HEY SQUIRRELFRIENDS. Things are rough these days. There are two super shady snakes trying to claw their way into the White House, everyone is trying to keep new friends out of their countries, and the job market for people studying ridiculously niche kinds of history is difficult for some reason. So take a load off and stare at some of these tranquil beach photos and forget all about the impending doom that is part of all our lives at the moment!
So, you probably remember some mumblings about me writing a dissertation. Well, from about the end of February until the beginning of May I was increasingly trapped behind my computer and typing away about harps, fancy French dudes, and REVOLUTION. Not really. But it made my conclusion very scary to go from tiny tinkly harps to guillotines. Anyway, after we submitted the dissertation in early May and were F-R-E-E, we still had all of May and June to work on the final exhibition, symposium, and publication. I was on the Show team and spent a lot of time going back and forth to a print shop saying sorry, actually, can I change this order for the hundredth time? I became BEST friends with the printer guy. Then we graduated on July 1st at Royal Albert Hall, where the Spice Girls perform their concert at the end of SpiceWorld (don't pretend you don't remember). After that I hung out with my parents in London for a while, then my friend and I jetted off to Sardinia to lay on the beach for a week and do less than nothing while eating entire links of salami.
My friend and I stayed on the Costa Smeralda on the northeast coast of Sardinia. The first beach we went to was Porto Istana, which was one of the few free public beaches around. As you might expect, several years ago all the rich jerks came and bought up all the nice beaches and put their super yachts and/or pricey resorts all over the place, but Porto Istana was still stunning. The first day was overcast and windy, and my friend and I ended up with scalps full of sand, but the next few days were super sunny and everyone was out splashing around. The last day we decided to live dangerously and try another beach, called Le Saline. This place was GORGEOUS and there was hardly anyone there, but for a reason; there weren't any vendors, the sand was jagged and sharp, and it was H-O-T. We had been renting chairs and umbrellas every day but there were none to be had, and my friend and I were rapidly boiling on the sand. But we had some pretty nice views to boil to:
Are you feeling relaxed? Good. The world is a particularly turbulent and scary place these days, but there are still beautiful places to look at, and it's totally okay to tune out of the real world for a few minutes every day and pretend we aren't living through the end times. It was really nice being at the beach for a week and pretending I had no responsibilities, but then I had to return to London, look for jobs, accept the reality that I wouldn't get a visa, then realize I had to go home, then actually move home. It's been hard coming home, but then I look through my pictures of all the places I went to and feel pretty lucky that I at least had two years to live abroad and see beaches like this. So if you are having a rough time because of the election, immigration, or just a period of change in your life, seek out some pretty pictures or cat videos or drag queen makeup tutorials and zone out for a little while. You deserve it.
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