Whoa

I'm failing at posting. But here's one now!

So, first, I should explain something about myself. I hate crowds. The fastest way to stress me out or make me completely miserable is to put me in a large crowd of people. I usually deal with this for things I like - football games, going out with my friends (bars and house parties are usually crowded), and hockey games. But there's a definite limit. You'll rarely see me going out after a football game. If there's a football/hockey game on the same weekend, while I will be THRILLED, I can also guarantee I'll be headed home to sip tea and do things... well... not surrounded by people... afterwards. It's never really been a problem, my hatred of crowds has never stopped me from doing things I enjoy, but I always knew there would be a point where I just couldn't take it anymore. I've always totally understood agoraphobics and their hatred and fear.

So, uh, that said, Taize was great! The music was fabulous, talking to people from all over the world was absolutely amazing, and the MUSIC. Dear God - so freaking beautiful to hear 4,000 people singing in harmony.

But there's that 4,000 people part. Have you ever tried to get dinner with 4,000 people? It's kind of like a football game. Four times a day. Have you ever tried to get into one area with 4,000 other people? It's also kind of like a football game. Have you ever lived in an area of less than five acres with 4,000 other people? It's like the dorms, only worse, and there is nowhere. to. get. away.

So, on the plus side, I found that limit I always knew was there - the amount of people and crowds I can deal with. I can, apparently, deal with a football-sized crowd for about 4 days. And then I start having panic attacks.

But Taize was beautiful - It's definitely on my list to make it back in, like, February.

So, after realizing that my options were to starve or to... starve... since I couldn't handle going through the line for food again, I hopped the bus to Macon (a frighteningly small town in France that has absolutely nothing of note) and checked into a hotel and laid on the bed enjoying aloneness. And then I wandered the town, which was absolutely gloriously dead, and continued to enjoy the space.

And then I used the week I thought I'd be spending in Taize in Paris!

My first day was spent strolling around the city and visiting the sites that I could visit without going in - the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triumph, Notre Dame, walking along the Seine, and the like. The next day was spent in the Louvre. I discovered that, with my visa, I get the same prices that EU citizens get, ie - free. 6 hours in the Louvre! Then I took a tour of Montmarte and, although the tour was dreadful, I met a few friends and we went to dinner and out for a night on the town in Montmartre. I don't know if you know, it's mostly a lot of strip clubs and sex shops. So really, we went to dinner, walked around, and got creeped out. I also made it to Versailles - it's crowded! Yeesh! But Marie Antoinette's "peasant village" was really cute - like Disneyland. For princesses.

Paris was beautiful, I stayed at a fabulous hostel - a Korean guesthouse that offered both breakfast and dinner! Breakfast and dinner were both Korean food (with the option of the baguette and jam in the morning), so I am now a master of chopsticks. Great hostel, I highly suggest it. Quiet, friendly, unfortunately far away from the city center, but other than that, just ideal!

Currently, I'm in Loches, enjoying the peace and quiet and the fabulous food and having puppies around!

Dublin

Dublin's been great! My hostel is this huge old Georgian home that's spacious as hell. The only downside is the miles of stairs to climb to get to my room. But totally worth it.

I've spent the past couple of days relishing a more violent history than I've been looking at for the past couple of months. Sure, the Romans were great. But then you get to Celtic history - grar!!! There's a very creepy museum here that goes through all the Viking and Medieval history of the area. I call it creepy because somebody, somewhere made the executive decision that creating wax recreations of life would be a good idea, so you wander through this ill-lit museum of Vikings marauding and women sacrificing animals and men in prison. It's weird.

But today I went to a museum that deserves a shout-out. I suggest you go to the Prado, if your thing is art, and I suggest you visit Chenonceau if your thing is cool buildings, but no matter WHAT you like, I suggest you visit the National Leprechaun Museum in Dublin. Definitely one of the coolest things I've seen in a while. Let out your inner child for a day and know that, for once, it will not at all be insulted. The museum is really to teach the art of storytelling, so there's very little of the history of the Leprechaun and a lot about the fairy stories of Ireland. AND IT IS AWESOME.

And I'm going to admit something to you here - the Giant's Room is awesome. I say this as a 21 year old woman. It's a room where everything is scaled so that you're leprechaun sized (1/3 of human height, says the poster as you enter), and you just get to climb on shit. And I would have felt stupid, if there weren't four other early-twenty year old girls doing exactly the same thing. When I say climb on things, I don't mean "climb on the areas of the exhibit where it's obviously stated you should climb," you could just climb (and I mean CLIMB, there's a picture on some stranger's camera of my legs flailing helplessly off the side of a giant table) on everything! Tables and chairs, the fireplace, the cabinets. I'm not joking that this is like... My six-year-old self's dream come true.

But, after fooling around, what inner-child day would be complete without a story? And here is where the museum really really really shines. Because there are storytellers. Good ones. So after climbing around in the Giant's Room, climbing under the Giant's Causeway, you come to the end of the rainbow (obviously!) and enter the story room. Again, this is not a museum entirely for children (although it's very child friendly), and the stories certainly don't insult your inner child either. They're scary, they're thrilling, there are ghosts... Stories so good you don't want them to end. This was really what won my heart - our story teller was so good he left you with that unsatisfied feeling you get after a good book or a play when you're almost upset that it's over and nothing else is going to satisfy the craving you have to get back to that world - that world, not another similar world, that one.

I guess the closest comparison I have is that, yes, in a way, this museum is for children. But unlike most things for children, it's not insulting. Much like The Hobbit, it respects the darker side of things, and because of that, it's really just a joy to everybody who walks through the museum.

I can't stress this enough. Go. I wish I had the time to go again. And the girls I went through with today? Were there for their second time as well. Seriously, gooooo. This museum is a good book. I have the exact same feeling I get when I finish a life-changingly awesome book - one of the ones you start reading again immediately or get upset that the author didn't make the book longer.

http://www.leprechaunmuseum.ie/