When Life Hands You Lemons...Go to Paris

I finally bought my ticket to Paris today, which is quite possibly one of the most exciting things to have happened in a long time. I was thinking, Life may not turn out the way you want it to and People aren't what you'd hoped or expected they'd be and there will always be things around to go wrong, but I can always control myself at least (and that self is going to buy a ticket to Paris, whether she can afford it or not).

So here I am headed to Paris on March 30th for 15 days. I haven't got much figured out (though I do have one friend in Paris) and I've still got a lot of saving to do (The plan is to read as many books between now and then as possible, write a lot, learn a little french and rent as many seasons of various shows as I can consume between now and then so as to suck up all the time I usually might need to spend money), but I'm just as confident in things working out as I was on Sunday that I would purchase my ticket this week.

Back to the Knoxville Hostel (a few photographs)

Our breakfast of Champions. Thanks Al!
The Common Area



The girls dorm consisted of two bunk beds, since no one else was there, we both got a bottom bunk.

The Adventures and Misadventures of West Virginia*

Lost.

I suppose it happens to everyone, and while we were fortunate enough never to have made a wrong turn or missed an exit (until we got to Manhattan) over the course of two days. We were, however misdirected by google maps an hour out of the way though West Virginia into a small mountain towns on US 219. I have tried to recreate this glitch in directions a few time with no luck.

A few notes regarding being lost and a little frightened:

• Two frightened people, who are also close friends, will do their best not to frighten the each other. So while they both may have thought they were being followed neither will say anything until they're nearly home.
  
• Mountain towns are only enchanting for the first twenty minutes, afterwards the romanticism wears off and you realize that its the exact same as any small rural town, except it has a more beautiful back drop.
• People in that part of West Virginia do only two things: go to the salon and go to church.
  
• Bridges made of wood don't look safe nor do they feel safe once you're driving over them.
  

On a more positive note without the glitch we would never have driven through the East River Mountain, which was kind of amazing.

*and not, as the post was previously titled, Tennessee (which will likely continue to show up in everyone's reader despite the edit)

Stars and Mountains: Tennesse and Virginia.

• I feel as though this post could suffer terribly if I try to romance the stars as they were in Tennessee. What can be said about them that hasn't been said before? The problems is, when living in the city, it becomes easy to forget the number of stars in the sky and how beautiful it is when there is nothing else to see for miles around. There with nothing but the stars you begin to question your decision to be surrounded by concrete and steel, when the stars are so much more wonderful than all the lights in New York City.

If the Stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

• Virginia was by far the most beautiful portion of the trip, and at the risk of sounding horribly cliched I will describe the Appalachian mountains as best I can: There is no other way to see the country except by car, since everything is a blur and places have lost their significance, the reasons we go within the US seems to have all the wrong motivations to really experience and appreciate everything beautiful there is to offer. I have no friends that have made trips to Niagra Falls and the Grand Canyons as adults. Every one is off to gamble in Vegas or to the beach or to visit friends, but no one is going to see the mountains or stare at a gorge and to feel the immenseness of the country. So it is by road now that suddenly we can see and take in, when there is nothing left to distract us, the beauty of the mountains that we forgot existed. There on the roads, which wound up and down through the hillside like man-made valleys, yet marked by pavement instead of rivers, suddenly one could feel small and the force of history baring down and not forget the importance of things. Not forget the passage of time. I saw on my journey old and rusty shells of trucks and tractors sitting sloped on the hillside, almost forgot yet in front stood the mark of the modern age in the shape of a misplace billboard. The tree covered mountains rising up through the fog and hugged by clouds that looked as soft as dreams, more rounded than the Rockies, just like I'd learned in school. I saw it it all and it was enough that I wanted to sit down by the side of the road and cry, that all these things could be nearby and yet so far, and that somehow we'd lived our whole lives without seeing them.
  

Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself... "Renew thyself completely each day; do it again, and again, and forever again."...The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive.-Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Texas and Arkansas.

I would love to say that my writing skills could make the beginning of our road trip more interesting, but I'd be lying. On our way out of Texas our anxiousness kept us from talking too much and we traveled through places both of us had been through many times. Texas is as always a hard state to get out of, its huge and flat and there isn't much to see. It was however the best part of the trip for photo taking, since the sun was shining and I was still excited to try to capture as much as possible (this is prior to remembering the limitations of my camera).

I would love to say that Arkansas was much better, but it was pretty much the same with more trees.

Dallas Zoo Giraffe (I've always loved looking at this from the highway)


Visit Paris



Rear view Sunset in Tennessee:

Freezing in Knoxville Tennessee

Part one of our trip is done, and I'd love to tell more about it but I am quite literally freezing in Knoxville, TN. The hostel itself, simply called the Knoxville Hostel is a quaint little house in a small college town and was our refuge last night from 12+ hours on the road. The manager/owner, who is by far the nicest person I've ever encountered in all of my 24 years (it was so much like talking to an old friend that I never stopped to ask him his name), stayed awake to great us at 2 am in the morning in his wine colored bathrobe, show us where the toast and jam was before letting us know that he would only be charging us 2.50 less a piece than the cost of the room. He hasn't yet charged us and let us know that he'd be off to church in the morning (we're still unsure of when to pay and if we should leave before he returns, but we were much too tired to ask).

To say the place is quaint would be an understatement, thought not derisively. Its more like stopping at the house of a family friend, filled with lived in clutter and books and mail and dirty dishes. The bedrooms in the girls dorm have two plain white frame bunk beds with the plaid sheets that I remember from plenty of college students beds (mine were covered in hot pink lips, thank you very much). With a covered fire place and a mirror above. There were extra many extra blankets and robes maybe left behind from other guests. (They seem to not throw anything away so there are lots of things left over from guests before including a charger so that my cousin could charge her phone.) There seem to be a million things going on in every surface of the place and its the type of environment that one finds which inspires them to place an entire scene in, to invent characters to act and react within the very specific nuances of the space. If I were to write a scene here I would definitely keep him, the manager, as a pivotal point of reference, since he somehow ties this whole place together.

But like I said, its morning now and there seems to be no heat, making taking a shower a horrible prospect. Getting up to blog was sort of a stretch and now my hands are cold and I'm ready to get back on the road. Its late and we should have left by now. When I return, time permitting, I'll post all about the trek through Texas, Arkansas (sorry D, it was an unexpected change and I would have called you had I not left so late), and most of Tennessee.

Trip Changes

I had suspected it might happen, but its finally come to fruition...we've made the decision to leave a day later on Saturday instead of Friday which will put us in the thicket of holiday drivers heading home but also give us time to recuperate from the holiday weekend. The time change though not so drastic is taking a bit of a toll on my body, coupled with two overnight flights, its a wonder I can still write a sentence (only barely though). It'll give me the opportunity to spend time with the niece and nephew (and maybe even a friend or two) without feeling like I have to rush away again.

Besides, after having taken a big fall in the shower, I'm not quite looking forward to sitting on my bruised bum for twelve hours and more time to blog incessantly.

Apparently I woke up a few days ago with much more to say than usual, but I hope to keep my friends entertained with little tidbits as I come across them. Enjoy.

Airplane Sunrise

It was as if someone had taken a wildly orange paint and swiped it across the horizon of the still dark blue sky and the clouds were an ocean rising up to engulf us. There was never anything so beautiful, so tranquil, so fearful and terrible even as the moment the plane tipped its wing drastically and descended into the hazy yellow dream of the clouds. Once we'd come through the other side, daybreak was not even yet noticeable. All the city lights still burned as bright as ever. Yet somehow through some trick of the light (it may have been my window pane or my sleepy imagination taking hold) I thought I detected a rainbow in the cloud.

The Road Trip

One of the highlights of the end of 2007 will most definitely be the roadtrip. Though, originally we'd planned to leave December 28th and make it back into NY around January 1st or 2nd, as of now I think its going to be more of a straight through trip with an overnight stay in Atlanta and Washington D.C. Our goal is to make through the southern states: Louisiana and Mississippi, in one fell swoop. (Which also means we'll be back in NYC for NYE)

D.C. is one of the highlights of the trip simply because I've never spent time not in transit, in the nations capital so its kind of exciting, in that little kid-unfulfilled-dream sort of way. We're also going to try to stop at Dinosaur land (OH MY GOD!) and the Birmingham Civil Rights Museum. We also considered going through Mempis to see Graceland (most likely not) and going to Louisville to see the slugger factory (who knows).

The other highlight of the trip of course, will hopefully be food. The plan is to find as many good restaurants on the map along the way.

I will be taking one million and five pictures along the way, but of course being that I still live in the dark ages and own a computer the size of a small person, that sounds like an air conditioner when its running, most of my updates will be in the form of tweets. We might stop at a few internet cafés along the way since I start hyperventalating when I haven't checked my email in 24 hours.