Dubrovnik and Paris

Reunited!

I got to Croatia after a night of mostly unsuccessful attempts to find a comfortable position to sleep. I had a reclining seat but it wasn’t great.

I got a taxi to the place I’m staying. It was half past seven so no one was awake. I just crept around the house (it was unlocked) until the owner came out and then Mia was there and yay!

It was silly to think that things wouldn’t be the same as ever. We went into the old town, found some café and sat and talked for four hours. Then we wandered around some more and then came back to our room, opened our laptops and both just Internet-ed until I fell asleep for three hours and Mia was just like, no it’s fine, I have Twilight fanfic.

So yeah, things are good.

I missed Mia kind of but not really. She was always still present to me, in snapchats and facebook messages and skype but I did miss being able to mutually tumblr the way we always do at home.

Today we went to the beach. I swam, Mia tanned. We drank hot chocolates and ate lunch and dinner and just talked more and more. I’m happy that this isn’t going to be a ‘busy’ holiday. It’s just going to be relaxing and doing things we like, even if Mia won’t jump off rocks with me.

We just are having a great time lying on the beach and swimming and talking about literally everything. Like, we don’t actually agree that often on finer details when it comes to most things. Like whether homosexuality is natural or if men can be victims of domestic abuse or what the line is between slut shaming and thinking girls are too young to be promiscuous or should women be allowed to be topless at beaches and if saying something is ‘just a social norm’ enough of an argument or is it just continuing a sexist past. Like, is saying ‘I just don’t think that’s appropriate’ a legitimate argument?

We talk about many things. I like it though. Mia and I work s best friends somehow. Like, I think Megan and Jen actually make more sense in terms of friendship for me, but Mia and I have always gotten on best? I think some of that is that we enjoy doing a lot of the same things. Like, our career paths of ‘writer, if not writer, psychologist, if not psychologist, teacher, we both came to of our own accord but I think it certainly makes us closer.

I think that we both like the same things, going out, being foodies and drinking hot chocolate and tanning and then coming home to fanfiction and internet, also just means we can hang out so easily.

I think that’s why I was anxious that by being in Exeter and becoming involved with different kinds of people who enjoy different things and have different ideas of fun, some of which I picked up, would lead to Mia and I growing apart.

Fortunately perhaps, I think that when I’m with Mia, I do act in a certain way that is complimentary to her. I don’t think I do it consciously and maybe it’s a bit of a stifling thing that my personality molds to hers, but when I’m with her, we judge people more than I would on my own, I notice different things, I talk about different things (even if those different things is everything). I just worry that my personality is a tad bit to malleable.

That’s why exchange was good for me, and solo backpacking was awesome. I like knowing what I can do by myself, because when I have support, for better or worse, I always bow to it.

Now it’s the evening of our third day (wow time passes quickly when we lie on a beach and eat all day). She’s reading Quil/Claire Twilight fanfic and I’m cracking up over vines and the latest meme ‘I just came out to have a good time and I’m honestly feeling so attacked right now’ which I inexplicably find hilarious. Tomorrow will be more of the same. We’re going to actually walk to city walls because so far we haven’t gone much further than the old town.

Ciao!

Now on our second night in Paris (yes, I’ve been updating this over quite a few days). I have mixed feelings about my bffl. At least, travelling together after being apart for such a long time (relatively).

We clash a lot because I’m different and we have to adjust to that, plus we’re travelling and that’s stressful, plus, living together in close contact for any period of extended time with someone close can make things difficult, constantly compromising.

Plus, I suffer for the bad friend behaviour of comparing Mia to Jen, which is terrible but kind of unavoidable, especially in Paris, which is so like London, which Jen and I did together.

I don’t know why I think Mia and I are travel incompatible, in lots of ways we get on perfectly, but in others… like, little things like we walk at different paces, and she doesn’t care if we get up early and get breakfast at our hotel which is included (aka already paid for), or going inside any museums… and it’s worse because in 2 weeks I’ll be doing Paris again with Jen and we’ll probably drink wine and do more social things and it’ll be terrible if I compare the two trips and end up liking that more, because it’s really unfair to Mia. Like, I have 50% say in this holiday, it should be a mix of both of us, it’s just that I’m such a pushover/ easy going, I just kind of bend to whatever. Like, I don’t care what sites we see, or if we are out walking around for 6 hours or 16. I am content either way so whoever I’m with takes the lead. That’s why solo backpacking is good for me. The authentic Lucy trip, kind of. Only I normally meet people and attach to them so regardless, my experience is based on the people around me.

Today was fun. I woke up at 10 (late start), Mia woke 10:30, once I’d showered etc. We had a crepe each for breakfast, then she wanted to go shopping so we went to the Arc de Triumph, then found a shopping street. Didn’t get anything but did that until we had late lunch at some overpriced restaurant. Then we got the Metro to Notre Dame, looking for the Shakespeare shop because Mia wanted to get our friend some old book from there. I ended up getting two books (The Nanny Diaries—because the movie stars Scar Jo and Chris Evens, and I ship Captain America/ Black Widow HARDCORE—and a future dystopia, 2104 or something like that about the benefits of logic vs sensory stimulation/emotion in human evolution). I was thinking we’d go home then and come back out in the late evening when the sun set (10pm) to see the Eiffel Tower at night, but we ended up wasting so much time getting to the Eiffel Tower to get a crepe before going home, we ended up just staying for a few hours at the Tower reading, until it got dark enough for them to turn the lights on.

Mia and I are still KINDA weird, but we are just weird people. She was too much of a scaredy cat to go across the road and get cookies without me there and I refused to go with her (it’s the principle of the thing), only then I wanted food to but I couldn’t go with her and if I tried to go, she’d just follow me and it was a problem so I ran out into the elevator and instead of going down, I went up. She locked us out of our room in her effort to chase me, but had to go down the stairs.

I nearly made it, I was in the store when she found me but then because I’m a horrible person who foes things she doesn’t understand, I put down the food I had picked up (yes, I had got her biscuits) and left empty handed. I suppose in my effort to be a mama bird and make her fly solo but it didn’t really work out.

We shared the cookies when we eventually were able to get back in.

Obviously we are cool, but yeah. Weird.

Now we’re in Germany but final cliff notes on Paris— I loved it, I loved the Eiffel Tower, the language, the architecture, the streets, the hot boys, the food… all of it.

Hoping Germany will be as awesome.