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I bought a heavily worn Penguin paperback the other day at Oxfam because I liked the way it felt. And that it was 50 cents. Turns out it's Jane Austen's Persuasion.  Never subscribed to the whole Austen thing, but I've read a few pages and like her use of commas and run-on sentences.  This could be, perhaps, the beginning of a wonderful affair and fitting, that after all those years of Austen-scoffing, I fall in love with her last-written novel in a country so close to...  I will stop now.  

In other news, we are moved in.

Been a little over a week having A Place of My Own.  Closest to a Place of My Own since the Chicago days - (NYC: had 4 roommates, Suwon, SK: the studio I lived in was sponsored through my school).  Been alternating between shades of giddiness and swaths of empty boredom of the staring-at-walls variety, while I summon the focus to plan out What Happens Next before school starts in a month.  

But on to more pressing issues: I have become depressingly closely acquainted with my new currency: the euro.


Things I have learned about the euro:

• paper money comes in different sizes and different flamboyant colors.  

Things I have not yet come to accept about the euro:

• the smallest paper money is a fiver (5 euro) which means that most of the money I have on me is in coins, which in turn makes me feel like a hobo, which also makes me feel like I am constantly losing money and which further makes me feel depressed knowing that the thick quarter they call a 2 euro coin could buy me an off-brand box of cereal down at Tesco's and I have for the millionth time shuffled this thick quarter to a one of a few backpacks because you have to buy a plastic bag anytime you go to a store because the Irish are into the whole 'recycling thing', which means that I am forever wearing a bulky empty backpack with only loose change and receipts in it. Which also doesn't help with the whole hobo issue.
• the euro is not the dollar.  Noooo, it is not. Currently, €1 = $1.42.  That, combined with most things just plain being more expensive = I am bleeding money.  There are ONE LITRES OF COKE SELLING FOR €2.50 ($3.50) at Superquinn (popular grocery store)- my first week here, I paid €4 ($5.70) for a bag of CELERY.  Celery!  But, crackers are inexpensive.  I bought a sleeve of crackers for €0.26 the other day ($0.37), so there is a silver lining.