We made it! We are in Paris - went to Notre Dame and the Bastille today, had lots of yummy red wine and are about to go collapse. We did lose our bags (stupid airline) but they are supposed to be bringing them to us tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed!
Well, off to collapse from jet-lagged exhaustion!
Bon soir!
Actually he is very very very heavy. I think I shall call him Bubba. I weighed myself with the backpack on and determined the backpack is 31 pounds. Now I am quite thankful my husband made me buy the one with the wheels.
I’ll try to post as often as possible while we’re gone, hopefully with pictures!
à bientôt!
With only a few days left until we leave, I’m going around, picking up the little things we need - a travel alarm clock, travel-sized toothpaste, ziploc bags to put our shampoo in so it doesn’t explode all over our clothes on the trip.
For those of you who don’t know me, I am a Planner and a Worrier. I like to cover every contingency, be ready for anything that might possibly go wrong. But I go a little overboard with the worry sometimes…
For example, I’m at Target, looking at the travel alarm clocks. There are several to choose from. I stand there, comparing all of them. After five minutes or so, I have it narrowed down to two, a TImex and a Sharp. Both are digital, both have nice backlights and are nice and compact. I think I like the Sharp better, but it takes a little button-shaped battery, not something normal like a AAA, which is what the Timex uses. So this is my thought process - What if the battery runs out in the middle of the night one night when we’re in, say, Spain, and we miss a train because of it?? That would not do at all. But then again we’re only going to be gone for five weeks, so the battery will probably not run out in that short of time. But I also think, hey, I can get the Sharp, I’ll just get an extra battery to bring along, just in case. I walk all over Target to find the right department for little button batteries. And…they don’t have the right size. So I decide, screw it, the battery will be fine. It will not run out and make us miss a train in Spain. I am pleased with myself for finally making the decision.
So, I do the rest of my shopping, but all the while I am totally second-guessing myself about the fucking alarm clock. What if? What if? AAAAAHHHHH!!!!
So I bought the Timex.
More like my large, army green monstrosity backpack. The best part is that it converts into a wheelie-bag. Hawk insisted I get it, because he knows me too well and knows that about two days into the trip I won’t want to carry this thing on my back all the time, and he doesn’t want to hear about it. So, now everyone’s happy!
Well we are at t-minus nine days and counting until we leave for Europe! I am so excited. Over the weekend we went through all our travel books and decided on all the places we want to go and sketched out a rough itinerary.
Check it out: We arrive in Paris on March 31 and will be there until April 4. We then take a train from Paris to Madrid, where we meet Hawk’s parents on the 5th. This is great, not only because we love them and love their company, but April 6 is his birthday, and he’s happy about seeing his folks on that day. Over the next week or so we go to several different cities in Spain, including Toledo, Granada and Sevilla. On April 13, we have our travel day from hell, where we take a train from Sevilla (in Southern Spain) to Dijon (in central-eastern France). It is about a 22 hour train trip, with something like four train changes. Eep. From Dijon, we head into Switzerland for a couple days, going to Bern and Interlaken. From Interlaken, on or about April 19, we will go to Trento, in Northern Italy, where Hawk’s aunt and uncle are living. Over the next week and a half we will go to Venice, Florence and Cinqueterre, then it’s back into France. We’re going to go to Avignon and Nimes, then to Lyon, and back to Paris on May 2. We leave to come home on May 4.
Whew!
Dude. Check this place out. It is a villa in Tarascon, a small town in Southern France (!), between Nimes and Avignon. I just happened to run across their website yesterday, and now we are staying there on April 29, towards the tail end of our trip.
Can’t. Wait.
Slate writer James Verini decided to test out a number of different condoms to see which one was the best in a number of different categories:
1) Feeling, by which I mean proximity to the real thing. How much did it feel like there was no condom at all?
2) Lubrication and ease of application.
How well-lubricated was the condom? Did it stay lubricated? (To keep
the playing field level, we used no outside lubricants.) Did it go on
easily? Was it ill-fitting? For the most part, we stuck with
normal-sized condoms. (Among the crop of larger-sized models, the
standout is the Trojan Magnum. And for those men really eager to
impress there is the Trojan Magnum XL, the Hummer of condoms.)
3) Aesthetics.
Some condoms have only a slight latex scent, others smell as though
you’re making out in a tire factory. And while most condoms look alike,
a few unfortunate specimens made us wonder whether their designers had
some kind of plumbing work in mind.
The big winner? According to Verini, a tie between the Trojan Supra and the Pleasure Plus.
** For those of you who are wondering, I am mainly posting this for my poor husband, who, since my doctor has taken me off the pill in anticipation of procreating (we don’t really want to get pregnant for another couple months), has to worry about things like condoms for the first time in about ten years. Poor, poor baby.
