ce que j'ai appris à lisbonne

What I learned from spending one week in Lisbon, is that one week is just enough to leave you feeling like the time was abruptly yanked from under your sun-tanned feet and was over just after the realization that you could give up everything now and just live there forever.

Next time, definitely more than one week. I'm going back, and soon. Até logo, Lisboa!

j'ai fait une grosse erreur.

I'm leaving for a new adventure in approximately two months and as I tend to do when I get anxious and stressed in the face of a big change, I put off anything and everything to do with making the change possible. To fill you in, I'm going to be doing a Master's in English literature starting at the end of September in the north of England. Naturally then, I have yet to purchase plane tickets, confirm accommodation, take care of admin stuff, choose modules etc etc. At this point, I'm not really sure whether I'm more nervous because I haven't done anything yet or because doing it makes it more real. The few times I've sat down and searched for places to live or how to sign up for such-and-such, it only takes a couple minutes of looking on google maps street view or browsing course descriptions for anxiety to set in. I hastily close my laptop as the cursor hovers over unfinished emails and I resign myself to reading robot stories on my kindle. 

Thinking back to how long it took to adapt to life here, I remember how stressed and weary and scared I was those first six months. Though moving to an anglophone country seems decidedly easier to take on, I still have this dreadful feeling that I can't really know what I'm getting myself into until I'm really in the thick of it. I envision myself having a biiiig Gob moment. 

"get rid of the seaward!"

Except that the official acceptance letter has been mailed and this is happening, FOR REAL this time (echoes of all the whinging I did last summer about my not being able to go). In the wise words of Dan Savage, just gotta ovary-up and do it! YES! Doing it! Right after this chapter.

gourmande.

If/when I move back to the US, I swear to sweet baby Jeebus, I will miss the jaw-droppingly savory, delicious, candy-like taste of fresh strawberries in the spring. You think you've tasted strawberries before --  you know the ones that are about the size of your fist you can find year round in most supermarkets. But then you stroll through the French market in early-April and the scent of fresh strawberries takes over your better judgement and suddenly you're dropping 3,50E on a tiny plastic basket of the most glorious red berries you've ever seen.

I would put this right up there on my list of reasons I love living here, right below the accessibility of xuxos  (pronounced "chuchos") in the Catalan region of Spain. In a nutshell: pastry of the GODS.

un enfant gâté

I'm a spoiled birthday brat. I had such a good day -- no work, sleeping in, some shopping with mumhead, fresh strawberries, playing with a cute dog, burritos, a sweet kindle for me to blow my savings on, banoffee pie and a hot date at the movies where we watched Ryan Gosling parade around without a shirt and brood tragically.

It was so good that I almost forgot about turning 26. And then I was all like..

Really though, I just wanted an excuse to post this cat. I love it.