The Girl Who Ate Everything

Refuge des Fondus

Here it is.

If I don't make a post this week, it's because I'm tired/not eating anything interesting/way behind on school work. Probably a combination of all of those. But I may post something anyway.

This is an entry to tell you that I don't have a new entry. Seriously.

I thougth I would write another one, as I do have things to write about, but now I'm just frustrated with random crap and feeling like a huge fucking idiot and am really not in the mood to write an entry, even more so because I'm tired to the 100th power and...the aforementioned "fucking idiot" thing.

It's a petty subject. About housing. And not looking into it very well. And realizing that NYU doesn't seem to let people out of housing. For some reason, I thought it'd be easy; it's not like they'd have a hard time finding other students to move in. But then I realized I didn't know what I was doing while looking at the cancellation options and flipped out, big time. Because I was all set on moving into an apartment and not living with an insane musical theater major but someone who really likes food and having my own room and natural sunlight and...

[tummy gurgles]

And I apparently cannot appreciate what I have if this stupid thing gives me stomach pains and renders my speech patterns as incomprehensible as someone recovering from a stroke. I'm not kidding.

The stupidest thing about all this may be that after I submitted my application, I wasn't entirely sure if I had to. From the notices NYU gave me, it seemed like I had to stay in housing. And then...I could also cancel. But only if I had good reason to. Which I didn't. By this point I'd rather not know whether I had to or didn't have to fill in the application. I actually think that maybe I didn't, but it's too late now. AND I DO NOT WANT TO KNOW, OKAY, ALRIGHT. Or else I will feel like crying.

Also, I'm going to London tomorrow and won't be back until Sunday afternoon, so I doubt I will write something over my trip. I'm leaving the ol' laptop at home since I do not want to carry it around for 3 hours tomorrow during the time between arriving in London and when the friend I'm staying with gets home from work.

Sadly, right now I'm not thinking about London as much as all the work I have to do when I get back from London. I'm forgetting that I'm going to a concert tomorrow. And that I'm seeing a good friend. And that I'm getting out of Paris. And that it should be fun. But in less than 12 hours I have to be out the door to get to the train station and my brain feels like it's sizzling.

And it will probably explode once I realize how bad the dollar-to-pound exchange rate is.

Think happy thoughts, think happy thoughts...less than a week until school ends, only about 2 weeks until I go back home (wait, that's not a particularly happy thought), less than 3 weeks until I see one of my best friends in the whole wide world that I will certainly tackle as soon as I see him.

Okay dudes, have a good weekend. Sorry for venting here; I don't usually use my blog for that purpose. If you thought you had any reason to email me, I'd appreciate it if you could hold off until I get back on Sunday. Thank you.

I've been writing an entry for a few hours as a draft in gmail as I usually do.

...And I accidentally clicked "discard" as I never do.

...And I didn't notice the "undo discard" since I had never accidentally discarded a draft before.

I feel like I'm going to throw up.

...And I absolutely do not want to attempt to write a Parisist entry to be posted in 15 hours.

...Yes, I'm back from London. I was 75% done with my summary of the weekend.

Tube escalator

"Hey, now I'm as tall as you are!" Amadeep and I were standing on the escalator going down the Tottenham Court Road tube station, with me one step higher than him. I'm only about five feet tall; I'm used to people towering over me.

"Actually, you're a little bit taller than me."

"Oh. ...SWEET!"

"I've seen really short people before. You know, like this tall [holds out hand about waist-high over the ground] with arms like this [pulls arms closer to body so that they resemble nubbly appendages]"

"Um, are you sure those are humans?"

"Yeah! I think they're referred to as 'midgets'. I happen to call them 'goblins'."

Sigh. I'm going to miss Amadeep.

First day in London

I didn't plan my trip to London very well. The original plan way back when was to meet up with Sophie (the girl who ate more than everything) and gorge on something unhealthy, until work reared its ugly head (but I suppose work isn't the worst thing since it leads to moolah, which results in more eating possibilities) and stole Sophie away from me. I also emailed Amadeep a few times about meeting up, but we didn't confirm that until a few hours before dinner on Saturday night. I didn't mean to subject my way too friendly host, Leanne, to spending so much time with me, not that I don't enjoy hanging out with her but I know she has a life that doesn't involve making sure I don't get horribly lost around London.

Night time and tube-ing

I see this every day, foo'

I forgot that I had a blog for a while. Sorry. :[

If it makes you feel any better (but I'm not sure how it would), I've spent at least 10 hours of my life in the past two days writing the shittest essay I've ever written in college for my history class. It's about Indian and Chinese Buddhism and isn't very long, but I think the crap factor was due to writing an essay about a topic that I was neither very interested in nor knowledgable about for the first time in the past four years. What usually happens is that I write about something I'm interested in but don't know much about (hence why I want to write about), or I'm forced to write about something I don't like but at the very least have learned about in class, thus giving me at least a pinch of confidence that I can write something coherent.

Whatever I wrote today (which isn't even finished; it's conclusion-less) is a mass of jumbled crap that makes very little sense full of information that I culled only from websites, some of which seemed to contradict each other. SWEET! On top of all that, I took the class pass/fail, meaning that all I have to do is...pass. Which seems easy enough. Perhaps.

The class just wasn't worth my time. [sigh]

It's wrong how I waste my time in college. I could write endless kilobytes about how unfit I am to be a member of the human race for not being grateful enough for anything or working hard enough or blah blah blah, but that's not the purpose of this blog.

For some good news, I'm out of NYU housing's grasp and shall live in a real apartment in a room I don't have to share with someone else and my housemate is not insane and oh my god I'm rambling because it's like a dream come true, or at least not a nightmare! I will give more exciting details later, perhaps when I move in. Sorry about the previously posted overreaction. If anyone's wondering, you can cancel your NYU housing before the appointed "CANCEL BEFORE THIS DATE OR DIE" date by emailing them. Poof, that's it.

The Wolseley

Back to food. I never wrote about my breakfast sunday morning in London with Su-Lin at The Wolesley. As we walked into the restaurant we gasped at the sheer huge-ness and beauty of it. ...For it is huge and beautiful. And quiet. The color scheme was something like marble, black, gold, and silver. In the center of the restaurant sat a round table neatly piled high with French viennoiseries (correct me if this isn't the right term for breakfasty types of pastries).

congratulations, it's a baby...cup!

Of course, Su-Lin and I broke out our cameras as soon as food hit the table (this is her marrochino, espresso with chocolate and steamed milk). And then...

foooood

My latset Parisist entry is up...a few days late.

Trust me, I so so sososo want to write a real entry, but I'm overwhelmed with material to the point that I can't devote a decent block of time/concentration to writing what I want. My past week has went something like this:

Yesterday: Didn't do well on computer programming final, went chocolate shopping, stayed home for dinner, attempted to study psychology.

Monday: Met up with Kathryn, old roommate from freshman year who's in Paris for her vacation, roamed around aimlessly for a few hours and ate lunch, went home, went back out for dinner with two school mates, Callie and Whitney.

Sunday: Met up with Janice, Adelyn and Mare for lunch and Christmas market browsing at La Defense, also chatted over hot chocolate and coffee, braved the overcrowded Fnac in attempt to find books I wanted, went home very sleepy, possible took a nap, went back out for ducktastic dinner with Yann.

Saturday: Full day of Belgium hopping in Brugges and Brussels with Val, started out with craptastic weather, found out that Brugges and Brussels are really really crowded, had a good time but would rather not go back to either place unless I had a better plan or knew someone who lived there.

Friday: Spent maybe 5 hours working on that crappy Buddhism paper, went out to a crepe dinner with Alex, said goodbye, felt sad.

Thursday: Went to the Basilica of Saint Denis with Annie, ate a gyro lunch, went out for dinner with Val and her friends to Saint Michel and got more gyro action and a crepe, worked on crappy essay.

Wednesday: Had crappy history quiz, met up with Adelyn to go kitchen supply and cook book shopping, saw "Flushed Away" with Alex and ate gelato afterwards.

[deep breath]

So that's what I've been up to. Along with attempting to study. Which isn't working, seeing as how I'm in the school computer lab right now with my psychology book open and I'm not exactly taking notes on it. I wouldn't even remember what I did if I didn't take photos of everything. My brain doesn't take notes; my camera does. Sad.

I still haven't bought the majority of my Christmas gifts (although I did make a chart of what to get for whom to help myself out) and god knows my packing plan is to do it all on Friday night. I have two more finals to go and then I can relax a smidge...before figuring out how much money I need to buy gifts. And how to carry them around. Apparently all my mum wants are madeleines (although I will of course also get her chocolates and macarons). Now all I have to do is find the best, freshest madeleines! Weehee! Uhh!

Please show commenting love on Parisist. Now I will TAKE SOME MORE NOTES, OOH YESSS, and then eat with Annie, and then not bomb my French final.

"Do you want to get gelato?"

...Who doesn't want to get gelato?

so many movies

After watching "Souris City" (did "Flushed Away" not translate well into French?) at the Forum des Halles cinema last Wednesday night, Alex and I hoofed it to Pozzetto for a last bit of gelato bliss in Paris.

...For me, at least. Alex is staying for the next semester—I AM LEAVING ON SATURDAY MORNING.

Anyway. Thankfully Pozzetto has late opening hours for those of us who crave frozen creamy heaven-in-a-cup at a time when most people...do not. We gave sighs of relief upon seeing the lit facade of the shop from down the otherwise dark and not particularly lively looking street. But it is alive. With gelato. And the other things they sell that we were less interested in.

three splodgey scoops!

Cioccolato fondente, yogourt magro and pear sorbet were all...awesome. Of course. Although I don't usualy like sorbet, I wanted to try it because 1) Pozzetto can do no wrong and 2) I already tried all the gelato flavors I wanted. And what do you know—the pear sorbet tasted like a fresh pear, the yogurt tasted like tangy yogurt, and the chocolate tasted liked creamy, frozen ganache. I shouldn't have been amazed that the flavors tasted so real or that the textures, even of the usually stubbornly icy sorbet, were so perfectly creamy and dense, but I'm just not used to eating stuff that tastes that good. I must banish the mediocre frozen desserts out of my life.

bye bye

preface

I thought I should warn you that this entry is not very good. I think my brain shut off as soon as I got back to New Jersey. Besides that, my asthma acted up (which never happened in Paris) and my nasal passages filled with mucus. New Jersey has that kind of effect. I thought writing about Paris would inspire me, but instead it kind of just made me sad.

So. Well. Yup. Thank you for all your comments on my last entry! Sorry I'm too lazy to acknowledge them all, but you know I usually would; they meant a lot to me. I had an awesome December 25th (also known as Christmas, but I don't really celebrate it), which I may talk about later, and I already have plans for the most awesome New Year's Eve ever. :) But until then...

Being back home is odd. When I entered my house, it was almost like I had never left. Everything's the same except that my brother moved out and I haven't seen him yet. Frankly, he's being an asshole right now. I wish all of you in Internet land and I could go to his apartment and smack some sense into him.

...But whatever! Let's think happy thoughts.

:D :D :D :D :D

Or attempt to. I'll start by going back to last Monday.

cheap eat + a splurge

Laduree truck!

Right outside the ginormous metal gates of my apartment building was a minty green Ladurée truck. Taunting me. How many macarons do you think would fit in there? A gazillion, roughly? I have no idea why it was sitting in the middle of the street, but I suppose someone ordered a lot of tasty things. Lucky bastard.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

My brain did a somersault in response to the sudden knocking on my door. It was pitch black, sometime around the wee hour of 6 AM. With my eyes cracked open by about a nanometer, I hobbled out of bed to open the door.

"Robyn, I'm leaving!" Valerie had an early flight back home to Florida and I told her to wake me up before she left.

"Ahhhhhhhhh," I moaned in a semi-comatose state. I wasn't fully awake, but I could make out her blurry visage without my glasses.

"It was cool being house mates!"

"Ahhhhhh," I moaned as we hugged. "I liked having you as a housemate too." I really did.

"Maybe we'll see each other again. I may visit New York!"

"That'd be cool," I weakly sputtered, still half-comatose. "Have a good trip!"

"Bye!"

I closed the door and plopped back into bed while wishing that I had been more awake to give a better good-bye. I was certainly tired enough to fall asleep, but as I lied there I could hear the loud echoing of the knocking of her luggages as she went down the stairs and the rapid-fire clicking of the luggage wheels as she dragged them over the tiled walkway. The sound of her leaving the apartment seemed to drag forever. My body tensed up at the auditory reminder of my isolation. I eventually heard the heavy click of the main driveway door opening, the last clunks of the luggages being yanked over the threshold, and the final click of the door closing.

She was gone. I was completely alone in the apartment.

and then the sun came up

How would I spend my last day in Paris? Alone, mainly. I had to buy last minute perishable items (what else would I bring home?), pack them, and then...well, I didn't plan much further than that.

cloudless sky

First stop was my favorite bakery, Poujauran. I took the 9 train to Alma-Marceau and walked over the bridge to the 7th arrondissement. Even though I had walked the same path many times during the semester to get to my psychology class, it felt different knowing I wasn't in a rush to go to school. I actually looked at my surroundings for once and thought, "Damn, it's really nice here." [sigh]

I'm in a car!

Where the hell am I?

LOUISA, VIRGINIA! Suh-weet!

First thing: Over the past two days I've received more emails than I usually do along the lines of "HI ROBYN YOU'RE BACK, ARE YOU ALIVE?", I assume because it's the end of the year and most people are on vacation and now have the time to write me something. I love you, thanks! But I just want to let you know that it may take me a while to get back to you, not because I don't love you but because I'm in Louisa until January 1st and then I'll be hanging out in NYC for a few days after that with a friend from out of town.

BUSY BUSY BUSY.

Wow, my grammar sucks today. I'm going to confuse the new readers who are expecting great prose about food by not writing well and not writing about food! Hehehe! Laugh with me?

EMPTY ROAD!

Louisa! Has all these fields! And not much else! Ha ha! But wait, there's more!