Day nine

Woke up because dad asked who wanted the first shower and I thought I was dreaming and then realised I wasn’t. So we all showered and then went upstairs again for our gorgeous breakfast with a view.

After that we sort of wandered the streets in a westerly direction, stopping at souvenir shops, buying a Euro2012 shirt (last one in my size left in Madrid) and eventually reaching a plaza and some food markets for snacks and lunch. After a lunch that was bigger than it should have been, we walked towards a palace (too lazy to go inside) and got some ice cream, before taking a train to just east of our hotel and visiting a nice park there. Also, the park had these two adorable guys kissing in the middle of it and I think it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen (jokes, Damian’s face is). So we walked through the park and saw the ducks and birds and fish (legit, you can feed the ducks bread here, and the fish swim to the top and fight to the death for it, it’s insane). In the middle of the park was this incredible building called The Glass Palace, so I’ll give you a moment to picture that…. With a fountain out the front…. Surrounded by a lake… And ducks around the lake. And tortoises around the lake. I’ve never seen a wild tortoise before! (And let me tell you, they’re not that wild.)

After that we walked back to our hotel. Or attempted to. But there were half a million (I shit you not, I counted the bastards) proud Spaniards partying in the streets, in front of a massive stage. And yeah, all the roads were segmented off to provide access for emergency vehicles and stuff… and we couldn’t cross the roads! It took soooo long to get home. But it was worth it to see the nutty people.

Off to Pamplona tomorrow! Sad to say goodbye to Blanca, but it will be nice to see Diego and Inigo.
Farewell!

Day eight

Woke up this morning bright and early (for Spain… you know, like 9:30) so we could shower and go to breakfast upstairs. The view from the breakfast room was incredible, we could see all the way up one of the main streets of Madrid, and you know, the food was pretty good too.

After breakfast we walked down to the street and waited for Blanca to pick us up and take us to some of the sites of Madrid. We started at a place called The Valley of the Fallen (to which I said “transformers?” and Blanca said “yes, we’re going to see Megatron” [awesomeness is in my genes]) which is a memorial built to honour those who died in the Spanish Civil War. The memorial was absolutely beautiful; it looked a bit like a church but it was entirely carved out of a stone mountain, with ceilings of mosaic tiles. The next stop was an old palace that’s been turned into a sort of exhibition and that was nice, but it got a bit boring… and creepy when there were graves everywhere… and sad when the graves were of children.

Post palace we went and had lunch, and then stumbled upon a fantastic lolly shop where I got a bag of gluten free coke bottles and strawberry lollies and all sorts of good stuff for around $5.

Then we drove to factory outlets and Nikki did her silly shopping and bla di bla we went back to Blanca’s father’s house (his name is Angel). There we watched the soccer, ate glorious Spanish food, introduced Blanca to tim tams, and marvelled at the craziness of people in Madrid when Spain wins a football game. There were seriously fireworks everywhere, cars honking, people singing and dancing in the streets! When Blanca eventually drove us home, most of the streets in the heart of the city were closed due to people partying, so she dropped us a few streets away and we made our way through the crowds to the hotel. Seriously, these guys go all out, even on the drive home people in other cars were screaming and singing and banging on the car roof and honking the horn in tunes. Part of me actually wants to move here to join these crazy loons…

Anyway it’s after 1 again, so off to bed now!

Day seven

Forgot to post this earlier... damn it

We had these awesome plans to be up and showered by 9 so we were ready for breakfast… didn’t really happen. But eventually we were all fed and showered, so that’s all good.
We had to check out by 11 and after that we had all of our luggage with us so we thought we may as well just go to the airport because we thought that might take a while. It was three stops away by train but most of it was across countryside because London is a very condensed city. Once at the train station we also had to take a shuttle bus to get to the actual airport and even though this all seems like a mammoth task, we were still way too early to check in our luggage. So we chilled out at starbucks for over an hour (have I mentioned how incredible it is that there is starbucks everywhere? Getting actual good coffee is really hard in Europe because they’re all into black coffee, rather than really good, frothy, milky coffee). After that we checked our luggage in, ate some noodles/rice for lunch and then headed off to the departure gates. Through there we were searched by security more thoroughly than anywhere else in the world. We had to have our liquids in small bags, we had to take off jackets and hats (yes my friends, I was rocking a beret), and Nikki’s chucks set off the metal detectors, resulting in her being very thoroughly searched by one of the security guards. Other than that our day was rather uneventful until we got to Madrid, where I met my second cousin Blanca for the first time.
She intended to drive us to our hotel from the airport, but Madrid had this Mardi Gras thing going on that closed the streets, so it took a fair while and when we finally got here at around 9pm, we were ready for dinner.
Of course, due to the parade, we thought everywhere would be full so we sort of wandered the streets until we found this marketplace that looked nice, so we stopped and ate there. I shared three dishes dad and Blanca which were all delicious and we barely had room for dessert… but we managed. Flan was on the dessert menu, which is something I haven’t had (particularly homemade) since my grandmother died. And yeah, hers were better.
So by this point it was 1am and we all thought it was time to say goodbye to Blanca and roll home. Until tomorrow!

Day six

So I had a dream that I was being attacked by a broom and woke up to find Nikki’s elbow in my head. She is such a bed hog it is driving me crazy. I should never share a bed with anyone other than Damian…<3

We got up, showered, had breakfast, and went in search of a laundrette… which we found! So now all our clothes are clean and then world is beautiful. It took a good few hours for the clothes to clean and dry so we kind of chilled out in there for a good while.

After that we went in search of a traditional English fish and chips, which is really easy to find if you’re not gluten intolerant and in need of grilled fish. In the end I just got fried fish and pulled all the batter off and it was good. Plus, they gave me olives to satisfy my inner wog.

Then we took the tube to hyde park and walked along it until we got to Harrod’s. Which is the fanciest, awesomest shop ever and ohmy gosh their shoes are ridiculously expensive. On the other hand, they have a really fancy café where I had a Devonshire tea that was quite possibly the best scone of my life. Thank you England, you did not disappoint.

After that we half walked half ran to the National Science Museum because it was about to close but it was really good and I wish we had something like that here. I was expecting it to be more gimmicky and hands on and here play a game and pretend to learn, but it was filled with some seriously cool information about the past and the future and current technologies. A+ England.

The museum closed at six, so we strolled along the road popping into souvenir shops and clothes shops and so forth until we reached the bunch of grapes which is basically a really traditional old English pub. Dad has been looking for one the whole time we’ve been in London, so it was good to check something else off the list. After that, we continued our stroll, going into more shops and things and eventually having dinner. We ate at a place called Spaghetti House but awkwardly none of us ate pasta so that’s a bit of a fail, although dad had pizza so at least it’s Italian.


After dinner we went to the metro station and Nikki saw a sign that said “If the time is 12:01 and trains arrive whenever the minute hand and hour hand overlap, how long do you have to wait for a train?” to which she found the immediate answer of 64 minutes and I found the immediate answer of 64 minutes and 5 seconds but upon reflection realised that this is an infinite paradox and if you believe ancient philosophers the train will never come which is quite obviously not true, and I could write you an equation to determine when the train will come, and yet if I were to calculate it, it would take an infinite time to calculate and would be an infinite decimal; the limit of which is the correct answer. I guess this made me think about infinities and think about the way we think of things because we take infinite limits of things everyday which seems like it would lead to inaccuracies but is actually the only way of being correct, in the same way that 0.99999999999 repeated is equal to, not smaller than 1. Infinities exist in everything, and although we try to eradicate them, they are necessary and beautiful.

You’re welcome for the philosophy.
I don’t think anyone who understands this maths actually reads this… life is sad.
Off to Madrid tomorrow!

Day five

(Note: I think I babble a lot in this because the post is soo long, but whatever, I saw the queen so there)

 Another day, another bowl of miel pops without milk, although in London we also have toast and eggs and stuff cooked for us so I had a fried egg and that was nice. We had a big day ready so we headed off through the underground into Green Park. We arrived at Buckingham Palace at around 11 to see the changing of the guard at 11:30 and oh my gosh it was the most boring thing in the world and we stood around just waiting for something to happen for ages. Eventually the guard changed, we took some photos and then rushed off because we wanted to hear Big Ben chime at 12, but all the streets were blocked and we could barely move. And then the queen drove past. And I can now tick “see the queen” off my bucket list. After she left, they let people cross roads but by that time it was too late for poor Ben so we crossed the river and went to our next stop; The London Eye.

The London Eye is basically the biggest ferris wheel ever and it takes half an hour to go round because it moves so slowly and from the top you can see the entirety of London. It is magnificent. And it took forty minutes to get to the front of the queue. But when we were up the top, we looked down, and the queue was gone. So yeah, we were pretty pissed. But it was gorgeous, none the less. After our trip on the Eye, we went to have lunch which was meant to be fish and chips but we passed this shop that sold hot dogs and they smelt so amazing that we immediately changed our plans. And dad made me eat some popcorn because I couldn’t eat the bread which was pretty awesome. The shop also had some amazing looking ice cream so I got white chocolate and coconut and they were fantastic.

Our plan was meant to be to catch a bus to St Paul’s Cathedral but when we looked at the bus routes we didn’t realise that the one we wanted was different depending on the direction and also you need to prepay for bus tickets and have exact change and dad didn’t have 2.30 in coins for each of us so we cut our losses and started walking. The walk took forever, mainly because Nikki kept wanting to stop and upon reflection we’d walked from like, before Buckingham Palace so our legs were a little stressed. We got to St Paul’s Cathedral at 4 o’clock and saw a café near it that looked really tempting so we had to make the choice which to visit first. We walked into the information centre next to the Cathedral and found out that it in fact closed at 4, so we’d missed it. But they had a service inside at 5 that we could go to for free (entry normally cost 15 pounds each, so this kind of seemed like a brilliant idea). So we stopped at the café for an hour and had a drink and then went to the service at 5 and then caught a bus back to the steakhouse from yesterday for dinner.

We’d intentionally caught a bus because Nikki wanted to catch a traditional English double-decker red bus, and yeah it was pretty fun. In the end, we didn’t even need to prepay for our tickets because it had a conductor that was fully like the Knight Bus who came up and sold us tickets, and also didn’t believe that I was eighteen because apparently I look so young. Dad’s genes (or so he claimed). We got to Trafalgar Square and walked up and around Leicester Square waiting until we were hungry enough to eat. And after Nikki went into one shop I decided it was time to stop that shit and eat.

The steak house does this amazing Stone Grill thing where they give you your steak partly cooked and give you a really, REALLY hot stone and you slice your steak, cook it, and it. That way, every bite is warm, and cooked exactly how you want it. And also, there’s a sort of novelty to cooking things on a rock that normally ends in Nikki or I cooking vegetables and potentially cutlery. After dinner, we walked down Coventry Street (I shit you not this place is a monopoly board) to the comedy store. It was stand up night =D So dad bought Nikki and I Bacardi and cokes and we sat down in what I consider the best seat in the house, and watched an awesome night of stand up. The comedians were fantastic, although there were some jokes that only English people could get, and basically the whole experience was fantastic.

After that it was late, so we just jumped on the tube and came home. Very long day. I don’t know how this post got so long…

Day four

So the day started later which was utterly fantastic and we ate some Miel Pops which probably had gluten in them but were mainly corn and honey so I didn’t care about the rest of the ingredients. We packed our suitcases and left them in the hotel room as we went to get breakfast, same place as yesterday. I had the same hot chocolate with whipped cream, still just as good, and this time a bacon omelette which was pretty sensational because the one thing guaranteed to make life better at any given time is bacon.

After that, Nikki did some more shopping and I did a lot of complaining before it was time to go back and check out of our hotel. From there we carried our suitcases down way too many sets of stairs to catch a train to the station where our train to London left. The train ride to London was gorgeous, across the French country side and then through the Chunnel. Thankfully, in London, our hotel is near the international train station, but we didn’t know quite where so we took an English cab to it. Unfortunately, our room wasn’t quite ready because the toilet is leaking :/ so we have to stay in some crappy room overnight. Tres depressing. We decided to abandon ship and catch a train to London where we basically walked through a monopoly board because all the streets have familiar names. We saw Big Ben and Buckingham Palace and Piccadily Circus and Victor Tower and the London Eye and all the gorgeous sites.

We passed this place called pret that make all this awesome food and then you just go in and pick up what you want so dad and I have salad and fruit salad in there and the Nikki went looking for food she actually liked and we ended up at a steakhouse that was really similar to stone grill and we decided we had to go back later. After dinner, we pretty much just went back and crashed.

Day three

So dad decided that today was a good day to let Nikki loose and allow her to shop, but first of all, breakfast! Today was the day that I got to eat my one piece of gluten for the city, so we had croissants for breakfast which were absolutely incredible. And I also had a hot chocolate with whipped cream that was just as incredible, ain’t life beautiful. Then we went to a shop called Desigual which was actually kind of awesome and Nikki bought a shirt and everyone was happy and we walked down the Champs Elysse to the Arc de Triomphe, which of course we had to walk up… because our legs weren’t hurting enough from the Eiffel Tower, but the views of Paris were gorgeous.

After that, we caught a taxi to some huge shopping centre which had ice cream in the shape of flowers (really the only thing going for a shopping centre…) And then we came home so I could talk to Damian before he went to bed <3

I guess we must all still be pretty tired because after that, and skyping mum, we all kind of crashed for a few hours and then woke up at 8 for dinner (the people here eat at 9, it’s nutty). Post dinner, we searched for some take away coffee, but starbucks and McCafe were both closed so we gave up and came home.

And home just meant sleeping which was glorious as always.

Day two

Woke up, showered, and went in search of breakfast which turned out to be eggs again… go figure gluten intolerance. And then we started walking to the Louvre, which was not very far away. It was sort of beautiful and the Mona Lisa was bigger than I expected and the crowds were not as big… Which I guess says something about how people change my expectations of things. We then went to Notre Dame which was amazing as far as architecture goes, and like 849 years old, but also kind of a church, which put a bit of a damper on things. We also decided to see the Eiffel Tower at night, as we wanted to see the lights... so we walked from our hotel, which took some time but we had heaps. We ate dinner along the way because dad saw a fancy restaraunt and wanted to be a fancy pants and then we finished walking to the tower. We got there at 9:30, and it was still light,so we watched the light show at 10 and then decided to climb it to see the lights of Paris at dusk. When we got down it was so it was dark and we got to see the lights again in the darkness at 11 (they play the light show every hour). We got a taxi home and then completely crashed for the night :)

Day one

So I am currently in the beautiful city of Paris, France, with my darling sister and father, at the start of a five week journey through Europe, which I will attempt to document in a vague way on this blog. So we left Syndey at 6:45pm on Saturday, ready to fly to Paris via Dubai via Bangkok. We all managed to get a bit of sleep between Sydney and Dubai, but when we left Dubai it was light outside so we found it difficult to sleep on the next plane... which is quite unfortunate because when we left it was only about 3am in France so we probably needed that little bit extra but yeah. There were heaps of movies and TV shows and games on our flights, so we were definitely not bored (I didn't even have to get out my sims!) And though we did have WiFi from Dubai to Paris, it cost money so we didn't bother with it. They kept feeding us on board (I was always served first because of my special diet) and sometimes it felt like the only time I woke up was to eat. But all in all I only managed about 6-7 hours of sleep which isn't really a night's worth and it was spread over much more than a night... So now comes the struggle to stay awake until a respectable time… Once we got to Paris and got our luggage, we took forever figuring out how to get to our hotel and then getting here from the train station, but some helpful locals showed us the way :) Once at our hotel, it became an immediate priority to shower for the first time in 38 hours (and brush our teeth...yeah) Then we had omelettes for dinner (mine with salad, dad’s and Nikki’s with French fries, because you know, it’s France). And we all had to get coffee because otherwise we wouldn’t stay awake but we did until 8:30 which we deemed an acceptable time to sleep and we kind of crashed.... And slept for 12 hours.

Unrequited ice cream

"Man, I was thinking about unrequited love. I figure it's best to just walk that shit off. Find someone else to be excited about. It's like if you love ice cream but your ice cream man friend won't give you any. Maybe he's got a good reason. It cuts into profits. Who knows? But he likes you as a friend and wants to hang out anyway. It just drives you crazy to hang out with that dude, even if he's being reasonable from his point of view. So don't hang out with him. What, you ONLY like ice cream? It's ice cream or nothing? Don't be an asshole. Learn to love donuts."


So here's the thing... I can't eat ice cream or donuts, you know? i guess that's all I'm trying to say...

Unfamiliar territory

Haven't used the real web address for blogger in so long, it has changed styles. How interesting.
Just a few things to rant about...

1. I am so over people telling me to put on weight. I get it. I don't eat. I can't eat. The food I can eat tastes disgusting and the food I can't eat is not worth getting sick over. I am aware that I have been losing weight for months now, and I seriously don't give a crap. I don't care that none of my muscles work properly or that I'm in pain all the time. So stop caring about my health, you are not my parents.

2. I sit here for hours and watch crap TV with you so you can feel appreciated and yet you never do. I don't know what else to do, you like watching TV, you asked me to come in and play bubble games with you. The one time you ask to do something else, I'm in the middle of helping people with homework. And yeah, if it was anything else I would drop it to hang out with you, but homework is important and exams start in six days and I will be free in less than two weeks so just chill out until then.

3. I don't know where social lines are and I think that means I cross them. Sometimes the things I think should really just stay in my head because I think everyone is getting the wrong idea from them. And speaking of wrong ideas, stop telling me what I think and how I feel; those are my decisions not yours and it's confusing for my mind to be told different things. I don't want to overthink these things but I don't really have a choice. And that upsets me.

4. Exams exams exams stress stress stress. Mechanics, complex number polynomials, integration, limits, inverse functions, enthalpy changes, redox reactions. ...I think that's all I need to learn this week. And that's less than half my exams. And 51 is a waste of a mark. So I should stress less. But I won't. This is just me....

Happy studying

Playing the game

And now we play the game of who would you tell? Because there has to be someone I can get it out of. Because I'm sure I'd want to know. Except I wouldn't. Because right now I can justify everything I do with ignorance. Because ignorance is bliss.

And it's amazing how I can make all these stories up in my head, how I can think I'm so fucking amazing and at the end of the day no one cares and I'm just hurting myself. Making up lies to hurt myself. How is this so?

And I try to get other people to go along with it so I can feel leas ridiculous, so I can tell myself there's some truth to my fallacy. And now everyone knows I'm crazy and conceited and nothing changes. Nothing ever changes. Life goes on.

But who would you tell?

Tuesday

Today I set two personal records, waking up not only the tiredest but also the coldest I've been first thing in the morning all year. I feel like this should be celebrated with a medal or a bullet to the head or something...

I've also achieved a more general achievement as today I am moving house for the third time in 12 months, so that's just dandy.

Bus rides

I've missed the celestial calm that comes from talking to you. Your slowness used to irritate me, forever waiting for you to get to the point, but now it intrigues me.

I like the way you draw out your sentences, and the revelation of such thought and intelligence in each word. I enjoy your carefully selected sentences, even the ones you cannot finish. And I enjoy finishing the ones you can't.

Good luck with everything, I guess I should've gotten your number or something to see how you go today, but I'll see you around. I always do.

Steady, aim, fire

We are in open combat. And I win every battle but you still win the war.

Spare time for thoughts

I finally have spare time! So I'm blogging from my phone, Grayson :) it's quite unusual for me lately to not be in extraordinarily large amounts of pain, so I have to take these opportunities when they arise. I don't really know what all the pain is from, like I can identify most pains, like stomach pain and leg pains, but then I have weird pains like back pains that just arrive out of nowhere and prevent me from moving. Such is life, I suppose...

I have been having a hard time adjusting to this... Not being able to eat, having to check ingredients of everything before I put it in my mouth. It's been saddening mostly... I don't want to be this person forever. I just want to be normal. But I've made some decisions about the future which make me feel optimistic.

I've also realised that I've made decisions and said things in the past which I've come to regret. Things I never thought I would regret, but they were decisions I made at tough times and I didn't feel I had a choice. I felt pressured and responsible for other people, and that's not fair to myself. I should focus more on myself and less on other people... Niceness is often my greatest downfall.

And I miss you. I miss being able to text you when I did something I was proud of, that you could put in perspective, or something that reminded me of you, something only you would understand. Missing you has made me realise how fortunate I am to have other people, and yet, somehow, I don't feel fortunate, I don't appreciate people, I wish they would just leave me alone and let me study...

Life is funny, isn't it?

Unwritten words

So I had this total post written and I was going to tell you how I feel and try and make sound as unstupid as possible and maybe it would make some sense if I wrote it down, and I just want to tell the world how incredible you are. But one day, I will trust you enough to let you read this, and I don't want you to realise how crazily obsessed with you I am. I don't really have anyone... And I would like you to be my anyone.
See I'm doing it anyway, I have to go before I say the things I know I can't.

Ps boys suck :-D

People

I don't get people...

1. You get upset when I don't talk to you, but you don't want to talk to me. You tell me off when I don't hug you, but you pull away when I try. You tell me to spend time with you, not just everyone else, but I try to make plans with you, hours always busy and get angry at me for making plans at all. I don't want to give up on you. But I think I already have.

2. One day you skip two lectures to hang out with me, the next 0day you tell me that you can't handle me in big doses. You tell me that I drive you crazy, and then ask me to save you a seat so you can sit with me. I want to be close to you, I actually really like you. But I can't tell what you want, do you even want my friendship?

</rant>

I'm still alive... Just

Just installed blogger on my phone, totally going to blog more often now. Preparing to lose all my battery on internet, maybe I should get a spare battery :)
Anyway yeah, I have a lot of raging to do, but I will do it all later. I hope you look forward to that.

Have a sunshiney day!

Realistic Expectations

Another tragically mushy blog.
I would not drive to the ends of the Earth for you. Setting aside the fact that the Earth has no end; my car is unreliable and it would probably break down a million miles from nowhere with no one to help me and no phone reception. I am more inclined to catch a commercial air flight to the nearest major city and call you to come and get me.

And I would not walk a thousand miles for you. I am terribly unfit and, due to my hatred of water, I would probably dehydrate or drop dead on the way there. But I would walk to your house on a hot day just so we can lie in the park together.

I would not move a mountain for you. The Earth’s tectonics are not to be messed with, particularly by an individual, and if you asked me to, I would probably think you’d gone mad. Perhaps I would move a small mound of dirt or something, if I had a wheelbarrow.

I would not catch a star for you. First of all, stars are not moving, and those that appear to be are actually meteoroids. Second of all, stars are very hot and I would get burned. Third of all, stars are very big and I am very weak, when I’m not with you. But I wish for you on them all the time.

I would not write a song for you. You hate love songs and I have no musical talent and you tell me off when I sing. I listen to love songs and think about you, though.

I would not find the pot of gold from the end of the rainbow for you. Rainbows are just the reflection of water in raindrops and they don’t even lead anywhere. But I will give you anything material that I can. .

I would not walk through hell for you. Hell does not exist, and if it did, I would not go there, and you would not ask me to. I would walk on hot sand though, to be by your side (really hot sand, not just a little bit hot).


I guess my point is, I don't have unrealistic expectations of our relationship. I am not as naive as I used to be. I don't want to spend forever with you, or even the rest of my life. But a good 30 years would be nice ;)