Paris Archives • wholly margaret

I feel like I should have a more clever way to start these blog posts for Blogtober. Just starting it with the prompt is boring but I also feel like I’m trying too hard to come up with an intro…

Today’s prompt: Best/worst vacation!

I don’t think I can definitively say that I have a best or worst vacation, but one vacation that sticks out in my mind as being particularly great is the trip to London and Paris that I took with my parents and sister in the summer of 2009. It was just one week, with about 4 days in London and 3 in Paris, but it was my (and my dad’s and my sister’s) first time to travel overseas!

We flew straight to London from DC, and the flight was pretty miserable – it was an overnight flight, and I just cannot sleep on planes. Once we got to London, the excitement took over and I (sort of) forgot how jet lagged I was. I completely fell in love with London on that trip, and have so many great memories of exploring the city and taking in all of the sights. We went to a lot of art museums, too – that’s something my family does everywhere we go.

Typical London picture!

At Tate Modern – I used to be obsessed with Andy Warhol!

Claire at Buckingham Palace

Platform 9 and 3/4!

One of my favorite memories from the London trip was actually the day trip we took out to Windsor Castle, via train. The train ride was so beautiful, and so was the castle, but what I loved the most was walking through the small town (Eton, I think) surrounding the castle. It was an absolutely enchanting little English town (or at least is was in my memory!) and I remember feeling like I was just in the right place there. I felt the same way on my family’s week-long trip to Ireland in 2012 and during my time in Ireland this summer. I would love to live in a place that gives me that same feeling someday!

Windsor Castle grounds

An example of the lovely town by Windsor

Giggles on the train ride!!

Our trip to Paris was short, but so exciting. I took French for a few years in high school, but was never great at speaking it, so being in Paris was definitely a challenge! Prior to the trip, I tried to teach my family a little French to get by, and they supplemented that with audio tapes in the car. I was nervous about the language, but we got through the trip just fine, and were able to speak in French when we needed to. I remember the food in Paris being amazing (hello, crêpes!) and enjoying every bit of tourism that we did. We went (part of the way) up the Eiffel Tower, climbed up a seemingly never-ending staircase to the top of the Arc de Triomphe, visited a lot of museums, and most importantly, spent time eating fresh almond croissants on the balcony of our hotel, overlooking the streets filled with gorgeous Parisian buildings.

Being goofy outside of the Notre Dame – I’m famous for my robot walking pose

My family up in the Eiffel Tower!

At the Arc de Triomphe

On top of the Arc de Triomphe

Enjoying gelato!

At the Rodin Museum – this is probably my favorite sculpture of his

The view from our hotel’s balcony

It was an exciting, eye-opening, and fun trip for my family to take together. Although we have our moments of arguments and clashed opinions, I think we travel pretty well together. I feel so lucky to have the privilege to travel the world with my family, and will hopefully never take that for granted. There are definitely some memories I have from that trip that I still laugh and smile about, and I won’t forget it for a long, long time!

Thanks for reading! Margaret

Some noteworthy that have happened since my last blog post:

Day trip to Connemara and Galway with friends

This included a lot of sitting on a very bouncy bus, with stops at a peat bog, Kylemore Abbey (so beautiful it looks fake), an hour long cruise from Killary Harbor around Ireland’s only fjord, a tiny little town where I got a handmade leather wallet, and an hour in Galway city (where we could’ve spent a lot more time!). Overall, it was a good trip! (PS – I haven’t edited ~~all~~ any of the photos from my nice camera, so a lot of these are just quick phone snapshots!)

Lots of legroom on the bumpy bus!

Selfie in a peat bog

Selfie with the Kylemore Abbey

Spent time drinking delicious tea and reading

Some days after work, I spent some time sitting in Bewley’s Cafe or in the friendly, hip Accents Coffee & Tea Lounge, sipping on tea and reading. While I’ve been here, I finished Looking for Alaska by John Green. It was a quick read and was well written for a young adult novel (his debut novel as well!), but I had a hard time connecting with the characters. I didn’t really like any of them, and felt annoyed with the narrator (a 16/17 year old boy) most of the time. The ending of the book was the kind that gave me goosebumps because it closed out the story so well, and the story itself was pretty gripping, but I just didn’t come away from the book with a great overall feeling. John Green gets a lot of praise for being a great YA lit author (and a lot of hate/criticism, some of which I really agree with), but this book just didn’t live up to the hype for me. It’ll be interesting to see the movie version of it! I am now reading It’s Not Yet Dark by Simon Fitzmaurice. It’s already incredibly moving and powerful!

At Accents with a vanilla chai latte – I sat here for a good three hours, just reading!

Tea time at Bewley’s

Went to Longitude Festival with my friend Sara

My boss was kind enough to let me take a half day on a Friday to go to the Longitude Festival out in Marlay Park! My friend Sara and I had looked at tickets for it earlier in the summer, since we both love Bastille and they were playing on the main stage, but had decided back then that the tickets were too pricey. One week before the festival, we impulsively decided to go! Bastille doesn’t tour around the US very often, so this was a great opportunity to see them. We left Dublin via coach bus around 2pm, and spent the day watching new (to us) bands perform and getting excited about Bastille. The set-up for the festival at the sprawling Marlay Park was awesome – there were different stages tucked in random wooded fields and there were tons of delicious food stands. It was forecasted to rain that day, but it was barely even cloudy – we lucked out! Bastille was excellent (aside from the tall annoying man standing in front of me) and they’re even better live than they are on their album. I also discovered Hudson Taylor, a brother duo from Dublin who perform folksy-indie original songs that make me very happy to listen to! It was a long day, and we got back to Dublin around 11:30pm after a lot of walking, but it was definitely time and money well spent!