British Isles Experience with a trip to Edinburgh. I was looking forward to seeing some castles, hearing those melodic notes of the bagpipe, and braving a taste of the (maybe) national dish of Scotland, ground up sheep's heart, liver, and lungs cooked in sheep stomach, which actually tasted way better than I expected. Like the title states, it was so nice, I ate it twice. And one of those was for breakfast.

I arrived on a very foggy night, so foggy that I gave out a shout when we hit the runway because I thought we were still thousands of feet in the air. I found my way to Bailey's res and we ventured out into the fog to a bar before taking communion at McLigion's local chapter.

The next day was super windy and rainy and perfect for being a tourist. Bailey and I climbed Carlton Hill, me almost collapsing at the top. I decided that weekly communion at McDs was not conducive to hill climbing. Regardless, the view of the city was pretty awesome from the top. The historic centre of Edinburgh is divided into two parts: the Old Town, a collection of medieval and reformation-era buildings, and the New Town, which was actually built in the 1700s. The city itself is pretty compact which makes it great for walking and all the old buildings are beautiful.

Tourist sensation on Carlton Hill

After Bailey left for class, I went to the Edinburgh Castle, birthplace of King James the VI and I of Scotland and England, respectively. It also had great views of the city but by then, the wind and rain had really picked up so I ran from building to building. The castle had a ton of historical information which I really enjoyed as I'm a British history nerd. After the castle, I needed a warming up so I went to the Elephant Cafe, where JK Rowling wrote some of the first Harry Potter book. The cafe exploits that fact and now they have signs reading "the birth place of Harry Potter" on the back of their staff shirts and on the front window. I met up with Bailey and we went to the Museum of Scotland. Then we picked up food and drink for the night - bonus purchase was 1.50 pound expenditure for a six pack of Kx stimulation drink; I'm assuming that they can't actually call it an energy drink in the same way cheeze whiz can't be spelt with an s - as well as some golf clubs because there is a golf course behind Bailey's res. We found our way onto the golf course to partake in two of Scotland's national past times: golf and whiskey. Sadly, I did not have any tartan pants however we did have a cigar so we were able to maintain the image of classy serious golfers until I started kicking my ball towards the hole because I suck at driving.

The next day I woke up super excited because I knew I was going to use my cute gold credit card at Top Shop!!!!!! I saw Top Shop on the bus ride into town and I was pumped that I would finally have the chance to go as there isn't one in Paris. I picked up a couple of things and then walked along the shopping stretch of Princes Street, picking up two more pairs of shoes along the way. After shopping spree supreme, I met up with Bailey and we chilled in Princes Street Gardens because it was finally a sunny day, albeit still windy. We went to the National Museum of Scotland, before hitting up the Scotch Whiskey experience. Although it was not as brainwashing as the Heineken experience, it was still a lot of fun and I now consider myself a scotch whiskey connoisseur (I am particularly partial to Speyside and Lowland whiskeys).

FUN FACT: Edinburgh is considered the UK's most haunted city. We decided to do a ghost tour of the closes underneath the government buildings. The closes were narrow alleyways that used to be part of the main city but the government buildings were built on top of them in 18th century. They are said to be haunted with victims of the plague or just dead peeps in general. The tour was slightly cheesy but it was cool to see the underground homes of the past. We didn't see any ghosts and it seemed that just as they were getting to really scare us, the tour was over.

That night, we did a tour of various bars around Edinburgh including an bar with a back room comprised solely of pillows on which one could lounge, a bar that stopped playing traditional Scottish music just as we showed up, the most hilarious cougar bar of life called Frankensteins, and a dive bar with live music called Whistle Binkies. The next morning we failed at life and woke up way too late to the climb the mountain. At least I had time for a traditional Scottish breakfast consisting of the most meat variations I've ever seen. More haggis! Yum!

It's the second best word you could put in this sentence: "More ________"

All in all, it was a great weekend and I checked another country of my list. I didn't get a chance to wear a kilt but it was probably for the best.