Paris Lag
Is that a thing?
After Paris, I was a little exhausted. Everyone on our trip agreed that we were tired of traveling, only to remember that we still had a week (for me, two weeks) left in the U.K. Upon this realization, I decided I had to jump back into the spirit of the trip with full force. So what did I do? I jumped off a bridge.

At lunch the day after we got back, I was sitting next to Morgan, and we were trying to decide what to do for the day. She announces that her and a fairly large group planned to go swimming in the Thames after lunch. Perfect! A great way to bounce back after Paris, and I got to go swimming for only the second time the whole summer. A group of about ten of us walked to the swimming area that was near the pub we went to on The Day I Walked a Half-Marathon. There were two ways of entry into the Thames: walking over tons of rocks into very cold water, or jumping off a bridge. I opted for jumping off the bridge, and Reckless Jill™️ makes her first appearance of the trip. Reckless Jill™️ is a very rare specimen, and only appears every once in a while. The first jump off the bridge went well — you might even say it went swimmingly. I climbed out of the water and decided to jump off a second time, which also went well. Where this whole ordeal went wrong is not with the reckless thing I did, but with a perfectly innocent, wholesome thing.
I was simply trying to climb out of the water. I had on my Chaco’s, shoes that make you think you can take on damn near anything (you can’t), and I thought I wouldn’t slip on the very slippery rocks. I slipped on the very slippery rocks. Reckless Jill™️ dissipates, and Regular, Normal Jill comes back into existence. The slippery rocks gave me what I now call my river wound. It’s nearly two weeks later and it has yet to heal. I’m lucky I didn’t need stitches.
During the measly hour I was swimming, I was pretty happy, though. I was sad I had to leave, but swimming in the Thames with an open flesh wound didn’t seem like the best idea. It’s not exactly known for being a clean river. Morgan and Kayla joined me on the walk back, where we agreed we very much needed to treat ourselves to some Pimm’s once I cleaned up river wound. We walked to The King’s Arms just down the street from Brasenose. I ordered a pitcher of Pimm’s for the three of us, and we were all pretty giddy. At this point, I decided I also needed ice cream. I’ll mention at this point it’s like 5PM, not too early to be drinking but a very strange hour to be eating ice cream. We walked to G&D’s, and Morgan and I shared a brownie sundae, despite her being quite lactose intolerant. Silly Morgan!
Dinner came, and after, Morgan and I stayed up to wait for Dwaine to get back from Paris, during which time Morgan introduced me to the wonderful RuPaul’s Drag Race. This show is magical not because it’s particularly good TV, but because drag is just amazing to watch. Not to mention that RuPaul is incredible. We watched about two and a half episodes before Dwaine finally arrived and then I went to bed. I may have overcompensated for my Paris Lag, but ’twas a good day.
