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(written 8/3/03 in USA) it's time for me to write about france, the letter, the last night.. everything. i arrived in manchester airport 2 hours ahead of time, so i sat there listening to the coldplay album (that my bff had burned for me) and i just couldn't stop crying. i probably looked ridiculous. i remember when i was in philly airport a week earlier, i saw this mother crying after saying goodbye to her daughter and grandchildren. i felt really bad for her, she was walking off with her arms crossed and brushing her husband off. i wonder if people looked at me like i was looking at her. i arrived in paris to my favorite cousin and her husband. i was so subdued. partly because of the crazy night before and not having enough sleep, but because i was just an emotional wreck. the next day my cousin and i took a train onto the french alps. on the train, i decided to confess my feelings of the brit to my cousin. i asked her if i should tell him and she asked me question after question to make sure telling him won't hurt me as much as not telling him. in the end, she agreed a letter would be the best answer. i love my cousin very much. have you ever been around someone that you say little to, or a lot to, or nothing at all to, and they just know what you're thinking and how you're feeling? that's what it's like being with my cousin. we got to chambery train station and my other cousin (her brother) and his wife and kids picked us up, to take us to the old people town. before we got there, we stopped at the airport and i took some great pictures of his plane and the airport. the village we went to, is this place that sick people and old people go to cleanse themselves so they get/remain healthy. we stayed at a hotel, but because only old people hang there they closed the hotel at 10pm. that night we stayed at the condo my cousin and his parents were renting till 10:30pm. we backed to the hotel and saw that all the doors were locked and the lights were off. we banged on the door, till someone opened the door. that night i began writing the letter. the next day we went to this town called Annecy. i took some great pictures there too. the place was a little overhyped to me though. i was told that it was the most beautiful city ever, better than florence. i've never been to florence, but just from the pictures i've seen, i'd say florence is prettier. that night we went back to paris. the next day we had a full day in paris. my cousin and i had to pick up these special shoes for my dad, so we did that first and then came back and took a nap. then we did the whole tourist thing. i took pictures of the moulin rouge, the cafe in amelie, etc. i also took pictures of fred's (my brothers roommate) tellitubby head. it's a long story, but maybe i'll scan those pics and explain soon. after leaving the area, my cousin almost got mugged/pick pocketed by this 8 year old kid. this random guy kept slapping the kid really hard to get the kid to let go of my cousins wallet. i think he had hired the kid to do it though. and was pretending to be a do gooder. i noticed that one of the straps opening a pocket in my bag was open. the kid must have tried to open mine and all he found was a supersampler lomo! that night i finished writing all the postcards i had left to write, and i was sitting there with my cousins and some french people, and some stripped from the moulin rouge. i thought it was cool. in york i'm hanging out with all these professional skaters i don't know of, and now i'm here and this stripper from the moulin rouge, who happens to be american, is chatting me up about postcards. i could barely understand what she was saying though. she had a weird accent. i guess she had lived all over the states. that night i finished the letter. the next morning i flew back to manchester. i love paris, if it wasn't for the fact that i can't speak any french, i think i'd move there in a heartbeat. i instintly started missing my cousin. manchester my moms friend picked me up from the airport with her teenage son. her son is a trivia game. the kid knows EVERYTHING. and if he doesn't know something, he'll ask you about it. like even the most unimportant thing, he's curious about. his mother is quite the same, but i think she's more curious about love lives. we went shopping during the day and then at night she invited all the kids and their parents for pizza. she had called the brit and his bff to come too. the brit and the bff showed up alright, but they were both very high. the brit started making fun of the fact that the weekend before i had been eating toothpaste. so i made a point to remind him that i was in a weird state, just like him and his friend are now. none of the grownups noticed the state they were in. if i ever have kids, i'm glad i'll know when they're high or not. this is a great reason to experiment in drugs. "do it, so you can know when your kids get high!" they all started making fun of my accent again. so i made fun of them for saying CHUNA instead of TUNA and CHUESDAY instead of TUESDAY. i made the brit spell tuna and tuesday and the smart ass spelled both of a CH. the brit and his bff left early because he had to give a key to someone. i was kind of hurt and disapointed that he left like that. i also felt that they had gotten high just so they could pig out on pizza, and not to come see me. i don't know if this is rational, but it's what i felt. i was tempted not to give him the letter because i was angry. but it took me 30 seconds to get over it and get the letter and give it to him. so he's kissing me goodbye and babbling on who needs to visit who next and i hand him an envelope with his name on it. meanwhile my mothers friend who is curious about love lives is standing there seeing this all happen. the brit asks me what it is, and i just tell him to read it later. i'm shaking as all this happens. i imagine this is what parachuters feel before they jump out of an airplane. as i try shutting the door on them, his bff asks me to pass messages on to my family. i'm still shaking, so i ask my mothers friend if we can call my mother. i don't know if i was just so petrified that talking to my mother was the only logical solution to calm myself down, or i was just trying to distract everyone from what had just happened. my mom didn't pick up, but i calmed down a bit. and i felt braver and a lot lighter. that night the bedroom i stayed in faced the front. they had light sensors when people approached the driveway. what happened every 15 minutes? a cat would come in the yard and make the lights go on outside. a cat... i don't know if that's ironic. of course i thought it was him each time. at the airport the next morning, i think my disapointment was mistaken for suspicion. i couldn't look anyone in the eye, this caused my suitcases to get searched. my moms friend insisted it was because of my name. but i knew it was because of my weirdness. i felt bad because my moms friend waited there with me as this all happened. i told her she didn't have to wait, and she just turned to me and said, "well i want to make sure you get on that plane and you don't meet up with someone and run off!" she must have thought that i asked the brit to meet me at the airport in my letter. i didn't. i considered telling her everything since she looked like she wanted to know so badly. but talking about it would have exhausted me. i haven't heard anything back from the brit about the letter. i didn't ask him to respond. it wasn't even really a love letter, more like a form letter. more just like an FYI. i had a dream he was very weirded out by the letter. i guess it's all okay in a way. however he responds, i just need to get over him.
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