Chapter One: Enter South America

This is a book idea I started a while back. I was wondering if people could help me out with something I'm worrying about. I'm wondering if the trust that Josephine Carmichael uncovers for Elroy Gray happens to suddenly by the end of it? Does she start talking too openly too quickly if you take into account the fact that she rarely speaks her mind, and when she does she speaks quietly and usually only to people she trusts fully? Does their relationship here move to quickly, did I rush the character development here, should I start further back in their lives to first put the characters into place?

Theses are just a few questions you might keep in mind while reading if you plan on giving me feedback afterwards. Would really appreciate the help! Thanks :)

Let's get to it then! Enjoy!:

CHAPTER ONE:

His cup of water was handed to him by a slender, well-manicured hand with red-painted, perfect nails, attached to an arm that was attached to a shoulder, attached to the body of the uniformed stewardess strolling down the aisle with the refreshment cart. The flight thus far had been a peaceful one in second class seats, the three on the right near the middle of the section, by the wing. Each seat was occupied by a person, each person in each seat had a story, and each story had a beginning but no defined end.

Elroy Gray watched the flight attendant closely as she handed him his water and then leaned over to the other side of the aisle to ask the other passengers for their desires. She was pretty and confident in her job. She regarded him as just another passenger on another flight. That was just fine.

The man on his right, large, overweight, was snoring heavily, sleeping soundly, and had been for the last two hours. Gray’s patience rewarded him well here. The young girl on the other side of the obnoxious sleeper, by the window, was the person that he was most interested in calculating at the present.

His gaze drifted towards her, almost subconsciously. She looked exactly the same…

~~~

The hum of the plane was constant. It was probably one of the reasons she’d never been able to sleep on a plane. But aside from that, what disconcerted her the most, was the man two seats away who wouldn't stop glancing at her with those emotionless blue eyes, staring without shame as though calculating her worth. If it weren't for his silver-like hair and clean-shaven pointed face, she never would have actually noticed him in the first place. Aside from the colour of his eyes, this man staring at her from two seats away on the long flight down south looked exactly as she had always pictured her father. He was the ideal man, in appearance, of the father that she’d never had.

Josephine Carmichael always did this in places with lots of people. She surveyed every face that passed her by, and eventually found the ones that looked like her “ideal parents”. This was the first time she’d ever noticed a man who fit her standards so perfectly. It was hard not to stare right back at him, and it was definitely impossible to go to sleep with him right nearby.

She didn't know why she did it; picked people out from a crowd whom she would describe as parent-like, but it was old habit, and habits die hard. It was unreasonable of her. She was only bringing more pain upon herself this way. She had to get over every person she saw who fit her standards enough, and these people always brought up unwanted emotions in her that she had a hard time getting rid of.

Josephine glanced furtively past the large, snoring man next to her to look at the ideal father figure on his other side another time. He was dressed between formal and casual in dress pants and a gray jacket over a red button-up shirt with a collar. His shoes weren't altogether fabulous, but they went nicely with his ensemble. He looked very official that way.

She looked quickly away again when his eyes seemed to turn towards her again. Supposedly, she had no right to be bothered by him staring at her when she was also staring right back at him, but the implications of a man staring at a young woman were much more numerous than those of a young woman staring at an older man.

Josephine forced her gaze out the round window by her head. She couldn’t see much past the wing of the plain by blue sky, and perhaps some rolling waves far down below. She needed to focus on why she was on this plane in the first place, she needed to forget her obsession with ideal parent figures and slap herself back into reality, back into the world she lived in, had always lived in, and would always live in, where she had no parents, and no siblings, and no family to care for her; she was on her way down south on this plane because the headmaster of the orphanage was kind to her and thought that an experience outside of her daily life and land would do her a lot of good. She was made out to be a mopey, depressed, and dark person in general, even though this wasn’t entirely true. She did not have a bright personality, but one shouldn’t exaggerate. She was on this plane for a new experience, she needed to forget her old habits for the time being…but it was difficult to forget them with such a perfect match sitting so close by, even if she’d probably never see him again after getting off of the plane in South America. She would probably end up being distracted by the thought of him for a long time after this was over.

The flight attendant was passing back with the cart after having passed through once already. The father figure had received a water from her but Josephine hadn’t asked for anything. As she was passing by their seats, the father figure stopped the stewardess and murmured something to her. She smiled and eventually handed him a second cup of water even though he still hadn’t finished the first cup from before. As she backed away with her cart, the father figure turned in his seat and held the second cup out to Josephine, over the snoozing middle-man. He offered Josephine a slightly amused smirk.

“Juice up. You should keep hydrated,” he said quite simply.

Josephine didn’t know whether to be surprised or offended, but she chose surprised and accepted his offer with a nod.

“”Flying by yourself?” he enquired. Was he just curious or did she have the right to be suspicious of him?

“Yeah,” she answered quietly after taking a sip of water, “You?” she found it difficult to look at him now that he was talking to her.

“Yeah,” he seemed at as much of a loss for words as she was. Either that, or he was just a naturally quiet person – like she was. And she wasn’t sure what the reason was, but he gave off a pleasant aura of sorts, in his tone of voice, his amused smirk, and his mannerisms that she’d taken note of so far. She liked to think that he looked trustworthy.

“I’ve been sent away on a vacation,” she found herself saying to him, with a hint of a smile at the memory of the headmaster telling her it was time to get out of the city.

“You too, huh? I didn’t think you were old enough to be told to go take a vacation. I get told to every month, but I’ve never agreed…”

“You’re out on business, then…” Josephine noted.

“You got family down in Santiago?” he asked her. She shook her head. She supposed she should have thought of this kind of situation beforehand, what with her travelling alone, but she didn’t usually talk to strangers. When she did and they asked her about family, if she told the truth they usually portrayed expressions of pity and said they felt sorry for her. She didn’t like hearing those words, seeing those faces, so she didn’t like talking about it. But she didn’t have a solid cover-story in place and she wasn’t sure what to say to him.

“Just a bag, some cash, and a hotel room with my name on it,” she smirked sheepishly. She wasn’t telling him the name of her hotel, now, was she? And unless he followed her, it wasn’t like it was a problem. She wasn’t being naïve now, was she?

“Well, if you’re just trying to get away, I guess that’s the way to do it,” he shrugged.

“What about you, here for a business opportunity or money issues?”

“You could call it both, but I prefer to think of it as criminal justice,” he clanked overhead for a moment and then back across in her direction. She smirked.

“You’re a cop?” she asked, though it was closer to a statement than an actual question.

“Federal Agent,” he shrugged with an affirming nod.

“Sounds…exciting,” Josephine decided with an arched eyebrow.

“It has its moments,” he smiled, and then watched her thoughtfully with narrowed eyes, “Now tell me, what would a person like you be doing, going to Santiago on your own like this? It doesn’t seem like the situation is…natural. I’m curious now; you don’t look like a regular working citizen taking some time off because your boss told you to.”

Josephine regarded his question carefully. He wasn’t exactly trying to pry, in a sense. He was a Fed, so he was bound to be good at extracting information out of people. And it wasn’t like she was hiding anything in particular or doing anything illegal. She also had a feeling that if she told him of her circumstances, he wouldn’t give her that look that she hated so much. She felt like she could trust him not to disappoint her in that way.

And she was right.

“The headmaster of the orphanage I live at sent me out to clear my head,” she told him, quite honestly and bluntly. If he was surprised, he didn’t exactly show it. He only nodded and then looked up the aisle a ways, seeming thoughtful.

“You could probably use the time,” he said after a moment. She’d been right to trust him, and because she’d been right, she smiled. She wasn’t exactly in a situation where one would normally smile, but she couldn’t help herself. He was, after all, the ideal father figure; not that it would matter in the long run.

“In your orphanage, is it co-ed?” he asked her after another pause. It didn’t surprise her that he would ask about her lifestyle, and for once, she felt almost comfortable enough to talk about it normally.

“Yeah, co-ed, with the sleeping quarters separated for the girls and boys into two different buildings on campus,” she was already thinking back to the girls’ dorm, to the cramped quarters and the pillow fights on hyper nights…it was, in general, a decent place. Temporarily. Living there for a long time was not ideal. It still had nothing over a real family lifestyle.

“Your Head sounds like a nice guy…” the father figure said to her. The father figure…it seemed a little ridiculous to think of him that way after talking to him for a while.

“He is,” Josephine smiled a little fondly. Everyone loved the old man, the headmaster, who was so much more lenient than any of the other staff at the orphanage, “I’m Josephine, by the way,” she finally said, turning to him with an air of friendliness that she hadn’t had the chance to use up until now.

“Agent Gray. But you can leave out the Agent,” he assured her. She grinned, but slowly adopted a more serious expression.

“Agent Gray…I think I’ve heard your name somewhere before…or at least, a mention of it…” Josephine frowned. The connection seemed to be in her grasp, but…she shook her head and sighed, “I can’t remember where though.”

Gray shrugged, “Wouldn’t expect you too. I’m not a big fan of the media, so any mention of me would be scarce.”

Yeah…just a random mention in the media.

The seat-belt light flashed on overhead and the pilot’s voice interrupted their thoughts over the com to introduce a turbulent leg in their flight.

The first few bumps were the usual, no big deal, a little troubling, but nothing out of the ordinary. The second wave cut out the lights overhead, leaving nothing but the windows on the sides illuminated. Even the seatbelt and no-smoking lights turned off. With the next hit of turbulence, the hum of the plane changed its tune and an alarming sensation in the stomach was felt by most passengers conscious of the changes.

Agent Gray looked nearly ready to jump out of his seat and head up to demand an explanation out of the pilot. His eyebrows had already arched into a slight frown and he was very concentrated on staring up the aisle towards the front.

Josephine had never imagined her entrance to the south this way. Her brain had a way of blocking things out, traumatic things, things she didn’t want to experience again, and it seemed that that was exactly what it was doing then and there. Before her conscious mind could fully process the details of what was about to happen, her subconscious shut down anything that would allow her to recall the even at any time in the future – if she did indeed survive long enough to try and remember anything.

Through blinks of light and fuzzy images, from the sounds around her that she heard as though she were submerged underwater, she knew that she must have managed to follow the emergency procedures indicated. Lifejacket. Check. Exits. Check.

The man between her and Agent Gray had awoken at some point and he was also, albeit frantically, following the flight attendants’ instructions.

Descent…water…no-fuel…malfunction…Screams, wails of “I don’t want to die”, panicky whimpers.

This was how Josephine would remember her entrance into South America. High levels of turbulence, bumps, squeals of distraught passengers all around, the distinct lurch and landing in the water of the Pacific Ocean. The sound of a voice, a distinct voice shouting in her ear, and then the sensation of a firm grip on her right bicep pulling her down the aisle to the exit.

Fresh air hit Josephine’s face like a wake-up call, unexpected and somehow refreshing, just as she was sliding down into the rolling waves of the Pacific. With the cool air and the cold, cold water lapping up against her and soaking her to the bone, it became excruciatingly difficult for her to lapse back into a nonsensical state. Her mind was in a state of utter panic. She realized, hardly, in the back of her mind, that she was having a panic attack while in the Pacific Ocean with nothing but a lifejacket to keep her afloat next to the body of a supposedly malfunctioned plane. Heart pounding, breathing unstable, hyperventilating, there was no way for her to control the way her body was reacting to her situation.

“Snap out of it, Josephine!”

Even over the rolling waves, the voice was back. It was the same voice, she would soon remember, that had gotten her out of the plane in the first place. It was the voice that had kept her alive.

“Land’s that way!” he was hollering above the sound of the sea, just so that she’d listen, and she was listening. Her panic attack was gradually calming, her heart rate slowing, her breathing evening out as much as their situation warranted, “Come on, Finn, swim!”

He was only about an arm’s length ahead of her. The word “swim” triggered her body to follow him, to make her way in the direction that Agent Gray was leading – the direction that everyone seemed to be going in.

Maybe she’d missed something about it in her state of delusion.

The whole way, Agent Gray remained only an arm’s length ahead of her, swimming just ahead to point the way and just close enough to keep her following with morale support. She wasn’t a strong swimmer, but she was swimming. She didn’t have high endurance, but she was enduring. If Agent Gray hadn’t been there, she most certainly would not have made it. Her will to survive wasn’t exactly her strongest point, but he made it her only point as he drove her along to land.

He didn’t seem ready to let a plane crash be the end of either of them. She was glad she had ended up talking to him in that seat, on that plane, even after the thought that she didn’t usually talk to strangers.

Toe Trauma...Tooth Trauma...The World of Trauma

Alright. I broke my toe once. I dropped a table on it - it's a long-ish story so I'll leave it at that. I went to the doctor and they referred to what happened to my toe as "Toe Trauma". Okay, so that's not weird at all.
Well, I had a root canal done on Thursday following the check-up with a dentist. The root canal went fine, I'm pretty sure it's all taken care of now except that they still have some prettying up to do for it. Other than that, done with. The pain before hand was worse than the procedure - the root canal itself didn't hurt at all. But low and behold, not two days after I had that done, problematic things (I give no details...yet...) began happening with another tooth. Top right, the tooth next to the right front one. Yeah, right there smack-dab in the middle of my smile.
No pictures now for a while because what happened was I got this lump on my gum above the tooth, swollen and ugly (blech, I know, I'm sorry, that's why I was planning on not giving details). We went to the dentist wondering if it had something to do with the root canal.
Good news: it was a completely unrelated matter.
Bad news: it was a completely unrelated matter.
What on Earth are the chances of having two major problems within your mouth in the span of a single week? I mean seriously here...
So anyways, turns out I had an infection in my tooth...because the tooth had suffered some sort of "trauma". There's that word again. Trauma. Toe trauma, now tooth trauma...I have this feeling that dentists and doctors - people in the medical world in general - really use that word a lot. For lots of things.
There. That's the relations between the story of my toe and now the story of my teeth.
As a conclusion then, the dentist used a fricking scalpel in my mouth (after the freezing, yes. Duh.). I didn't feel it, but as I was pretending to trick myself into thinking that I wasn't actually seeing what utensils they were using right in front of my face, I see this hand pick up this scalpel. I know what a scalpel looks like, okay? I've seen enough TV for that. Freaked me out. That's when I started to feel slightly frightened. I was fine up until that point.
And then she uses this scalpel within my pie hole up by my gum somewhere, and there was blood on the thumb of her glove afterwards.
Yeah, I couldn't trick myself into thinking that I hadn't seen that happening right in front of my face either.
So then my frightened feeling increased a bit and she did some drilling up into my traumatized tooth and she put some sort of product up where she drilled to help heal the infection and then she closed up the hole in my tooth so that there is now this spot on said tooth that consists of two different coloured flecks: one black and one white. The rest of the tooth is a grey-tinged white colour. You can't tell it's grey-tinged unless you look really close, but...anyways.
No pictures for a while. Not until this dentist does some beautifying on there. Yipee. I can be self-conscious about my smile for however long...

And voilà! This sums up the reason for a previous facebook post of mine:

"I feel like Aragorn and the ghost army stormed into the battle of Minas Tirith, Legolas took down more than one oliphant this time, and Gimli went crazy with his hollers and counting and killing - all of this inside my mouth. That dentist did something...and it packed the LOTR deadly combo right into my teeth...at least she didn't make any mistakes. But what else would I expect from the King of Gondor, the Beautiful Prince of Mirkwood, and the sturdy, gruff-voiced dwarf we all know and love so much?"

That was about one hour after the procedure with the...scalpel. *Shivers*
The pain is gone now, hallelujah, but I have been traumatized thrice now: toe trauma, teeth trauma, and scalpel trauma. Yes. This reinforces the fact that I will not be looking into becoming a doctor, or a dentist, or a nurse, or a paramedic, or anything particularly related to the medical field.
But I have no problem whatsoever with writing gruesome and bloody scenes in a novel. That is nearly the extent of my insanity, I believe.

"Now all I need is Aragorn to use his healing powers on me - he's supposed to be a great healer anyways - with Legolas sitting nearby and singing softly looking...beautiful and serene, and Gimli...well Gimli could just be sitting around looking concerned and mumbling and grumbling."

Another quote from myself. Yes, that would be ideal, but sadly...healing with patience will have to satiate me for the time being.

"[...] A dark day! A red day! Ere the sun rise-s!!!"

That was Theoden, Kind of Rohan, leading the Rohirim and other horsemen into battle, for those of you who don't know...Yep. A bit of Lord of the Rings all-out Fan-Obsessing is just what I need to make my day go pleasantly <3

How do you know my name?

"How do you know...my name?"
The panic, concealed in anger. So great, the panic, that made me shiver. Tremble. Shake. Me who was such a master of composure...I had failed. For once, I had failed in my objective, after all of the work and effort I had put into it, all the effort I had put into erasing my true self from the world.
He still knew my name.
The darkness surrounding me was not only the nature of the room, but was also clouding my mind, clouding it with the dark prospect of failure. I had been so confident that no one would know, no one would recognize, that I had hidden myself so well, I was a different person.
I had been too confident.
Once upon a time, solving my problem would only have taken a moment, a second, two at the most. A simple slash, or a deathly hold...I could have erased him from the world, left no evidence to tie his death to me, and my plan would have been complete. Except for the vow that I had made. I had made that vow, to myself. That kind of vow was the strongest, the most condemning, and it pulled at my mind as I stood over this man, leaning the palms of my strong hands on the arms of his chair. My hair lightly touched the top of his head, he could probably feel my breath against his shortly-cut hair. I could feel his trembling through the wood of the chair, to which he was strapped, set in the centre of such a desolate, abandoned room. The carpet beneath my feet was worn, the red colour had faded mostly, as had the pattern. My shining black shoes looked rich in comparison. The wooden floor, visible around the carpet in its dark hue, seemed ready to give way. Old, crumbling, it could fall out beneath one's feet without warning. The four poster bed, with its tattered red hangings, sat against the right wall, old, forlorn, and forgotten. A candle, burning and flickering its light across the room, making suspicious shadows, sat on the small table by the door, the old wooden door with its brass handle.
The shadows that flickered over my face gave me an even darker appearance. The man shaking beneath me, so much so that he could not tell that I myself was trembling, had a look of extreme fear on his young, once confident features. My black hair hung slightly over my face, hiding only my eyes due to its shorter length. My eyes, the ones that could tell this man my fears and pains if he could only see them.
I would not let him see them; my dark, sorrowful eyes.
Sweat beaded on my brow, tricked down to the tip of my pointed nose. My pale skin glowed in the darkness, brightened only by that flickering candle flame in the corner. The shadows on my face and my body, fluttering over my white dress shirt with two buttons undone, over my black pants into which the shirt was tucked, onto my black shoes that still shone with polish. And the man here, under my power, saw me as the last thing he would ever see.
But could I live up to that expectation that he had? Could I kill him, alone in this dark room, while he had no escape, even after I had vowed to myself not to take a human life ever again without good reasoning?
Was there ever a good reason to take a life? Did I have the right to take all this man had, all of it, gone in an instant to send him to death's door? I had the means. That was not the question. I had the abilities. The question was, did I have the right? I could kill him. But would I?
"How...do you know...my name...?" Panting now, I asked him, the same question again. How did he know? When I was sure that I had never met him, and that I had erased all traces of myself, how did this man know who I was? "Where did you hear...that name?"
My knuckles were white, gripping the arms of this wooden chair with such intensity and ferocity that the wood began to splinter and crack. The feel, the sound, like breaking a bone...
"How do you know?!"
I had surely lost all composure now, yelling, as my rage took over and I fell back into the mentality that there was no way I would ever be forgotten. I had done to much. I yelled again, at this man, the question that I so desperately and so desperately did not want the answer to.
"How do you know my name?!"
His muted state was nearly too much for me to handle. If I had not needed information from him, I surely would have killed him in that moment. Perhaps I would have snapped his neck...or stabbed him with my knife repeatedly...or beat him repeatedly before killing him by some other way. It was my need for what he knew that stayed my hand and prevented my from breaking my vow to myself. I needed to know what he would not tell me, and since I could not kill him...I would have to extract the knowledge from him.
Then, I already knew, that I would kill him. After I knew what he knew...before the torture even started, I knew that I would soon kill him. Either after I got what I needed...or after I decided that he wouldn't give it to me.
His fate was sealed. And my determination to break my vow...was certain.

Moments by the sea

The beach in Dieppe...

The thing about the ocean, is that it can inspire me for anything. After being by the ocean for a few minutes, I always feel as though I could write any book I could think of, and I've thought of many! 62 and counting, my friends, that's how many story ideas I've started! (Finished, well, that's a different story entirely...I've finished 11. Don't judge me.)

Lest we forget...

I got to spend some time in Dieppe, Normandie in the north of France for the past five days, and it has been a grand and fantastic experience. What with them having Canadian themed areas all over the place because the beach was where the Canadians landed during in an attempt to free the people from the Nazis, and the fact that it was the 70th anniversary of that landing while we were there, made the whole trip pretty downright fantastic. Canadian flags, flapping all over the place or patterned out in flower beds - quite the sight for a Canadian who has been away from Canada for now over a year (the 8th of July was the one year "anniversary" of sorts). We were quite ecstatic at the sight, my family and I.

My country's flag.

Aside from that piece of awesomeness, Dieppe is an altogether beautiful city, and the beach is absolutely gorgeous, when the sun decides to show itself. There's a lot of clouds there - especially while we were visiting - and it gets really windy, so that put a small bit of a damper on things, but in the end, the trip was fabulous and I enjoyed every minute of it. I'd love to go back, just to walk on the rocky beach. The water was shimmering and amazing, it seemed to stretch on forever, and if you imagine that it does keep going, on and on and on with no end, it's a pretty cool thought. At least for me.

Walks on the beach, sights of Canadian flags, going by the marina every day for five days to get to our friends house for meals, five straight days chock-full of awesomeness.

Maybe you can tell that I've been feeling slightly company deprived recently, and all this people action is making me unbelievably content...yeah, it's not that obvious, is it?

Furthermore, the experience was topped with a cherry when we went out for dinner on the last night of our stay. We went to a little restaurant called Le New Haven - I know what you're thinking: "Those silly French, putting their French article in front of two English words. Why not just use "the"?" Well, I actually have an answer for you. It's simple, really: "Le" sounds so much cooler. It's the French way. Make English tiles sound totally epic by adding a French article or word at the beginning, or end, or even in the middle if it fits right. The French have truly perfected the art of "Franglais", as we like to call it. It's fun being bilingual, when it gets right down to it...

Finished dish of Mussels

Anyhow, Le New Haven is a sea food restaurant - considering the location of the Atlantic in proportion to Dieppe, it makes sense that it would be - and as such I decided that I would have to eat sea food, rather than ordering the omelette, which was the one item on the menu that did not having something fishy about it. I ended up sharing a menu with a friend, an excellent idea since the menu was comprised of four courses and I never would have finished it by myself, and neither would my friend. First course, as expertly photographed and illustrated on the right there, was mussels. Understand my excitement: I had never ever, ever, ever, ever tried mussels before that meal. In fact, I had seen someone eat them when I was a young child and I had thought to myself: "Never. Never in my life will anyone even be able to shove that monstrosity down my gullet. Over my. Dead. Body. And nobody feeds a dead body. So never."

But, alas! My childish dreams were not meant to last, for I have officially demolished that idea from my brain. Mussels are delicious, meant to be gobbled up and tasted and savoured and-and-and-and- I could go on. They were so delish, and I will end my description there (lathered in a cream sauce, they were, my dears. These cooks knew what they were doing.).

Next! Course number two, another item of food that I had not tried before. I may have tried it once...but I was so young I had no recollection of it, so it was a new thing for me. And - drum roll, please - it was duck! Yes! A duck leg! Ta-da!

Duck leg

Once again, this part of the meal was absolutely scrumptious. Delish. Wonderful. Beautiful. Delicious, and tender, and greasy, and so freaking good. And you want to know something?

It did not taste like chicken.

Maybe it did a little,  but seriously, there is a difference, and if you tried it you would be able to tell. Different, and terribly, temptingly scrumptious.

I do believe duck is a French thing. You don't hear of many people eating duck in Canada or the USA, ducks are creatures that swim in the lakes at the park across the street, the swim with their ducklings trailing behind them, cute and fuzzy, and people freaking feed them bread! Fatten them up, and cook 'em! That's what you Westerners should be doing! Or are you saving ducks for when every other species is extinct because of the damage to the planet, and they'll last you for a while longer? I guess that works too, but you should all have some duck meat sometime in your life! Totally worth it!

And as we're on the topic of French foods, I will move on to the next course, the very French course, the cheese course.

The official cheese from Normandie

Now, as I am under-age, I therefore cannot drink wine, so no, I did not have win with my cheese course, but what I can say, is that I had official French cheese, Normandie cheese, actually, and I had it on fresh French Baguette. That's right. That wonderful bread that people wearing berets, riding bicycles, wearing striped shirts and suspenders carry around town with them, that famous bread that everyone seems to be so envious of.

I eat Baguette quite often, actually...weekly, in fact. They don't sell much western bread - you know the loaves you buy in the grocery store that you are so familiar with, they come in those plastic bags, and unless you buy the right kind, they taste like cardboard? Yeah, the French don't really sell much of that. They do, it's just that they have a very limited selection. Rather, they buy their fresh Baguette from the bakery down the street. Everyone does, just about. It's common, it's wonderful, it's delicious, and it's one of those things that makes living here pretty darn awesome (and yes, you know I'm just bragging to make myself feel better, but you can just ignore that part, so it's all okay).

And lest I waste more time, I shall present to you the final item on the menu of delish and scrumptiousness that I ingested into my system.

Poire Melba

Dessert! Allow me to paint you a picture of words: a perfectly rounded scoop of creamy ice cream, three perfectly formed splashes of whipped cream, pears laid into the bottom of the plate in a crimson red sauce, and finally, a few slivers of almonds sprinkled on top. All of this inlaid into a white dish, and set before us with grace, by a French waiter wearing a tux. Basically. He was wearing a white shirt, black bow-tie, black pants, black shoes. Close enough, just without the top jacket.

And the dessert: splashes, sparkles, explosions of beautiful tastes, erupting on your taste buds, filling your whole mouth, forcing you to close your eyes from the pleasure. 

Look at me, right now, right in the eye, and tell me that you wouldn't like that.

If you hate pears, maybe I'd understand. If you hated whipped cream or ice cream or almonds, you could ask them to hold them and to simply serve you the pears in the sauce. I have never had a more pleasant restaurant experience in my life. And by pleasant, I mean amazing, fantastic, sublime.

Imagine yourself leaving the restaurant, your stomach as full as it can get, feeling enormously satisfied (and enormous in size, naturally), and then you get to walk to your car parked in the seaside parking lot, and you get to see the sight of the sun setting orange on the horizon, far, far away, as far as the sea stretches, as far as the eye can see.

Dieppe, Normandie beach at sunset (10:?? pm)

If I had a better camera, a tripod, and if it hadn't been past 10 at night at the time, I definitely would have taken a much better and more professional picture of the beauty of that sunset. But as it were, this is as good as I could do in a rush to get back to the hotel and sleep before we'd have to travel home the next day. I still didn't get to bed until around midnight, and then I didn't get to sleep until later because my younger brother and I were sharing a room and we kept hitting each other and laughing our heads off...yeah...tiring, but a lot of fun, and totally worth it. If there was an offer, I would return in a heartbeat. That is one place that I would not get tired of quickly at all. Daily strolls on the beach, all the inspiration I could wish for, the sight of a castle on a cliff whenever I felt the need to look at one...

The Castle on the cliff in Dieppe...saw it every day.

Indeed...that would be the life. I will have to satisfy myself with believing that I may be able to return one day, and thinking of all the other places I will yet have the opportunity to see in the future.


As a very good friend of mine encouraged me to remember: Wide horizons!

Lest we forget...

A week of pure joy

View looking down from the third level.

Stephanie, Zach, and myself on the third level  of the tower.

I don't think I've ever had as much fun in Paris as I did this past week. We had guests staying over from Monday to Friday - the Beck family, minus Alexander, sadly :'( We had a lot of catching up to do with Steph, though! Crazy times, man. First day, we did mounds of touring! So freaking awesome, but it was super tiring, too. I don't think that I've ever done that many sets of stairs in one day in my entire life. We took the metro to the Arc-de-Triomphe, took a couple pictures, then got back on the metro and went to the Eiffel Tower, where we climbed over 600 stairs to get to the second level. Then we lined up for the elevator for level three, took it up, and saw that fantastic view.
We descended the tower, and when I got to the bottom, my legs were actually shaking from all the stairs...fun times. Then we went, got back on the metro, and went to Notre Dame Cathedral, took a walk through that, and then on to Sacre-Coeur, where we took a couple pictures of a crazy-talented guy with a soccer ball (shown below). He was awesome! Maybe a little egotistic when he took off his shirt, but his soccer-juggling skills were a-ma-zing!!!!!
After Sacre-Coeur we went to a cafe, had a little refresher, and headed back home for the day. That was the most tourist-filled day I have ever experienced, and IT-WAS-AWESOME.

Day after that, Tuesday, we went out with plans to go to see the Catacombs later on in the day, but we never ended up getting around to it because we got there too late and it was closing...a little disappointing, but the day was still fun! It's the people that make the experience what it is!
Thursday was the next big day! Versailles! The monstrous collection of gardens outside that terribly flashy château. A little too glittery for my tastes, but still pretty darn cool. We didn't go inside, because the line-up wound around for the longest time and we knew that it would be ages before we got in, and everyone said that they were satisfied with just seeing the gardens, so...it was great! Besides the scantily clad statues, it was quite gorgeous out there! I can't imagine how much time it would take for them to take care of those gardens, to manicure every bush, hedge, and shrub, to water and care for every patch of flowers, to mow the lawns and keep maintenance of the fountains! I cannot imagine the

 work they would have to go through! It's fabulous, the things people will do for tourists...
But I appreciate the work to the fullest! I thank you fabulous workers for the effort you put in to this beautiful tourist-hotspot! Thank you! Merci beaucoup! Danke-schön! Arigato-Gozaimasu! Gracias! Grazié! Shokran! Abrigado! The languages in which I could express my thanks, to my knowledge, are limited to there, but if I knew any others, I would surely say them!

Anyways, Friday was the mark of a new day. Our guests departed (I miss you already! :( Come back soon!), and Dieppe, Normandy was set as our destination of the day! Packing, travel, a walk on the beach and through part of the town, and then a little tea at the cafe with an ocean-front view made for a fabulous afternoon, and then on to a wonderful dinner with some friends.
Here in Dieppe, they're getting ready to celebrate the 70th anniversary of when the Canadian commando unit was sent to storm the beaches here, but were unfortunately slaughtered. Us Canadians, we're quite appreciated in this area, and we really enjoyed seeing Canadian flags all over the place, even flowers were planted in the pattern of our wonderful red and white maple leaf flag! Beautiful! I was definitely filled with a sense of pride and joy for my homeland. True appreciation, right there, my friends.
I speak the truth: it has been a very good day.

Happy travels!