Samantha's Visit and London

It is so hot in Paris. it was cold for the last 3 months, like far colder than i expected and then all the sudden it started being so hot i cant even stand it. my lazy days of sleeping until noon all but two days a week are OVER becuase it is too hot to sleep with the curtains drawn, and when they are open to let the breeze in I am basically sleeping in a sunbeam from about 9 am onward. which is good because i need to find some time to work out so i can wear a bathing suit when i get back to the united states, 11 days before the fourth of july. I just looked at the weather and it says that right now, at 6 pm is feels like it is 87 degrees.  BUt ooh it looks like it is going to rain hard toinhgt and then be not so hot again for at least the next 10 days the high is 76. I am spoiled by being used to being near-ish water at least. For a while today I felt really trapped here, especially since my allergies have been driving me crazy in the hot weather. 

 So my last post was entirely inaccurate becuase evidently I got the date wrong and Samantha was not arriving until monday. sobasically i sat in the sketchiest metro waiting for hours for no reason. the worst part is that the next day samantha had to do the same thing waiting for me the next day while i waited for my class to be over. As soon as she got here we dropped off her stuff, got some food, and went over to montmartre and saw the museum of eroticism and had drink over on that side of town. we saw sacre couer, and place de tertre, which I have only recently been able to consistantly locate, and then headed home. The next day I had class and she went over to the eiffel tower. we met up later and I cannot or the life of me remember what we did. The next day at 743 we went to london. Catching the trains thus far has been easy so when it said to be a half hour early i mean im usually a half hour early anyway, but the train itself was really early in the morning so we were goign to just get there a half hour early and we did, but then we got breakfast because usually you like just get on the train then once it arrives. after wasting about 15 minutes eating I realized that the track was upstairs so we went upstairs only to realize that there was like a luggage check, customs, LOTS of stuff to do, forms to fill out. Everyone who was already there was for a later train already so we had to like cut all of them, and we made it on the train 4 minutes before it left. Our first day there we saw a lot of really touristy things like westminster and parliment andthe eye, then we went to the half price ticket booth and bought tickets to see chicago that night. which was great. i wore my new vintage find a like velour fur shirtthat has tiger stripes on it. THATS what we did the night i forgot in paris, we went to the vintage stores in the marais and then walked up and down the champs elysee. so then the next day in london we went to abbey road and some like movie museum samantha wanted to see becuase she is obsessed with the beatles. I ate fish and chips with mushy peas SO MANY TIMES. i could eat that every day i think. we went out that night to this little bar that was recommended online with a bartender who looked like rhianna and she was so nice she was like are you guys going out tonight? and we were like uhh we are out...and then she kicked us out and told us we couldnt call that being out and it was pathetic and sent us over to this place called huxton square where there was like, du monde, essentially. we went to a mexican bar where i ruined the mood by ordering 3 bowls of different kind of mexican food. then we went to this sweet club kind of thing that looked like it was in someones house with like wallpaper and wooden floors, but we didnt stay very long becuase samantha didnt like its vibe. so then we cabbed it back and had the nicest cab driver who only made us pay 10 pounds instead of 12, and reminded us not to tip him. Our hostel was so cool , it was caleld the generator and had 800 people staying there. we had a private room so it was fine. it felt like camp! there were bunk beds and free breakfast with like the best muesili ever and you had to wait in line to put it on your tray. there was also a nighclub inside which was actually really fun. you had to eat breakfast in the night club   though becuase there was not evnough dining room space which was kind of funny. then the next day we went...to buckingham palace and the tower of london and brick lane. samantha and i both bought leather jackets which is im sure why it is so hot in paris now. then the next day we went to camden market whenre i bought so much stuff, i bought these earrings and a bracelet, and a tapestry that i love but I may or may not be too old to hang in my house (becuase the day i will be 22 is now on the 10 day weather thing on weather.com).  i got to eat more delicious emxican food at camden market!!! then we took the train  home and had a casual night in paris. sunday we went to the catacombs, we had to wait in line for nearly 2 hours! i met the nicest couple in line though, he was from south caroline and she was from belgium. there were like 15 really obnoxious kids from virginia tech in line in front of u though. then we came back here and went to the market by my house. later we went and had dinner and wine by the eiffel tower. 

The museum that I went to see for this week is the Tate Modern in London. I just realized i forgot to include that in the itinerary of what we did, I have no idea when we went, friday maybe? Anyway it was fantastic. It is just this huge space near the thames. The bottom level was this movement instalation that included like balance beams and tight ropes and climbing walls, and a hollow cylinder, and there were just children playing with them everywhere. the balance block made thing thundering noise everytime it hit the ground and it was in this huge room so it echoed too. then around the corner there was a video of the equipment being used by people repetitively. a few floors up there was a lot of matisse and picasso and warhol. this tied in really well with what we have been studying in howards class. I was really impressed with the collection, and that it was free, and that there were so many people there. The next floor was like the next half of modernity with a large collection of jackson pollock  and then kind of moving into theings that we have only just touched on rather then studied, like objects made from blood and food. there was a woman artist I had never heard of her but her stuff was amazing. i cant remember her name, but she was extremely recent and just painted pictures of distorted women. There was also a room playing a movie with like french nonsensical words playing over it, of a woman who iguess was like the creator of the idea of using self in her work. anyway it was of her hooking up with men in this like orgy, but then there was a lot of meat there too. like she would be making out with this guy and then all the sudden he would tear the head off of a chicken and start like thrashing it around. it was extremely bizarre, called meat love, and transitioned into a part of the museum that was mostly video experiments with and without sound including one that was just like gorss things with food. like this man dressed in a horrible outfit with an almost clown thing going on rubbing just bottles and bottles of ketchup in his sheets. it was pretty awful. so then we left and outside there was this great little lawn with almost a fair of performance art on it. like peoples art was their clothes, or they woul dset up a tent and recreate a scene, or pull up a trailer with their installation inside. it was like like the salon of rejects. there was this tent with a giant bed in it called grandmas bed and all these women were inside nursing their babies. basically i loved this museum far more than i thought i would and im  SO glad i went to it instead of a different one. Pictures coming as soon as samantha posts them!