in the morning, we ventured out to eat at a restaurant william knew of, but instead found the best little outdoor market with fresh produce, meats, bread and smoothies. we wandered into the natural history museum, which is now one of our all time favorite things in dublin, and the art museum, and walked by oscar wilde's childhood home. We had dinner at shebeen chic, the most amazing restaurant/bar decorated haphazardly with sideways paintings and mismatched mirrors.
oh, and of course i had to include a photo of the bridge from leap year. couldn't help myself.
our first night was rainy and cold, but lovely. we were ambitious and toured the entire downtown in the drizzle, but given the short amount of time here it was worth it. we had shepherd's pie and hot chocolate at the quaintest little local place called gruel. i don't know who said ireland had awful food, but they were sorely mistaken.
I'm so completely enraptured by Danielle's jewelry at Dinosaur Toes. Ever since I bought my first necklace from her I've been itching to get something else. If not for me, I'll definitely be doing some Christmas shopping on her Etsy site. I love love this citrine ring.
I can't get over how pretty this dress by ouma is. And it's handmade!
While swimming around the internet tonight I came upon the Edith Piaf classic, La Vie En Rose. I know it's overplayed and overdone, but there's something about it that makes a heart shudder a little, and I get lost in a daydream of what I want Paris to be. It makes me homesick for a place that doesn't exist. There are other songs that have this effect (actually,just one other), but this one especially takes me somewhere. It got me thinking about the little trip I took to Europe last October--a week in Florence and three days in Paris. I'd dreamt of Paris for years, how I'd live there one day and that it would be my dream city. It was lovely--eating lunch outside of Cafe de Flore, the famous existentialist hangout, meandering the busy streets and stumbling into beautiful cathedrals. However, as Paul Theroux said in The Washington Post(1941)--
Which is absolutely true. Looking back on Paris, the light was this bluish-gray tint, almost like rain was coming even when it wasn't, and it was quiet, even with people moving everywhere. The truth of the matter is, it was cold and lonely as I stayed in a dingy hostel and peed into a hole in the floor. I spent a good part of my first day there lost and crying and confused. A year's time is long enough to forget the sordid details and remember just the beauty.
Things don't usually look the way you pictured them, and life certainly doesn't go the way you planned. But I'm starting to find that that's ok.
Mark [Albert Finney]: Darling, what's French for 'Inspector, I don't believe a word you're saying and you're not gonna get a damn penny?' Joanna [Audrey Hepburn]: 'Oui, monsieur.'
I'd like to start a weekly movie sunday post, and figured it would be most appropriate to begin with an Audrey Hepburn classic. I have a special, sort of sentimental love of really good, old movies. My dad's of the generation that listened to the Rat Pack and the Four Seasons, watched old Westerns and Singin' in the Rain and falls asleep to TCM every single night, without fail.
I know that most girls (maybe not most, but I certainly do) idolize Audrey Hepburn and want to look just like her, but not as many people comment on the way she speaks. I would give anything to have her voice and talk the way she talks.
When Two for the Road first came out, it was considered confusing and choppy the way it jumps around to different times and places, but I completely disagree. The execution is flawless, and the placement of each little vignette perfectly displays the stages of their relationship--first as unlikely hitch-hiking partners, then lovers, then volatile husband and wife--they provide an exquisite juxtaposition of single, carefree life to married, married life.
In the beginning, she's so naive and eager; he's so "wise" and full of little quips and full of himself. He's arrogant and annoying. Throughout the movie, you love him and you hate him.
"If there's one thing I really despise, it's an indispensable woman," Mark says--and that's exactly what she is to him, an indispensable woman who always knows where his passport is when he doesn't.
The way that the movie portrays the couple, or love, is so real--it isn't nearly perfect, but in some twisted way it works.
Mark: "If you want to live in one half of a suburban shoe box like your parents, you married the wrong man."
Joanna: "I don't want to live in one half of a suburban shoe box, and I married the wrong man."
They are so in love and then they take each other for granted, he resents being married and having a child. But, despite it all and through everything, they're stuck with each other. In the end I think that's what love really is--knowing that no matter what, no matter how much you can't stand the person you're with, you couldn't live without them.
