Jesusville

Above are the photos of the doggies, the urn, and my loner dog, Wally. I'll post better ones of poor Tessie Lou tangling herself up when I have some more time and patience.
One of the few reasons I love coming home--my folks are up in Manhattan every month, making it unneccessary for Michael and I to visit Jackassville/Jesusville often--is that I get to dig for treasures, not only of the gemalogical and sartorial sort, but of the "literary" sort. I've always kept journals; probably since the age of 10 or so. Yesterday I found my journal from my first trip to Europe, when I was 17 and had just graduated from high school. I went as part of a group tour organized by a friend from sleepaway camp. It was one of those whirlwind, 7-countries-in-two-weeks kind of trips. Lori and I were the only Jews on the trip, and it wasn't exactly an Abercrombie & Kent-level sort of journey. It's kind of scary to realize just how little my personality has changed in 13 years.
"32 Things I Learned in Europe"
1. How to flush a toilet in six different ways
2. That I prefer to stay in the Ritz-Carlton as opposed to the Hotel de Belfort (a piece of crap hotel in Paris)
3. That I am more mature and just as intelligent as many adults (even then, I was humble;)
4. That I miss my dogs
5. That people in Europe are "in touch" with their sexuality
6. That Van Gogh is God (We visited the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam)
7. That most teenagers are immature and ignorant
8. That I don't give a shit about cathedrals (We visited cathedrals in every, single city and town and not one synagogue)
9. That I am dependent on bellmen, maids, hair dryers, sleep, irons, taxis, elevators, telephones and my car
10. That uncultured people do not suddenly become cultured by going to Europe
11. That Lou Lou is not just the name of my dog (I think one of our guides was named Lou Lou)
12. That everybody should be multilingual (And yet, I still am not, sadly)
13. That some people DO still wear acid-washed clothing
14. That most people have atrocious table manners
15. That I belong in taxis and not on subways (Again, sadly, still true)
16. That even the people in McDonald's in Paris are chic (That's probably highly debatable)
17. That I am doing my junior year abroad in London (Never happened)
18. That I am a snobby bitch and proud of it (Probably, some would say, still true, but I am certainly not proud of it)
19. That I can never forgive the Germans
20. That I hate looking like a tourist
21. That most people who should read Vogue don't
22. That finding hair in your food is repulsive no matter what part of the world you're in
23. That every man who works in a Versace store is gay (Yes, I started buying Versace in high school. So sue me. Oh, wait, somebody has.)
24. That I will have an apartment in London (Don't know quite what I was thinking with that one.)
25. That my parents spoil me waaay too much (Still do)
26. That a good shower is really hard to come by
27. That I have found myself and from hereforth shall only improve upon myself (Oy, remember when "finding yourself" actually seemed to be a legitimate task?)
28. That the Mona Lisa is truly overrated
29. That I shall return to Paris, stay at The Ritz and do the same in London
30. That I am an absurdly large tipper (Most likely because I couldn't figure out the exchange rates)
31. That I am most comfortable in a large city
32. That next time, I will stick to Musiker or American Trails West (Members of the tribe know whereof I speak.)