The Best Procrastination.

Maybe I'm becoming overly obssessed and should just start the 100 pages of reading I have to do for tomorrow instead of just sitting with 'Reading Poetry; An Introduction' open infront of me, whilst finding videos of David Gandy. I don't know. Maybe.

BUT OMG LOOK AT HIM.

I want to go to Milan and meet an Italian on a bike that looks like him and who brings me flowers in the rain and who casually asks to marry me in a cafe in a square with a fountain.

Rainy NYC

Remember how I told you about Brooklyn Bridge in the rain? And remember how I tried really reallyyy hard to describe it to you??

Ok, you don't have to remember. If you don't remember it's fine. In fact, if you never read it, it's totally fine. I'm just imagining some blank faces like the ones my face used to automatically fall into whenever Mr Davidson directed a question at me in physics and so I want to put you all out of your misery.

My description didn't do it justice, so here it is, in physical form.



Beautiful Rainy Brooklyn Bridge...



Me, with no umbrella. It was wet.

Back AGAIN

Golly I'm just such a busy globe trotter that keeping this up is getting tricky. ('This' being informing the world wide web of my galevants, jaunts and adventures in a way that attempts to make me sound vaguely cooler than I actually am).
I got backm from Chamonix today, where I was staying at a friend's house with my group of girls. I know, I'm so Made In Chelsea, me. You'll be hearing all about the glam Chamonix high life after I catch up on NYC. I'm getting more out of a sync than Youtube on my almost antique pc. But, if I'm honest, I am liking the sound of my globe trotting ways in above sentence. My life is actually nothing like how that makes it sound, sadly. Case in point: the family (plus sister's boyfriend) is decamping to Devon tomorrow (talk about packing stress. Fastest turn around I have ever had to do. It was not jolly I have to say) to live in scruffy squalour for five days. We shall return to discover my fate on (whisper it) Dooms Day aka Results Day. Scary shit right there.

We've been going to the same place for my entire life, with various bits of extended family, and I think I do, and will, always carry a cardigan with me because of that place.It holds lots of very fond memories for me and I will always love it. We go to a teeny tiny little place on the sea called Torcross, near Salcombe and we always eat copious amounts of Devon ice cream and cornish pasties which, although consumed in the wrong county, are nonetheless delicious and turn blue whilst hardily swimming in the freezing sea and determindly sit on the beach in gale forces and drink lots of tea and get wet feet and walk along the sea wall.
That's what my summer holidays are normally like; none of this New York/Harper's nonsense which I've taken to like a duck to water.

So, to recap; I'm BACK (again) but hopefully will stick around a bit longer this time because Torcross is like civilisation in a sort of way and so hopefully I should be able to access the internet and so be able to catch up on eveything. the next installment of New York involves open top buses and sushi. Be excited my friends.
Also, photos will be going up, so take a look - at past posts too!

Hang in there folks, we will totes resync, just stay with me.

Groomed and Nervous.

I'm groomed to an inch of my life.

I've set an alarm for far earlier than is necessary; my roomies are all going to loveee me tomorrow morning. Ahh well the joys of hosteling. (It is quite joyous actually. We've just been given hand made cake from a very jolly Australian who exclaimed 'bullshit' when I told her why I'm in New York and then promptly asked what I'm going to wear tomorrow. I keep saying I've been lucky with my roomies, but I can't have got such good luck to last me for the whole of my Europe gallivant and New York; I've come to the conclusion that most people are just nice).

I will definitely arrive unfashionably early and will be hanging around drinking coffee for a good half hour. Finally the supersize Starbucks on every street corner have their uses...

I've read and reread the latest edition of American Harper's (although this did only highlight how little I know) and have picked a favourite look for A/W (ooh yes look at me using the lingo) should they ask.

Only my desecrated cuticles give me away...

I am actually very excited, but am looking forward to tomorrow being completed and in the past, rather than unknown and in the future.

Practical things are always ugly

One thing that this whole gallivant round southern Europe has taught me is that practical things are always ugly. Always. Without fail. I'm a girl primarily attracted to pretty things that are therefore predominantly useless. (Or maybe things which are predominantly useless can therefore be pretty. I'm not sure which comes first. Answers on a postcard please, although don't stress overly because it's a dilemma very similar to the endlessly debatable egg/chicken thing and seeing as how that still hasn't been solved satisfactorily - biologists please don't start - I'm not expecting too many ground breaking solutions). Anywayyy; this love of pretty and non practical things meant that rather rapidly I grew to hate my rucksack. Even when I had only just purchased it (and only just christened it Berny) and it (he??) was proudly sitting in the corner of my room new and empty apart from the possibilities it held, I hated it. It was so practical and so, so ugly. Packing it, as it stubbornly refused to expand or do up, made me hate it even more and by the time we'd walked the three minute journey to the tube station from which we progressed to St Pancreas, I despised it with the same intensity that I imagine Jen despises Angelina.
And yet, here I am, said rucksack on back, looking really quite happy.

I know. I was astonished.
I think the happiness might be due to the fact that I am about to board a train which will take me to Rome, where I shall be able to discard the rucksack from my life for four whole days, not to mention properly unpack, rather than live out of the detested thing, which I had been doing until Rome, spending vast amounts of time rooting unsuccessfully through its dark entrails.
It might also have been due to the fact that I am fully aware of the camera, and no one likes a miserable photo.
And it might also have been due to the very large iced coffee I had just consumed and which had the power to make me endlessly happy.
It could well be due to the amazing time I was having, and all the fabulous things I had done, all the new things I had experienced and all the lovely people I had met. Amazing how a bit of travel can give you a whole new perspective on things!
But it may also have been due to the fact that Berny was actually really quite great. Useful. Practical. Two words that usually make me shudder. But he was reassuring in his sturdy reliability. A comforting presence who I felt enjoyed seeing the small fraction of the world we were exploring as much as I did.
So he wasn't overly pretty. But neither really is Louis Theroux and I fancy him because of his other top class qualities.
So maybe practicality is sometimes a good thing (SOMETIMES I said. Don't be taking my words out of context now. This does not mean I will be replacing my 5inch gold stilettos with crocs any time soon). I certainly developed a love/hate relationship with Berny which, although strained, erred towards the loving end of the scale.
Lesson learnt: embrace practicality. As I said, amazing how a bit of travel can give you a whole new perspective on things. Although next time I might still decorate my rucksack with glitter, embroidery, broaches and bells  before departure. Old habits die hard, I am still a girl primarily attracted to pretty things, Berny could certainly have done with some jazzing up and no one can object to a bit of extra prettiness about the place. Bring on the craft kits.