Nothing Quite Like the Blinding Light.

After about 3 days of serious thinking, emailing, and looking far too closely at course lists for the spring term at the University of Edinburgh, I've decided that I'm not going anywhere. Tonight I had a 4 hour dinner conversation in french with my pseudo-director and talked about Austin and Athens, and I'm not going anywhere. I am, however, awake at 3:17 am looking at flights from Paris to Moscow and St. Petersburg in January.

I leave for Italy on Friday morning. I've never seen Italy. And I really need some good pizza. I at least need to go a week without eating a baguette. I have found two really nice cafes and an amazing thai restaurant. It's getting really cold and hot peanut soup and cappuccinos make it a lot nicer. This city's better in the cold.

I went to the beach this weekend, to climb the biggest sand dune in Europe, la Dune du Pyla, on the Atlantic coast, and to eat waffles on the boardwalk. It was freezing, but kind of incredible. Malika drove us there and back and I spent 2 hours in the back of a car on a French highway listening to Jimmy Eat World and Pedro the Lion.

I had a very intense, perhaps slightly fever-induced dream last night and woke up completely terrified because I'd been in Athens, in Syntagma, and I couldn't get home. I kept seeing familiar street signs, but the city was completely unfamiliar. I kept zooming out, almost, to try to see myself on the map and get myself home and it wouldn't work at all. I had no idea. I woke up and spent 10 seconds trying to frantically envision a map of Athens and get myself from Syntagma back home. To Neoptolemou. I guess there's not much I can do now.

A bientot.