I gave you several thousand dollars, may I have my trip now?

So after all of that planning, my housemate and I went to see our travel agent today. We're not her hugest fans to begin with, but we try not to hold that against her. But my goodness, she seemed to have absolutely no idea what was going on. We spent almost an hour there and all I got out of it was my new ISIC and a piece of paper that thanks me for my money. My favourite part is the line that says, "Please reconfirm all flight times with the airline 24-48 hours prior to departure." Easier said than done, since somehow I still don't have any flight times to reconfirm.

And to think that I thought that figuring out four days in Corfu was confusing... that's nothing compared to spending an hour with Anna.

"My notes show... that we're still in Amsterdam and it's still June 11th"

So it turns out that planning a simple trip to Europe is a lot more difficult than one would expect. Sure we've got the bus tour that we're signing up for that'll take a good 34 days, but it doesn't take us to England, Ireland, Scotland or Wales like we'd really like to see.

So after looking at some options, we decided that it would be super fun to rent a car and take ourselves to those places and see them on our own time. Well... turns out you can't take a rented car from one country and leave it in another. At least not if one of those countries is England or Ireland. So we're stuck in Amsterdam.

We could get a free ride from Amsterdam to London, but we don't want to rent a car in London because a) that's just scary, and b) is everything reversed in cars over there? These are not things that we'd like to find out after it's too late.

So then we had the brilliant idea to make our way by ferry to Dublin and rent a car there, then take the ferry back and forth (because we'd need to return the car in, and therefore fly out of, Dublin) several times to see everything we want, but it turns out that the ferry is expensive. Scratch that option, we're stuck in London again.

Over and over we exhausted our options, and ended up right back where we started. In London. On June 11th. And let's face it, London on June 11th isn't such a bad place since Bon Jovi is playing there that night (and oh, we will be going...).

So as it stands now, Ireland et al. will have to wait until the summer of 2007, and we'll treat ourselves to another trip to Europe as a graduation present. We'll do the bus tour of the however many countries and spend a few days in London before heading home, or something to that effect.

Hopefully tomorrow brings us better luck with actually booking the tour, however... this'll be trip number 4 to the travel agency.

Not that I'm judging or anything...

A lot of strange stuff has been going on around my house lately, so I'd like to write about two of these things. Two is not a lot, I know, but I'm tired. And anyways, one of the two is very exciting and will make up for the lack of others. You can take your pick at which is greater.

1- Our bathroom has been smelling of roasted marshmallows for the past four days or so. I kind of like it. Puts me in a campy mood every time I brush my teeth. And it helps me brush my teeth more effectively since I imagine every time I'm in there that the marshmallows are rotting them.

2- My housemate and I have decided to go mock-free. It's a shocking decision, but we realized one time while playing the low-blow game, that we were just too good at it and we should take a break for a while. So mocking is no longer allowed... although we still need somewhere to express our bitter and jaded views, so if you're willing to take a hit every now and again, let me know.

Otherwise we might explode.

Crucial Information Follows This Title

Recently, a very important question was brought to my attention and I felt that I should share.

My friend Mike asked, "If someone holds the door for you... you make sure to say 'thanks'. If there is a double door, like in a mall, do you say 'thanks' twice, or is once enough? Further, if once is good enough, do you say it after the first door, or as a cumulative thanks at the end? These are the things I think about..."

My housemate was kind enough to provide him with a well-thought out answer:

"Oh yeah, I've also pondered the door question...and it is quite tricky. I generally go for the cumulative 'thank-you' but I tend to say it in such an enthusiastic manner that there's no way it could me mistaken as only thanking for one door. Unless of course the only reason they're holding the door for me is because I did the initial holding of the first door. If I don't get a thank-you they generally get a most sarcastic 'thanks'. BUT if they thank me for holding the first door, I give a sincere thanks with a smile.

"Now, the tricky business is when they hold the first door and you're holding the second. And you say thanks, but they don't return the courtesy. This usually results in my glaring at the back of their head as they walk away. Yeah, that's right. I glare. That sure shows them."

As I said, it was well-thought out. But if you ask me, it was a response worthy of a door-in-the-face. Therefore, my reply was as follows:

"Now, Mike, you pose an excellent question for all of us to ponder. I noticed above that my housemate has already been pondering this, and I must say, what an idiot.

"I agree that it is important to always say thank you when someone holds the door open for you. However, in terms of the double doors, I've got a story for you. As a child growing up, I only felt the need to say a cumulative thank you after the second door. My mother disagreed with me on this one as I found out the difficult way. She held that first door, oh did she ever, and when I didn't say thank you, she snottily said "you're welcome" and slammed the second door in my face. I was two. Needless to say, the door knocked me right over. Two year olds aren't very big.

"Since taking a spanish course last semester (and I must tell you that I excelled), I've learned to appreciate the vast amount of culture in our society. So I like to mix it up. Let's say, for example, that someone is holding the door for you, and you know by looking at them that they're most definitely french, you should say "merci". Best to use their native tongue, because that's what they'll most appreciate. Or if I feel it's necessary, I'll pull out a "gracias, señor/señora" or maybe even a "Danke, Herr" for my german-looking freunde. I won't lie, I've even been known to use a good "спасибо, сэр" for those russian-looking brutes. The possibilities here are endless, Mike. And again, I encourage you to say something... anything... after each door. You can even switch it up if you're not positive of someone's ethnicity... say a "merci beaucoup, madame" followed by a "obrigado, Senhor". Just say something, dammit! It also works well if you're unsure of a fellow door-holder's gender. Whip out a different language and they'll have no idea where you're coming from, so they'll automatically be grateful that you even said anything at all.

"In conclusion, it's all about both doors. I can't believe I live with that idiota estúpido. And to think that I hold doors for her."



I urge you all to take this to heart.

Back and as bitter as ever....

I'm not exactly sure what brings me back here to the b-word that is my own. Could be that I'm incredibly bored and have a lot on my mind, but I'm pretty sure that it's because I have several things that I wish to talk about with certain people, but that I'm unable to at this time. So I don't know why writing this will help with anything. Needless to say, I'll get around to speaking with people eventually, but perhaps for now I'll just go back to creating posts about my cynical views on the world, and have my usual one person read them.

So I'm not really that bitter at the moment. Although a bit. I had a medication test this afternoon that if I fail twice, I fail my course... which basically sets me back a year in the end. So I'm pretty sure that I didn't pass it this time, so I have a re-test to look forward to. But for real, I'm surprisingly chipper considering how tired I am and how much the weather is annoying me. And how hungry I am. It's been quite a few hours now since a real meal. And by that, I mean about 45. I've eaten, just not meal-worthy food.

How exciting am I for "Skating with Celebrities" tonight?! So very! Especially since Uncle Joey from Full House is on it. Can't get a higher quality show than that.

I'm bored of typing now, so that's all I'm going to say.