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Bronwyn: well do you want to just get the clothes you have to wash
Merran: ahhh… you know how I only have one set of clothes at the moment?
Bronwyn: right. well…. ah.
Merran: How about I take a shower, and bring my clothes out in a towel. ah… can I borrow a t shirt?? for later…?
Bronwyn: okay.
But the era of that conversation is over finally! Thanks to the amazing delivery man who delivered my suitcase. after five days. clean clothes. my manicure set. just awesome!!
Tomorrow we are checking out some rolling green hills in the towns of Glendalough, Wicklow and Kilkenny. I have high expectations of this, I must admit, but I think it should be great. Will let you know! Loving the Irish accent too! so beautiful…
The last few days have been a little bit unexpected. Yesterday, Bron, Sally and I were meant to travel to Ireland, the elusive place of all happiness that was drawing us in with its rolling hills and the promise of friendly english speakers. but alas. as much as we tried to get there yesterday… well… hmmm.
We arrived at the airport at like 1pm for our 4pm flight… something even Bronwyn’s dad would be proud of!! The lady as we checked in was like… there has been no delays announced. hurumph. after waiting another 7 hours they told us the plane to dublin was cancelled and we would have to go down stairs to rearrange flights and accomodation for the night. We lined up for about 20 minutes, and were then told that actually they were only helping families with kids. so we then had to wait in another line for those with no children. fair enough i suppose. so we waited another hour… and then (and this is the most outraging part) they called for french speakers!!!!!! honestly. The man next to me was like “they should be calling Irish speakers first” which made me laugh for some time. Eventually, we found out that they weren’t adding any flights the next day… so people had to fight for seats on the planes already departing… so they recommended us to change our seats online. which basically meant they didn’t want to speak to us. So we did change our seats to the first flight to Dublin the next morning. They didn’t offer us accomodation. we had to do it ourselves. thank goodness for travel insurance.
so we rocked up to the airport the next day and a man came over to us with a list and was like “if you’re on this list that means you’re on the 10.20″ – i was like (????) we better be!!! But we were so it was all good. Anyways this plane was 40 minutes delayed… but eventually we got to Dublin!!! hooray.
only to find that my luggage is still in Paris. blast it all. oh and i broke my glass ring today… it shattered so i had to throw it out. such a shame… so i hope the luggage arrives soon…. cos i have no spare underwear!! or a toothbrush. eww…
Concurrently, Mike was due to meet us in Ireland today at 11. but he got stuck at Gatwick, which is possibly the worst place he could have been!!! if youve seen the news about London weather at all… so all day at our accomodation we were waiting to hear or for him to turn up. which he eventually did!! right after we called his mum. and his suitcase was lost too….
so all’s well in ireland, except mike and i have no suitcases, and we are somewhat sliding around the streets. our driving plans are possibly being revised as well… icy icy roads here.
There is a lot of nudity in Europe. Not like public nudity. Mostly. But just about every painting and sculpture has a woman with no clothes on her upper half… Or men wearing no pants. It’s interesting. Especially because some of them are where people do or used to live. For example at Versailles, there are paintings on the ceilings of naked people or cherubs… It would be a bit strange to live in s room decorated in this way. Can you imagine painting your ceilings with that? Actually it’s hard to imaging living in a room so ornately decorated at all. Even sans cherubs.
Don’t get me wrong Versailles is one of the most beautiful places i’ve been so far in Europe. It’s just weird how our society can be so shocked by life drawing and yet just go back to the 17th and 18th centuries and every painting has a naked breast in it! Or Greek sculptures of earlier periods.
The Vatican is also full of nude art. Our old friend michaelangelo was quite the fan of it (eg sistene chapel).
This reflection has mostly been due to the reactions people have had when I told them about going to life drawing… How what’s acceptible as art changes so much over time…
