I am back now. Thank God. I got sick the day before the flight so I’ve been languishing in my mucus all week. And playing the new Deltarune chapter. It’s exactly what I need. Here’s the recap on the vacation.
After we left England we stopped in the first of three hotels. Walked around. Saw Notre Dame. Got ice cream shaped like a rose. See a bunch of pixel art in tesserae form on random buildings. Have yummy feta cheese and honey crepe for dinner. See French pantheon. Next few days continue walking around. Flea markets. Random Paris shops. Buy two vintage books in some famous Paris bookstore. Luxembourg gardens.
Literally yelled out loud “SANS UNDERTALE?!” when I saw that specific pixel art. Grandpa would be proud of the ice cream flowers. He did that stuff with frosting back in the day.
Then one morning we move to the hotel where Oscar Wilde died. Before check in, Pere Lachaise cemetery, Oscar Wilde’s grave. Hotel is fancy. Order mini cheesecake and mango juice. Go to the Paris Opera. Curtain there is the same as Phantom of the Opera, but the Paris one is red and Phantom one is blue. See Cinderella (Cendrillon). It’s nice. Evil stepmother is now evil stepdad who dressed like a guy at the gas station. It’s great. Next morning is my birthday. Have fancy breakfast in fancy breakfast room with rich people. Then go to next hotel on the river. Apparently Oscar Wilde also stayed in this hotel. At some point during this it’s my birthday and we go on a ghost tour.
Opera. Fancy. I got to wear my vintage suit. I’d wear it more if I went outside more.
Fancy hotel. Note Oscar Wilde’s letters on the right wall.
Then we went to Versailles. Very early. Get lost (Mom has stopped understanding how to use Google Maps. It caused many frustrating moments). Don’t get in at rope drop to be alone in hall of mirrors like she wanted. I don’t care. Then do cottages and gardens of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. I overheat. Heat warnings on weather app all day. Train back has no AC. Do a boat tour down the Seine. World’s most annoying little boys yelling 6-7 at everyone on the shore. Their mother is aiding and abetting them. See Eiffel Tower glitter like mom wants. Next day fly back to England for layover/hippie Stonehenge solstice festival.
Go to Stonehenge. Long walk. It’s a solstice hippie thing Mom wanted to do so you’re allowed to touch the stones now. Weed in the air even though it’s illegal in England. Put picnic blanket in good spot unfortunately next to creepy man who doesn’t shut up. Tries to feed us alcohol. I don’t take mom seriously about the temperature because she’s always complaining about the cold. Mistake. Can’t sleep because my muscles will not relax and stop shivering. About 1 AM creepy man goes to do something and we flee to a worse spot. Still don’t sleep. Freezing. Blanket is wet because of grass and creepy man’s ice bag. No cell service. Two hours like this. At one point at like midnight previous I explore the weird rave happening inside the stones. It’s hippie drum circle on the rocks. At sunrise we and all the hippies go into the stones for some reason. I start wearing the picnic blanket as a coat. Exhausted. Crying. Moms annoyed with me about something. Genuinely might have been the worst night of my life — but don’t tell the family group chat that. I’ll lie to them but not to you. Go to Salisbury to visit my roommate’s house. They give us coffee and I pet her guinea pigs. It was nice. Visit the Salisbury cathedral with her. Train back to my apartment. Mom hates the trains now. I think they’re fine. I go to bed after 40 hours awake. Next morning fly to Dublin.
I can’t say I approve of England using their archaeological sites this way, but as an ethical archaeologist, I am not going to stop them.
Dawn. The nicest part was when I got to sit on a dusty (dry) part of the ground and play Monument Valley for a bit.
Check into Dublin hotel. Nice place on river. Do ghost tour. Tour guide is delightful comedian. Normal dinner from grocery store. Becoming clear after several 10,000-27,000 step days that I’m going to lose another toenail. Like after Samaria Gorge in 2022 (lost three). Watch Jacksepticeye in honor of Ireland. Go visit Oscar Wilde’s childhood home and his statue across the street. Feel melancholy. Go see Oscar Wilde’s ’An Ideal Husband’. Very good production. Hilarious. Random gay sex scene in the middle that Wilde would have approved of. Next day go to big archaeological museum. Very cool. Environment preserves wood and fabric like nobody’s business. This would never happen in Greece. Go see Riverdance because mom wants to. Cheesy but impressive. Entire time in city I’m looking around wondering if Hozier is somewhere. Dublin is the size of Eugene and gives strong Portland vibes. Very familiar.
Oscar’s house.
’An Ideal Husband’. We were right up front.
Then we went back to England again, packed up all my stuff, and flew home. Overall, I felt like an Amazing Digital Circus character. Run ragged with a constant stream of “fun” things. It was all for me but really it was for Mom. I told her I didn’t wanna go on vacation, but if she wants it it will happen. The Oscar Wilde stuff was a gloss of ‘for Alice’s graduation’. I pried off the toenail when we got back. It felt like a loose tooth. She was mad at me the whole time. I was so tired and hot. I just wanted to hang out with my British friends and she got mad at that too. After Pere Lachaise she started taking my medication side effects seriously, but I heard her on the phone with Aaron saying “She can’t do anything now.” I just wish she’d have listened to me in the first place. All the time she would start talking about, what if we get sent to a concentration camp immediately upon returning, what if this is our last chance to see anything cool ever again, what if we’re being tortured and never get back to Europe. It was stressful. I gave in so she could have it, but I couldn’t play along well enough, and we both had a bad time. It was the actual worst. She was acting like Grandma a lot. I couldn’t do a thing right. It just felt bad being on another big vacation spent walking behind mom, not being grateful enough. I’d rather go somewhere with my friends now. The worst thing was I don’t think she even cares about most of the things we saw: I think she just likes feeling cultured. She never took a thing very seriously and had these weird, exaggerated reactions like she wanted me to laugh at her. She does this a lot these days. I can’t tell how she actually feels anymore unless she’s mad. But yeah. That was the continent. I tried and failed to entertain her. I should’ve just gone to the Netherlands, spent some time with my best friend, and let Mom walk around Amsterdam. I thought she’d be bored there. But if I did then she couldn’t say it was for me.
With love,
Alice