Kathleen Came to Visit!

The greatest reunion of all time has occurred. After approximately ten months, twenty-four days, and I don't know how many hours (because of the time difference between Australia and the States, not because I don't remember the exact last second the train pulled away and I could no longer see her face), Kathleen and I were reunited at last!

I woke up on Friday to get ready for work to find that I had a very sore throat and a runny nose and was very upset to be feeling under the weather with Kathleen's arrival a mere twenty-four hours away. (Still, I kind of felt it was only appropriate for one of us to be sick for our reunion since at least one of us was almost ALWAYS sick in Australia.) As soon as I got off work that night, I loaded up on nose sprays, cough drops, and cold meds to give me the best chance at a good night’s sleep. This worked well in two ways, because my nose stopped running long enough to allow me to breathe well enough to fall asleep, and it took care of the butterflies-in-my-stomach/first-day-of-school-excitement that would have kept me up.

When my alarm went off Saturday morning, I read Kathleen’s message (she missed the bus) and promptly snoozed for another hour, which did wonders for my head cold though it meant I had to wait for Kathleen just a little longer. I headed to Port Authority Terminal and after text- and phone-tag, I spotted a pair of purple boots and a purple bag, and I knew I had found Kathleen. I’m trying to think of a metaphor for the excitement, the happiness, the shock, the elation that I felt when we finally had the longest hug of all time in the middle of the hallway outside RadioShack, but an explosion doesn’t come close to describing what I felt. Kathleen and I were together.

It was as if she’d just popped back into my dorm room in Australia, like we’d never spent more than four seconds apart. We made our way back to my apartment and hung around for a bit before heading for lunch, chatting and catching up on any and every detail we’ve missed out on with each other over the last year.

For lunch, we decided to go to Ellen’s Stardust Diner. Good choice as always, Kathleen! It’s a 50s style diner, which is almost guaranteed to serve a good burger, but this diner is special in that all its waiters and waitresses are performers. Apparently, a number of Broadway stars get their start at this diner, and we could absolutely see why. They’re all fantastic singers. And it didn’t stop the entire time we sat and ate. We sat at a tiny half booth/table, elbow-to-elbow with the customers on either side, and the servers walked around the tables or climbed onto the little platform that made up the backs of the booths, directly behind my head.

We continued to reminisce, talk about the future, and everything in between over our pitcher of Brooklyn Seasonal Ale – I’m in love with every Brooklyn-brewed beer I’ve tried so far, by the way! – Blue Suede Burgers, and waffle fries. The music ranged from classic rock to the Wicked soundtrack to Call Me Maybe (yes, really – it was a request, apparently…damn that catchy awful song), and every singer was spot on and so fun to listen to. It was so fun and so delicious that neither Kathleen nor I felt that bad over the $75 bill. But that’s New York near Times Square for you, I guess!

Heavily weighed down, we headed into Times Square where we were almost immediately distracted by the M&Ms store. Where they have bags to create your own mix from any color and any type of M&M you can imagine. We started to fill up a bag until we noticed that the line was ridiculously long, at which point we put the bags back and were content with the few pieces of candy we’d accidentally already popped in our mouths. (Everyone else was too…)

So we trekked to the big red stairs in Times Square and looked at all the people dressed in costumes taking photos with tourists and seriously contemplated taking photos too. But we didn’t.

After some shopping and a Starbucks-fueled pick-me-up, we tried to hail a taxi to take us to the Staten Island Ferry, but I think we suck at hailing cabs. After a few minutes, a hired car offered to take us for a flat rate and we hopped in. The driver was so nice and we talked to him for most of the twenty-minute drive. He told us about things to do in New York, pointed out different places and landmarks to go as we drove, and told us about growing up in New York. I love getting cool drivers.

We were just in time to board the ferry to Staten Island, our only goal to see the Statue of Liberty since it was already dark and getting late at this point. We sat on the top deck, marveling at the lights and New York skyline as we left the dock. Moments after taking off, the Statue was visible, glowing green on the water. It was another of those I-can’t-believe-I’m-really-seeing-this kinds of moments. Such a monumental landmark and significant symbol of our country, it was incredible to see in person. It is much smaller than I was expecting, and I’d been told this already but it was still remarkably and surprisingly small. I definitely need to come back in the daylight!

Once we made the round trip, snapping photos all along the way, we boarded the subway to head back to mine where we had some exciting and epic Skype dates set up in Australia. First on the agenda were Ross and Vez. I’ve been able to Skype Ross a few times, but Vez and I have only messaged since I left Australia so it was particularly fantastic to get to Skype the two of them while I was with Kathleen in person. Such a happy reunion! Next, Kathleen and I had the pleasure of talking to Chris who Kathleen has kept in better touch with than I have, so it was SO nice to get to talk to him finally too! Here's to keeping in even better touch.

ILY, you guys. You’re the greatest, and seeing you online only makes me want to get to Australia that much faster in person. Still at the absolute top of my travel list, to get back and spend time with you all. Or, come to the States and I will gladly host you forever. Please and thank you!

Having gotten our Australia fix (for the time being – there’s always an incurable Australia longing lurking in my chest that will invade my dreams and errant thoughts at the slightly provocation), we grabbed our six-pack and headed to my roof that overlooks the George Washington Bridge and the Hudson River. We spent even longer talking up there, just like we had been all day. I can’t remember laughing that much in so long. We capped off the night with some Fresh Prince on TV back in my room and crashed, happy as can be.

This morning was an early one as I still had to go to work at the bakery, so Kathleen and I had pastries and I had a much needed coffee before I started my shift. Kathleen hung out doing thesis work like a boss while I readied the hosting area for the day’s service, and before I knew it Kathleen was coming over to say bye to go catch her bus. It felt like someone punched me in the stomach, realizing that I had to say goodbye again. Note to self: don’t say goodbye to anyone who will make you want to cry at work, because it’s really awkward if you’re even just a little teary-eyed when trying to seat unsuspecting customers. Also: try your best not to sneeze on customers either. I didn’t, but there were two close calls that could have been really, really gross, stupid cold. Sneezing bullet: dodged. Teary-eyes: working on it.

Kathleen, I had SO much fun with you in the day that we got spend together! Thank you so much for making the trip, because I had the greatest time, and I cannot wait to see you again. I promise that as soon as I find a day (or hopefully more!) that I’m not working, I will make the trip to see you, because I cannot stand the thought of it being another year until I see you again. You’re such a great friend, and I know you’re there for me like I’m here for you. I miss you already, and I’m so happy you made it home safe already! I miss you, I love you, and I WILL see you soon! Thank you for yet another unforgettable weekend, and know that I am looking forward to the next one as soon as it is humanly possible!

Here and there,
Kiley

I cannot handle the anticipation.

*This was meant to have posted last Wednesday, but due to a temporary lack of interwebs and then a lack of time, I'm just now posting it*

There are some really, really good things coming up this next month, and I’m SUPER excited about all of them. And good things have happened this week, so I’ll fill you in on that too.

First this past week. I started a second job hosting at a café downtown, and it’s been really good so far. For one, they feed me during my break, which I have to take during my 5.5- or 8-hour shift and it’s really good food. Sandwiches, salads with goat cheese, pizza (on the weekends!), and sometimes pastries or sweets if the bakery has some to offer. YUM. My four consecutive days of training from Thursday to Sunday took up a lot of my time this weekend so if I were to offer an excuse for not having written in a week, well, that would be it. But I’m not doing that anymore! Here’s cool thing #2 and the reason why.

I signed up for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) in November. (I know, November is a little ways away, but bear with me and I’ll get to the reason why this matters already and part of why I feel great.) The goal is to write 50,000 words between November 1 and 30 – for the unfamiliar, a page is about 250! – and there’s a website where you can join a community of sorts based on your city. The people here will basically serve as your support group for the month, because with a task as daunting as writing a novel period let alone that quickly, God knows a support group is necessary. I struggle to crank out these 1,000-word or so posts once a week. Good grief, what have I signed up for.

Anyway. I realized when I registered on the site a month ago that good Lord will I need help. I brainstormed my story options: build on a smaller work of fiction I’ve started (though fiction has never been my strong suit), come up with a new fiction idea, or decide on a timeframe for a complete memoir (a complete account of Australian adventures? I wondered). Since it’s a “novel” challenge, I leaned away from the memoir and am thinking about working with a short story draft I did for my Intro to Fiction course two years ago.

With an idea in mind, I decided I need to begin planning. And that I need help with that too. How do you create a sustainable story arc? Compelling characters? Convey a believable and enchanting setting? And in one month?? I confess this is part of the reason that I prefer nonfiction. The story is already there, so it’s just a matter of telling it. I’ve struggled a little here about what to tell, who to identify, and what photos to use, mostly because I want to respect people’s privacy and also because I don’t want to provide a reason for future employers not to hire me. With fiction, however, an entire world and characters are created from scratch. I admire that kind of imagination, so I've chosen fiction in an effort to challenge myself. It's also why I believe I need even more help than if I were writing nonfiction.

Cue the “Writing and Publishing” section of Barnes and Noble. I bought 90 Days to Your Novel this weekend by Sarah Domet. I chose it over the 30-day version and the several varieties of basic novel how-tos because of the introduction.

Domet basically says that the difference between a writer and a wannabe writer is that a writer actually writes. Go figure, huh? She emphasizes that in order to actually pen a novel, you will probably have to skip out on some social outings, write when you don’t feel particularly motivated, and ultimately park yourself at the computer for extended periods of time. That part was kind of a wake-up call for me, because I realize that though I do write I don’t invest nearly enough time like I should. There’s always something else going on and it’s easy to put it off until the next day, much like working out – but I’ll save that issue for another time.

So, no more excuses. I’m doing a modified version of Domet’s 90-day plan, and I hope to have my outline, for which she allots 4-5 weeks, finished by the end of October. Then it’s write write write for thirty days. Which will include a visit from a friend in New York, the end of my internship, and flying back to Cincinnati for Thanksgiving. Yikes. But my goal is to write every day. Fingers crossed, nice thoughts, and any prayers you can spare, please!

Along with this pledge came a revelation. Working in publishing, I see so many works, contact so many bloggers, and send out so many books that it’s been a wake-up call to get on my game. Last week, I received an email from a blogger I reached out to for a review of one of our books, and he asked me if we would be interested in publishing his book that is similar to the one I was looking to send out. Being a lowly intern of no authority whatsoever, I asked my publicist boss (who is really so wonderful). Her answer was simply that we don’t accept unsolicited manuscripts, but he should try going through an agent. It was honest, but entirely discouraging for an aspiring writer.

It felt like a real blow to have to tell this guy no without ever having seen his work, and I realized that I was projecting. I’m enjoying being in the publishing industry, but I become more and more convinced every day that I want to write for a living. I get that this isn’t something that happens overnight, but I’m hoping that I’m getting closer to figuring out what I want and also how to get it. For now, I’m happy where I am, but I need to figure out more direct avenues to get to what I want and how to get my work into other people’s hands. Which brings me to the next bit.

While I’m taking on NaNoWriMo in November, I’ve (mostly) decided that I’ll take to posting pieces of the novel to the blog and occasional updates and rants on my progress. For the rest of October, I’m looking forward to writing my outline, but I’ll also keep posting my general musings much like I have been. In an effort to get out and start exposing what I like to write best, I might start including excerpts from the personal essays and memoir-type things I’ve written that I hope will be my primary focus one day.

While I’m prepping for NaNoWriMo, I have some other things to look forward to, mostly in the form of playing host. First guest: KATHLEEN! My Australian bestie (okay, she’s American, but we met in Australia) will arrive this weekend. We haven't seen each other in a year, and my excitement is not containable. Short version: I. CANNOT. WAIT.

The following weekend: MY PARENTS ARE COMING! AND my uncle and my cousin! YAY! Okay, enough exclamation points. Bold font and capital letters aren't adequate expression of my excitement, so I don't know why I'm even bothering with the exclamation points. Still, I get to show them around this wonderful city that I have the privilege to call home. It’s especially cool, because I really miss all of them a whole lot. Hooray impending reunions.

I feel like I’m going to be particularly all over the place over this next month, so I sign off with the utmost sincerity:

Here and there,
Kiley

Playing Catch-Up: A Two Week Recap of Toulouse, Madrid, and Paris

So, I’m about a month behind on my adventures here, so I’ll do my best to be thorough, yet succinct. Here are the general highlights of March and the beginning of April!

I had a few exams the week we came back from break, and I’ve still only received one of those exams back. The French schooling system is probably the single most frustrating thing I’ve encountered here, since there are basically only two, maybe three grades for the semester, and I’ve still no idea how my courses are going. For one of my lit courses, I have a paper due exam week when I’ll also give my oral over a randomly selected passage as well as take the final exam. It’s a little unnerving, but I’m hopeful! Exam schedules were just put out this week, and they’re spaced out pretty well, so as long as I put in the time to study, all should go well.

The weekend after we came back from break, I hopped on a train to Toulouse to visit Matt, one of my friends from high school. I didn’t get in until Friday night, so we spent a few hours catching up over a few drinks at his place before he took me out to one of his favorite bars in town. Nightlife seemed to be pretty good, and we stayed until the bar closed around two. On the way back to Matt’s, we stopped for kebabs, an essential late night snack that we both realized we would miss having in the states. The next morning, we took our time getting up before walking around town. Unfortunately, I was still camera-less at this point, having had my camera stolen in Italy the week before, so I don’t have photos of the pink buildings that Toulouse is known for, la ville rose, as the French call it. We walked through the town square where people were playing touch (rugby), the neat old buildings and town hall bordering the square. There were people all over the river bank, just sitting and relaxing or having lunch, as well as in the couple of little parks we passed through.

We stopped for lunch at a little café on the corner and I had my first taste of foie gras in the salad I ordered. At first it was okay, but my mind got going and I couldn’t stop thinking about what I was eating and after a few bites, I handed over the rest to Matt. Foie gras, goose liver, and pâté are hugely popular here, and every once in a while they taste really good, but I’m still kind of hit or miss on whether I like it or not. After lunch, we made our way back to Matt’s place where we hung out for the better part of the afternoon just talking and goofing around on the internet. Matt played me some of the music he and Graham, another high school friend and Matt’s roommate in France, have been working on (check it out here). We spent the evening and night hanging out and playing games with Matt and Graham’s friends, and we also ventured out for another kebab, which may have been the best one I’ve ever had. It was on a pita-type bread instead of the typical tortilla-style and it was overflowing with fries. Delicious. We pretty much crashed once we got back to the dorms, then had a generally lazy Sunday before I caught my train back to Aix on Sunday. Overall, it was a great weekend spent catching up with old friends and getting a little better acquainted with my newest home country!

The following week brought the last of my midterms, as well as visitors from home: Jenn and Brooke! They arrived Thursday with some things from my parents, including the replacement camera I sent them money for, so the rest of these photos will be mine again. We took time to have a French picnic in the park on Friday after my class, giving them some time to recover from their jetlag. We met some of the program girls and had an absolute feast in Parc Jourdan: multiple baguettes, at least five kinds of cheeses, a few kinds of meat, pâté, cookies, and wine. We laid around in the sun for a good part of the afternoon before Jenn, Brooke, and I made our way back to my place to pack for Madrid!

We arrived in the city late at night and basically went straight to bed. Once awake on Saturday, we made our way around the city, going through a few of the parks and into the Rena Sofia Museum where Picasso’s Guernica is kept. What an incredible painting. They had a small mural showing the different stages of how the painting was done. Incredible. I also found possibly my new favorite piece of art, called Packing the Hard Potatoes. Isn’t it cool??

After the museum, we passed by some book vendors on the way to one of the many parks and botanical gardens where we saw tons and tons of bikers and rollerbladers. I’ve never seen so many rollerbladers! And they were doing all kinds of tricks, too. There were so many people out and about. Families, couples, tour groups, all kinds, and they were all being active. There were all kinds of performers all over the place too, playing all different kinds of music. We saw some of the illegal souvenir vendors get chased by the police, which was even more entertaining. We thought about renting a boat to putter around on the lake, but decided against it for the sake of money and instead caught the metro into the main part of the city and put our money to use shopping and eating. I’ll suffice it to say that it was money well spent!

We rocked back up to the hostel around nightfall when we figured out how to spend our night. The hostel had a pub crawl and we’d seen ads for a number of shows, and after consulting the front desk, we went a few doors down and bought tickets for the flamenco show. I’m so glad we did! The dancing was incredible, and the sangria that came with the ticket was unbelievably tasty.

On Sunday, we got up early to get to the tower in the center of the city where you can walk around on the roof and see all of Madrid splayed out in front of you. The photos don’t even do it justice.

On the way back, we stopped for McDonald’s bringing it up to my fifth international McDonald’s experience. I hadn’t meant to try it in every country, but I managed to hit it in Australia (more often than I would have liked, actually!), Italy, and France, so I figured I may as well add Spain to the list. We made our way to the airport, and had a pleasant flight home to Aix where we relaxed inside with some Pizza Capri and movies, since it proved to be a rainy and gloomy day.

On Monday night, I got to take Jenn and Brooke to my conversation exchange family’s house for dinner. I’ve been going to this family’s house once a week for the past few months to speak English with them, and in return, they feed me a French dinner. My “mom”, Corinne, was kind enough to invite us all over, and she definitely pulled out all the stops on that week’s dinner. Grated carrots with a Balsamic dressing, baked eggplant with a marinara sauce, raisins and radishes to go with buttered bread, cheese, and wine, followed by a raspberry tart and chocolate pie I bought and brought for dessert. Everything was absolutely delicious. This past week, I asked Corinne if she would share her recipes with me, and she said she would write some up for me – in English, because she wants to practice! They are such a nice and friendly family, and I’m going to be so sad when my weekly visits come to a finish. The three of us more or less rolled out the door with the guidebooks they loaned me since they knew we would be doing a little traveling around southern France and Paris over the week. Like I said, such a nice family.

The next day, we woke up early to catch the bus with Roz and Leah to go to Cassis, a small town right on the sea with some beautiful beaches. Unfortunately, the weather was still a little gloomy and not quite warm enough for swim suits, so we sat clothed on our towels and played cards for the afternoon. But we felt it was necessary to at least snap a bikini shot, so we went for it despite the cold! Then we got coffees to warm us up, along with an appetizer at one of the cafés on the port and enjoyed the view and sound of the water.

Wednesday took us down to Marseille where we walked around the port, the same place I spent my first weekend in France. I hadn’t been back there since, so it was really nice to revisit in just slightly nicer weather. After the port, we went up to La Dame de la Garde, the beautiful church on the top of the hill. We did some exploring around the area and took our time at the various lookout points, appreciating the city and sea in front of us.

We played host to a number of the girls at my apartment that night where we played card games and chatted. On Thursday, I came back from class to find Jenn and Brooke having shopped and explored Aix for the day. We visited the tea shop together before my night class, and I came back with just enough time to throw down some food and leave for the Hunger Games! The film actually came out a few days earlier in France than it did in the states, so we were all glad to not have to wait any longer to see the movie. And what a great movie it was!

Unfortunately, we went straight back to my place after the movie, since we had to be up at 4am to catch our train up to Paris on Friday morning. Which turned out to be a bit of a fiasco.

We got to the bus stop in plenty of time to catch the 5:20 bus to the train station, only 15 minutes away. What we didn’t anticipate was the accident/spill that had traffic backed up significantly. We realized the police were even turning cars around and forcing them to go back the way they came and started to get worried. We breathed a sigh of relief when the bus reached the front of the line and they let us through. That excitement was short-lived, however, as we were stopped again almost immediately. That’s when the bus driver opened the doors and told us that anyone going to the train station could jump off. He wasn’t joking. So, the three of us got off the bus on the side of the highway around 5:50 along with several other passengers, and began to hike the last leg of the journey to the train station on foot. Oh yeah, Jenn and Brooke had their rolling luggage too. Knowing we only had a few minutes and a solid half or three-quarters of a mile to go, we basically jogged. I assume there was some kind of spill because we jogged over this saw-dusty, powder crap that was sprinkled all over the road. It didn’t help the breathing and running situation any, that’s for sure. We rocked up to the train station and caught the elevator up, seeing that our train was at the platform. Finally, we boarded the train at the first car and no less than a minute later, it started on its way. Whew.

We arrived in Paris three hours later and made our way to our hotel before heading to Montmartre, at which point I realized I forgot my camera at home, so this will be a word heavy section too. Whoops. Anyway, we got off the métro stop and walked a few hundred meters out of the station and around the corner where at least fifty men were all standing, lining the walls, cat-calling us nonstop. I’ve mostly gotten used to the comments men make and the way they look you up and down as you walk by – it’s an inevitable daily occurrence here in France, but I’d never been intimidated until then. Maybe it was because there were so many of them, or maybe because it took us a minute to pick through the crowd so it was nonstop, but I was actually unbelievably uncomfortable and not in the least bit flattered. Just, ew.

We walked around Montmartre seeing all the big attractions, like Sacre Coeur and the Moulin Rouge before heading back to the hotel for a quick nap that turned into a long nap. Well rested, we set back out into the city to hit the other big monuments: Notre Dame, the Louvre, we hired a bike to take us part of the way up the Champs Élysées to l’Arc de Triomphe, then the métro to the Eifel Tower just as it was getting dark. We were walking through the Champs de Mars just as the tower lit up with all the sparkly lights like it does every night before heading to dinner around the corner. That night, we met up with a friend of a friend at a bar a little ways from our hotel before turning in for the night. We got up to get Jenn to the airport for her morning flight, then Brooke and I went back to the Eifel Tower to see it in the light before taking a coffee break. We spent the rest of the morning and afternoon sitting in front of Jardin de Tuileries, the Louvre in one direction and the Champs Élysées to the other. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon!

I caught my afternoon train home that Saturday to prepare for another school week! That brings me up to the end of March, and there’s still heaps to tell you about the last two weeks, but I’ll cut it there since this post is getting a bit long. I’ll get this next post up before I take off for the UK with Roz and Chelsea next week on our two week spring break! Hope this one finds you all doing well. Love and miss you all!

Here and there,
Kiley