Little Moments: Parakeet

A bright orange and green parakeet (I think it was a parakeet- a very small parrot-type bird, at any rate) just landed on my windowsill and chirped at me for about 15 seconds before flying away. I live on the 7th floor. In Paris. I AM SO CONFUSED. Why was there a parakeet??? Why did it keep making eye contact? Why didn't it want it's picture taken?

UPDATE: Early research indicates it might be one of these fellows:

The Sun Parakeet

In other news, heading out soon so I can be at the Eiffel Tower for the first sparkling, so that I can have seen it and be heading home while the buses are still running (avoiding Metro on Saturday night = win).

Edinburgh, Entry I

We reached Edinburgh a little before midnight, and I checked into my hostel (Clarissa and I figured that 10 days of sleeping in the same room might wear on us, so I got my own hostel for 3 nights, then slept on her floor over the last weekend). A pretty cool place, right in the center of things. If I even decide to spend a month or two in Edinburgh (not out of the question, though I don't know what life circumstances would lead to such an event transpiring), it would be an excellent long-stay hostel.

Edinburgh was a much more relaxed time than running around to a new city each day. I slept in on a regular basis, and generally just walked around. 

My first day, I decided to orient myself with a bus tour. The guide had such a thick Scottish accent that I probably got just as much out of his narration as I do when I'm being guided in French! Which is to say, I followed it, but definitely missed out on many nuances. 

A proper-sized bustling hub of a city!

Aforementioned tour guide

This is where Robert Louis Stevenson lived!

Police box and a telephone booth! Love it. 

Clarissa and I met up for dinner and spent several hours catching up (apparently in 5 days of constant contact, we had barely tapped the barrel of available conversations) the first night. She kept trying to get me to order to vegetarian haggis, but I outsmarted her and got a Reeses shake instead. I was so insistent that they completely load it with Reeses that they actually served it to me with an entire monster Reeses on the side! 

Never did get to the castle, but it's on a list for future visits. It's good to leave some things unexplored, right? I need an excuse to go back! Something else I sorta meant to do but never actually did is take a Writing Tour of Edinburgh. So many notable writers spent formative and productive time in Edinburgh. Among them are Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, and JK Rowling. I added myself to the list (self-aggrandizing, I know) with a day working on my writing in the main park that runs between Old Town and New Town.

An interesting part of my timing in Scotland was that it was in the two weeks leading up to the Royal Wedding. Every tabloid was all about it, and they had lots of engagement-ring knock-off jewelry in the stores. I actually considered a pair of 4-pound earrings based on The Ring, because it would be such a timely, topical souvenir, but I just couldn't bring myself to spend money on a copy that was so cheap the "sapphire" was see-through and light purple. Still, it was much good fun. I was in Greece for the wedding itself, and watched it with all of the other girls there. But more on that later...

Writing

Though I wasn't there for the Wedding, I was in the UK for another wonderfully UK-ish (British? Scottish? What on earth do you call something which refers to the entire UK?) thing: the premier of the new season ("series") of Doctor Who. Clarissa has a small viewing party that she would go to in the fall for new episodes of Merlin, and they decided to start it up again for Doctor Who. It was a fabulous time- we ordered pizza and flopped around on a couch, yelling at Dan whenever he messed with the TV, discussing various fandoms, and positing theories on the episode, while it was happening. It's been such a long time since I watched a TV show with someone. It's so much fun! 

The other main to-do of Edinburgh was our rainy climb of the craigs and Arthur's Seat, a dormant volcano. But that involves lots of pretty pictures, and my internet is quite slow right now. So it will get it's own post, then it's onto Glasgow and Greece!

Iceland update: booked the hotel, now to look into what adventuring I want to do. Add another European volcano to my list? Whale watching and glacier spotting? Geothermal hotsprings?

Mother's Day

Well, it's Mother's Day over in the US (Mothers' Day? No apostrophe?), and I'm still here. Here's a look at my wonderful mother and myself on a few of our own travels...

Guadeloupe (French West Indies), 2008

Spring Training in Peoria, AZ, 2010

Grand Canyon, 2010

Spring Training in Peoria, 2010

Oceanside, 2010

Washington DC, 2010

Washington DC, 2010

I love you, Mom! I'll be seeing you soon =)

Quick Bits, May 2011

I'm still working on my Edinburgh post for you all to continue with my Spring Break chronicles, but I thought I'd pause in your regularly scheduled programming for a quick update on life in my last few weeks in Paris.

I leave three weeks from today, but make a 3-day stop in Iceland on the way home. Need to get on booking a hotel/hostel....

It was so hard going back to school after Spring Break. So hard. Especially when my professor who cancelled class decided to schedule a make-up class- for Friday morning. Bleck. But I made an exciting discovery over the course of the week as well: I can read French! As in, actually sit there and fully comprehend an article, with all of it's tenses and nuance, from start to finish. Granted, it takes me a lot longer than it would to read the same article in English (something I could scan in 15 seconds in English takes me maybe 2 minutes in French), and I do of course still have to look up the odd vocabulary word. But I'm properly reading French! I am also finally getting to the point where I can listen to and speak French without having to consciously translate everything. I wouldn't dare claim to be fluent, but I think I may very well be approaching proficiency. Wheeee!

I was also able to help a girl learn about adverbs and adjectives at my volunteer position- the same day that we worked on them in my own grammar class.....

Today was absolutely excellent. The Central Folk took an organized trip to Giverny, about 45 minutes outside of Paris. Giverny is where Claude Monet lived and worked for most of his career. His house has mainly Japanese art inside, which has a historical explanation but was still odd, but the gardens. Oh my goodness the gardens. I will have a full post on the visit at some point, but just know that today, I walked along the famous water lily pond. No blooms on the lilies at this point in the year, sadly, but it was GORGEOUS.

I've scrapped my plan to take a day trip to Geneva next weekend. When I first conceived of the idea a month or so ago, I was worrying about only going to a few countries while over here. Now that the time is upon me, however, I am far more worried about not being able to fully enjoy the rest of my time in Paris! It is so lovely out now, and there are so many picnics I still want to have! I've located an available rooftop for the evening picnic my foyer-mate Vanessa and I want to have, and I have several girls who are amenable to at least one more picnic along the Seine, and under the Eiffel Tower. Probably also a return visit to the Bois de Bourlogne. I need to watch the sunset at Sacre Coeur, and get another crepe! I haven't had one in probably two months- it's an absolute travesty. I need to see Elise at least once more before I go. And I need to pass all of my finals. Psh, details.

Finally, I leave you with a picture I stole off of another girl's Facebook. It is probably the only photo that exists that proves that I indeed swam in the Mediterranean while on Spring Break. This one's for you, Daddy:

Scottish Highlands: Oban

The trip to Oban started with a long bus ride at sunset- absolutely gorgeous. All of the pictures are through the window, so some get a little foggy as the sun goes down and it gets colder outside, but I think you'll get the picture, so to speak... =p

We arrived at our hostel just before 9, so we opted to just hit the gigantic Tesco (general grocery like Safeway or what have you, just generally a little smaller than US standard size) and make dinner ourselves. The Tesco in Oban is huge- we were giddily reminded of Target and WalMart and the like, which is perhaps a sad commentary on our mindset as Americans. (But seriously- why are all the grocery stores so small here??)

Once back in the kitchen, things took a dangerous turn. After spending so much time in constant contact, tensions between our two intrepid travelers were bound to occur....

*No kitchen utensils were harmed in the making of this blog*

After battle concluded, a lovely dinner was had, and we crashed in our adorable white-and-yellow polka dot room.

The next morning, we started out with the vague intention of taking a wildlife tour up to the island of Staffa, which is reputed to have some incredible cliff views, but the only ferry left ridiculously early, so we ended up scrapping that plan. Instead, we toured around the adorable little waterfront town for part of the morning before catching a ferry over to the island of Mull.

I actually have some pictures of myself for you all, because Clarissa's camera card filled up early on in the day.

It's a little hard to tell because it's upside down, but that formation of rocks makes a heart 

This set of bubble adventures concluded, we scurried off to the ferry that would take us to the island of Mull. 

We really thrilled some little girls who were walking on this sidewalk to my right (My right, not The right) 

And a-ferrying we go!

The wee island of Mull:

A truly excellent cat

The tickets for the ride back to Oban (they collect the tickets, sadly, so we had to photograph them for posterity/scrap-booking purposes)

A frequent sight on our journeys

The boat was late arriving to Mull, which got us back to Oban late. This put us in an unexpected fix: we had left our suitcases/backpacks at our hostel, about a 10-minute walk from the ferry and bus terminal. This was not a problem when we had 45 minutes between our ferry docking and our bus leaving. This turned into quite the problem when the ferry didn't even dock until 13 minutes before the bus left- not to mention, having to actually get off the darn thing!

We decided to have Clarissa man the bus while I ran back for the bags (mine was significantly larger than hers), and I took off running. It took me almost three minutes just to get through the ferry lot, and I realized that even running full out, which I would not be able to sustain for the entire trip, I wouldn't make it in time.

I rounded the corner, and inspiration struck: taxis were lined up. I hopped in the first one and told him I had an absolutely ridiculous fare for him: "I need to go about two blocks away, and then right back here. Fast."

It was highly stressful, but I made it. Clarissa didn't know that I had done this, so when I was climbing out of the taxi, victorious, she was still staring up the street, dancing in agitation. I called that all was well, she sagged with relief, and we hopped on board, for the long, two-part bus ride to Edinburgh. 

Still to come: various Edinburgh adventures, Glasgow, and of course, Greece!