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Thursday, September 29, 2011

The Trouble with Islands, and Other Anomalies

I've been thinking about islands. Let me tell you how an island works. I always figured an island was a small sandy thing that sits around on the water, unattached to anything, usually inhabited by a lone palm tree & perhaps a really hairy man. This lost island floats about aimlessly on the calm sea, going where it will, or maybe staying where it is. The palm tree survives because it's roots go thru the sand to the ocean, to drink all it needs. The hairy man isn't so lucky, since there's no way of controlling this teeny meandering plot of land, and he won't ever be found. So he will die of exposure, if not first dehydration. That's an "island". Absolutely everyone knows this is how islands work. I even found a video, filmed in Ireland (even on our own River Liffey) that proves I'm not the only one who knows these things are facts.



So if you take a place like Ireland or Manhattan, that are both islands, and apply to them what you now know about islands, you'll get really confused. Like I did. I thought, "How can there be metros on Manhattan?" Then I thought, "Well obviously there can't be, since when the metro-guys were digging the tunnels, they would have run into the water under the island." Like when you're 6 years old and at the beach, and you're happily digging a pit to stick your little sister in, but the hole you're trying to throw dirt out of keeps slowly filling with salt water and ruining all your plans of being an only child. Because when you're that close to the water, your hole has obviously been dug too far down, and you've actually broken thru the Earth's crust to the ocean underneath it. But since there are in fact metros on Manhattan, I then decided that Manhattan as an island was just a really deep island, and the earth/sand it was located on top of was just thicker (it has to be because they definitely have more than one palm tree there). And those metro-diggers better not dig their magical spaceship transporter tubes TOO far down, or else just like at the beach, they'll open that one hole to the ocean, and then ALL the previous tunnels will fill up with salt water and kill everyone and possibly even sink the island of Manhattan.



Well. Usually, I tend to think of these kinds of things entirely in my own head, and naturally assume it's a correct thought that everyone else thinks & knows about, and only when I happen to voice these thoughts to someone else, out loud, do I become aware of the flaws in these assumptions. For example, when I asked Jon how Ireland stays where it is and why it doesn't just float off further into the ocean, the look on his face was enough to make me second-guess my previously assumed solid lines of logic. I have to give him my thanks for setting me straight. Thanks babe! Your literally uncontrollable laughter is so great for my self-esteem!

But in the end, there is good news, concerned family & friends! Jon & I won't probably die of exposure! If anything, we'll be drowned in rainfall, or stabbed in the face one too many times by rabid inside-out umbrellas in the wind. Hooray!

Monday, September 19, 2011

Bonjour et Au Revoir!

As I rolled up my skinny jeans and shoved them to the bottom of my camping backpack for our trip to Paris, I was suddenly struck by that prickly feeling they call excitement. I was just as excited to add another awesome stamp to my passport as I was to see the Eiffel Tower! And eat real croissants! And meander the romantic streets that so inspired the likes of Van Gogh! It was the night before our 4am flight, and I was finally allowing myself to get keyed up for our 3rd Anniversary weekend away.

But look up "excited" in a thesaurus, and you will simultaneously find "upset". Because as we know, there's good stress and bad stress, but it's all stress. I knew we were in for a memory of a lifetime, but I was getting nervous about the small stuff. Will the metros be as scary as the ones in New York? Can we get by on 6 phrases of French? Will everyone recognize us as Americans, and immediately pull out their angry eyes? Happily, 99% of the French stereotypes we found to be unjustified. People were very polite when we were polite to them, we spoke some French and they spoke some English, and we didn't feel unsafe anywhere. The 1% truth, that may as well be the 200% truth, was that the food was awesome!

After living in California, the fruit basket of America, living in Ireland has been something of an adjustment when it comes to buying fresh produce. It's just not readily available like we're used to. You have to trek out to random streets on the weekends to find good cheese, or a bag of tender baby greens. Pineapples and artichokes are a rare sight. People tell me that you have to know where to go. Well it's a sad world to me, in which grocery stores don't sell avocados year-round. BUT in France, I found figs forever, gallons of grapes, and lovely lettuces, on all the streets of Montmartre. And I fell in totally in love with that enchanting village-city. Montmartre was the dreamy older sister slowly morphing into a relic of existence, locked in a time capsule of yellow tree-lined streets and sleepy corner bistros glowing from within; not quite the sinful lady she started life as, mellowed with age. In contrast, Paris was the spicy hip sibling gushing with energy and zest, ready to swallow up her eager, camera-strapped visitors; boasting her venerable beauty like a child.

Far from my initial fears about this wonderful place, France was incredible. It turned out to be a place that we now hope to re-visit someday. It was the perfect date: extravagantly alluring, shining vistas galore, and everything bewitchingly candle-lit. Definitely an experience we'll remember for the rest of our lives.