a very happy halloween, as promised

happy halloween, douchebags

And now we're going back a few days, but all I'm going to say is just you effing wait until I find a computer that will let me stick my card in its slot. Because BOY HAVE I GOT SOME AWESOME PICTURES TO SHOW YOU. Think Grid Iron and sex-shop costumes, lit pumpkins and fluorescent words against a tie-dye sky, and Disney-Lego-Banana Split dreams. It was the all-American experience that one may expect to have in Orlando, Florida, and it was BRILLIANT. And then if you're lucky, I'll go further back in time and also post wonderful pictures of more trees and mountains, J.K. Rowling's thinking chair, lakes and waterfalls, bottles of whisky, stone beaches and maybe some pastel yachts. I'm currently in New York and I have intentions of getting this blog up to date soon, but honestly, it's just so awesome here, with so many things I want to do, that I may not opt to plant myself in front of the page (at a cost of $10/hour... or thereabouts) and click through the ridiculous thousands of pictures that I've snapped. So. Until next time... ex oh, ex oh.

the things i've lost - in no particular order because i've also lost any sense of chronology

1. Towel. Actually. Two towels.
2. Umbrella. It served a solid for purpose for 15 minutes. Then it didn't, because I was inside getting coffee and the umbrella was somewhere getting gone.
3. Make-up. All of it. Clinique. I could have listed each individual item, but that would have been tedious for you, the reader. Please pay me sympathy. I now have to look like a paled cabbage leaf.
4. Tweezers. These are listed separately to the general make-up loss because their disappearance was a separate instance and one, in fact, that I remember quite clearly. Outside of my window the Swiss mountains in the distance were putting on their snow caps and getting ready for what was going to be a very clear day. The sun was shining. This was different to the previous day. Inside of my window I was hitting my snooze button and avoiding the first lunge into what was going to be a very hungover day. The phone vibrated and I slapped my arm about, out of the covers, into the centrally-heated air, and across the bedside table. The phone stopped, something fell onto the ground - clink - and I made a mental note to pick whatever it was up later. But like the mountains whose snow caps sometimes become one with the clouds and thus invisible, so too did my note form just a fleeting, useless moment in my sleep and disappear in the waking hour. What? The point? They were really good tweezers.
5. Inability, to a pretty satisfactory extent, to not sweat the small stuff. (and it's all small stuff). I include this because I wish to express that I am not solely focused on material possessions, but I also hesitate because I believe that this loss is actually, really, when you think about it, a gain. For me personally. Maybe not for you.
6. Social awkwardness. In general. A little bit. At least. It helps when you suddenly have an accent and are automatically endearing.
7. Boot straps. Only one got lost along the way one fun night as I ambled about, but given that you can't go around with one strapped boot and one unstrapped boot, I had to discard the remaining one. Is that what they do with twins?
8. I'm sure there is more, but I'm certain that by now I've lost track.

i heart books

coffee, food and thinking of some words

on bus

bridge into the sky

a reminder of giant times

just up around this bend

in the grass

cows and berries along the way

This day involved a 14 mile bicycle ride along the coast and a climb up the side of the mountain to see a 3000-year-old ring fort perched on the side of a 300 foot cliff. The ocean shimmered beneath us. It was silver and uninterrupted by land. It did not look like water, but something waxy and soft and should you drink it you may just inherit magical powers or at least absorb some vitamin awesome. This day ought to have a pie named after it.

don't step inside the ring

thirty minutes of childhood

dingle(berry) peninsula

The first stop of the day involved a faerie tapping me on the shoulder and saying, 'Woo, Tegan. Look at where you are. Green and lakes. Oh and a horse over there.' I sat on the fence. I only just noticed that large gap in the fence. And to think I could have clambered through and ran into the wild to live with the faeries forever. But the lining, as always, is silver. It was really freaking cold and I left my jacket on the bus. I was relieved to leave the faeries to dance in the wind alone and move on to beachier (and yet still green) pastures, followed by a market lunch involving mushrooms and garlic and coffee.

shamrocker

Yes. I did. I went on an organised tour. Hold your grimaces and your mocking laughs for just a moment though; the entries that are to follow are intended to sum up what was one of the best weeks of my life. The people, the places were, if not perfect, justly awesome. Ireland is spectacular and because my photography does not do it justice I ask you to put on your shimmer-tinted glasses and apply an emerald sheen to all shades of green that my shoddy lighting did not pick up.

let's start at the beginning

Some things I encountered in Dublin apart from dancing by myself in bathrooms and jumping in parks included many bridges, a famous university known as Trinity College, which educated the likes of Oscar Wilde and the equally talented Damian Leith, an awesome bagel shop and avoiding 'knackers' and people wearing too much Adidas.

I spent hours in parks.
I looked in people's windows. Saw couches, fridges, naked people.

I pretended to be a student. This is where I played Quidditch.

I went to a castle. I liked the castle's sky.

I stayed in a filthy hostel on an awesome street.

I didn't go swimming.

The real highlight, however, was the Dublin Zoo, where I befriended a baby chimpanzee. If anyone or thing can pull off yellow eyeshadow it's this little critter. It likes branches and swinging and hanging out with other chimps, especially fat ones. I gathered this from observation. Chimps can't talk.

I would put up more photos but a giraffe ate my camera. Well, the batteries.