xylene and toluene free.

-tomorrow i'll get to hear about the intricacies of phase transitions by someone who looks, walks & talks like kate walsh. a.k.a. the jaguar lady.

-today i learned yellow permanent markers are not yellow unless you write on white plastic or similar. on paper they're... butterscotchish? i'd never buy them if i knew but it's actually a pretty nice color and i'm in a good mood so i'm inclined to let it go.

-when i was seven a friend of mine with ridiculous eyelashes *and* freckles asked me why teachers had a seperate cafeteria line. i was instructive & bit wistful in an "i hate to break this to you" way(i suppose i was already me then?). i still wonder whether she went "um. okay." or just rolled her eyes at me.

-(recap after use.)

if you never say your name out loud to anyone

when is owning a marble etc. bust kitsch?

is there such a thing as too much UST in a procedural?

[|||]

to be laughed at later

updated travel wishlist! there was one, there was actually a travel journal but i'm afraid to open it because the last person who read it wasn't me and whatever.

-rome, by itself. winter.

-dublin.

-weekend trip to athens. winter.

-strasbourg/luxembourg/nancy/metz

- oslo/stockholm/copenhagen. possibly the last two together.

- san francisco?

-nz. good airline.

-krakow and whatever else there is in poland.

-lombardy, somewhere not milan.

-brussels/brugge/anvers, possibly oudenaarde.

-london. i *liked* it. lotsa stuff i want to see too.

-naples. spent all of 6 hours there. remember a square, red flowers, a dome, a view, some blue, loving it, and the guide who said "the unification of italy" way too much.

-bike racing is a good way to promote your region. except when turkey does it because no one has convinced me they care about the bike racing part yet.

and paris! in winter. this is pretty much all that's left:

-arts&metiers and one of the science museums, wonder which one's the less kiddy one.

-egouts, catacombs.

-arenes de lutece. i know there's nothing there, so let's put "rambling around the v." instead.

-mineralogie.

-ile-st-l's left-bank-side quai.

-'tit palais.

-carnavalet chronologically. i'm hopelessly confused by the layout but pretty sure it's possible.

-plans&reliefs. had a nervous breakdown trying to find it, next time i'll actually try listening to the person i asked. think the armee folks are just jealous because p&r (which i'm pretty sure is just a room) is free and more interesting, which i suspect only makes sense in my head.

-towers of the notre dame.

-champs elysees at very early in the morning, 5-6am.

-a hotel a bit further inland.

-louvre at night. stuff i'm aware i haven't seen: egyptian ertruscan etc. artefacts (which doesn't really bother me) & roman and some italian/french sculpture.

-st.denis. had time & safety concerns this time but have to see it someday.

-churches i haven't seen: st.l-en-l'ile, st.e-du-mont and the quirky one around the bernardins. also the two near the river around st.michel and whatever else i come across.

-churches i really want to see again: st.merri, st.eustache, ste-chapelle, st.jean @ monmartre.

ETA: musee moreau.

TMI.

so i don't deal well with a barrage of questions the real answer to which is "neither" or "i don't care" but then who does, right? after stumbling out meaningless answers for the last couple of days am starting to train myself to htfu and just pick one but not really succeeding so far. over soon anyway. but:

there isn't a trashcan in the toilet. fun. not.

this old but might as well:

is it wrong to look at pictures of people having fun and only see their brastraps? you see one and then another and then you just keep looking for them- it's a carcrash thing.

i want a keylogger.

how can the internets eat multiple submitted comments after showing it on the screen as such? that's twenty full minutes of genius that's lost!

as for services owned by oogleg, i might as well put content in a blackhole. but i suppose that's not really their fault (ahem).

the one thing i'm afraid of more than i am of keyloggers is contracting tetanus.

no, not really. the tetanus part is true however. i'm really unreasonably afraid of that.

note to self: visit krakow.

when the cobbled roads at the city centre are closed and shiny with rain & questionable infrastructure, and the sun is all orange and low on the sky (if possible).

and there's a bike race with a backlit bunchsprint that drives commentators crazy & an irish winner with his own personal rainbow.

yeah, that'd be nice.

they play "stand up for the champions" after podium ceremonies in swimming euros @ budapest. longer than i heard on any six day, and then they hand them something that looks suspiciously like a stuffed skodayeti.

"pool party time!" says the bemused commentator.

ma patrie, c'est la langue anglaise.

-okay, so i should've printed cards that said "i'm not judging you because you can't speak english. i also happen to understand french. spare us your embarrassed arm-waving and speak to me." only more concisely. and in french. seriously, i can read intramuseum blurbs! you'd think i can construct grammatical sentences.

-deserves its own bulletpoint:

language acquisition window*, people! love it, hug it.

-bertador signed! i got a phone call! honorable mentions to the orange internet access thingies as well as the good old printed press. here at living is easy hq we're tranquilo & will have more to say come september 1. also, that press conference is a thing of beauty- check out the difference in støds bw/ bjarne and lars seier! and the giddiness of it all; he's in kastrup! he couldn't find a taxi!

-[the pretty goes here.]

*not exactly the right term here. i know.