Traveling/Some of the News I Read Today
Feb. 2nd, 2012 03:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
x_losProvided the visa thing works out okay, my parents may come visit me (a bit separate, a bit together, overlapping in the middle--it's as complex and awkward as their /yet again On, but this time 'Casual' (ahahahahahah yeah right mom)/ dating relationship) in March. Actually kind of excited about actually traveling for the first time in FOREVER (save Molly's wedding, which was in some ways more stress than vacation), and weirdly pleased to see my parents.
The overlap but alone time suggestion will mean that I'm not stuck dealing with it too long if they have weird spats, but neither am I subjected to the potential annoyances of the unrelieved presence of either, i.e. mom's capacity to be over-bearing as hell and dad's capacity to have no interests, spend an embarrassing amount of money (which leaves me physically nauseous), and not plan properly/actually want to do anything. Also it means dad won't try to bring Randima the Random Ho. Again. In any of her regenerations. None of whom are nice, interesting women with any conversation. Or my aunt, who still hasn't forgiven me over last August's truly trivial spat over hotel bookings. Predictably.
We thought London for a few days, and then a few days in maybe two more cities/close areas--so about a weak in total, maybe a day or two (three?) in various places. There's been some talk of France, Germany and Italy. Idk about France--I can understand soooome Italian (close enough to Spanish) and a pinch of German (ran through basic introductions, directions, numbers, and ordering of food in the shower the other night--shaky, but not unworkable), but no French, and it proved a problem in Paris last time. As did the erratic Louvre hours. And the hostel fees. and the sprinklers in the Tulleries, when we didn't want to pay the hostel fees. And the large rats in the subway, when we did then had to use a public bathroom at night (cat sized). And the man who catcalled at Molly in the subway and got pissed off when I was like 'noooo, don't ask what he's saying, he's saying 'I am a creeper', walk ooooon'. City of love. I am not going back without a Francophone.
Also I briefly and embarrassingly thought the Hotel de Ville place we were walking past was like, a hotel? ...I got a 5 in AP Euro. What was I smoking that morning. I blame the sprinklers/that rat.
But idk, are there parts of France that do not suck? Paris WAS pretty attractive, but a hard place to visit po. Suppose I wouldn't be, this time, b/c with parents.
There's an instinct to stick to Major Capitals because my parents have never been to Europe (only my mom's ever left the country, to go to Mexico), and I'd like them to see Big Things, esp. as they may not get back. But also they don't seem to particularly care where we go, and I've done Rome/Florence/Venice/Berlin. I could go back, but then, I'd also like to see some new places and things. I thought maybe I could do Vienna again, because I remember really liking Vienna, but there was not much interest. Where else in Germany and Italy and maybe France should I take them? Where's good?
...Mom had better not throw a weird 'you're trying to ruin my luff!!!' fit again. At any point. Because dumbest shit ever.
Also it has occurred to me they should probably meet Katy's mother for tea. *Eugh.*
***
An amazingly DEAD SERIOUS review of buildings in Star Wars by Architects' Journal.
POETRY FEUD!! Hat-tip to Katy.
Okay, weirdly? I think this is a GIANT relief. No longer do I have to have nightmares about plastic decomposition!!
Did you know football hooligans played a major role in the Egyptian uprising? NOR DID I!
Amazing-sounding doughnuts
The Math/Science Gender Gap roughly about as acculturated, bullshit as I always thought it was.
Former slave Epically Trolls his former master. Also trolling aside I like the weird hint of emotional complication and wildly ambivalent, complicated emotional relationships between these people (who you'd think of as having a pretty starkly uncomplicated interaction) in this period of strange upheaval, it makes you want to write about the period.
The History Boys called, it wants its critique of Oxbridge back. Actually it's a decent pointing-out of the ways 'meritocratic excellent' is preconditioned, but it could have pressed its conclusion point more thoroughly by being more searching in its body. It has a length issue in that it wants to realize its potential as a searching inditement of the American concept that people have an equal chance to succeed, thus those that do are justified by a sort of Calvanist pre-destination doctrine of success, and also it wants to talk about what that does to education and what that does to people--but it's two pages, so it waffles and gestures vaguely towards the things it wants to speak about before slinking off stage.
Paris sucks for people traveling with babies. Also if you don't speak French, or don't have a shit-ton of cash on you, I find...
The overlap but alone time suggestion will mean that I'm not stuck dealing with it too long if they have weird spats, but neither am I subjected to the potential annoyances of the unrelieved presence of either, i.e. mom's capacity to be over-bearing as hell and dad's capacity to have no interests, spend an embarrassing amount of money (which leaves me physically nauseous), and not plan properly/actually want to do anything. Also it means dad won't try to bring Randima the Random Ho. Again. In any of her regenerations. None of whom are nice, interesting women with any conversation. Or my aunt, who still hasn't forgiven me over last August's truly trivial spat over hotel bookings. Predictably.
We thought London for a few days, and then a few days in maybe two more cities/close areas--so about a weak in total, maybe a day or two (three?) in various places. There's been some talk of France, Germany and Italy. Idk about France--I can understand soooome Italian (close enough to Spanish) and a pinch of German (ran through basic introductions, directions, numbers, and ordering of food in the shower the other night--shaky, but not unworkable), but no French, and it proved a problem in Paris last time. As did the erratic Louvre hours. And the hostel fees. and the sprinklers in the Tulleries, when we didn't want to pay the hostel fees. And the large rats in the subway, when we did then had to use a public bathroom at night (cat sized). And the man who catcalled at Molly in the subway and got pissed off when I was like 'noooo, don't ask what he's saying, he's saying 'I am a creeper', walk ooooon'. City of love. I am not going back without a Francophone.
Also I briefly and embarrassingly thought the Hotel de Ville place we were walking past was like, a hotel? ...I got a 5 in AP Euro. What was I smoking that morning. I blame the sprinklers/that rat.
But idk, are there parts of France that do not suck? Paris WAS pretty attractive, but a hard place to visit po. Suppose I wouldn't be, this time, b/c with parents.
There's an instinct to stick to Major Capitals because my parents have never been to Europe (only my mom's ever left the country, to go to Mexico), and I'd like them to see Big Things, esp. as they may not get back. But also they don't seem to particularly care where we go, and I've done Rome/Florence/Venice/Berlin. I could go back, but then, I'd also like to see some new places and things. I thought maybe I could do Vienna again, because I remember really liking Vienna, but there was not much interest. Where else in Germany and Italy and maybe France should I take them? Where's good?
...Mom had better not throw a weird 'you're trying to ruin my luff!!!' fit again. At any point. Because dumbest shit ever.
Also it has occurred to me they should probably meet Katy's mother for tea. *Eugh.*
***
An amazingly DEAD SERIOUS review of buildings in Star Wars by Architects' Journal.
POETRY FEUD!! Hat-tip to Katy.
Okay, weirdly? I think this is a GIANT relief. No longer do I have to have nightmares about plastic decomposition!!
Did you know football hooligans played a major role in the Egyptian uprising? NOR DID I!
Amazing-sounding doughnuts
The Math/Science Gender Gap roughly about as acculturated, bullshit as I always thought it was.
Former slave Epically Trolls his former master. Also trolling aside I like the weird hint of emotional complication and wildly ambivalent, complicated emotional relationships between these people (who you'd think of as having a pretty starkly uncomplicated interaction) in this period of strange upheaval, it makes you want to write about the period.
The History Boys called, it wants its critique of Oxbridge back. Actually it's a decent pointing-out of the ways 'meritocratic excellent' is preconditioned, but it could have pressed its conclusion point more thoroughly by being more searching in its body. It has a length issue in that it wants to realize its potential as a searching inditement of the American concept that people have an equal chance to succeed, thus those that do are justified by a sort of Calvanist pre-destination doctrine of success, and also it wants to talk about what that does to education and what that does to people--but it's two pages, so it waffles and gestures vaguely towards the things it wants to speak about before slinking off stage.
Paris sucks for people traveling with babies. Also if you don't speak French, or don't have a shit-ton of cash on you, I find...
