9-5-2011

Our hotel was a "Bed and Breakfast." The "bed" part refered to two super hard matresses that felt like sleeping on a dog bed pad, and the "breakfast" translates to toast and jam with a little yogurt cup. I've never eaten so much toast in my life. This is the street our hotel was on. It looks a lot nicer from the outside. This store looked lovely from the outside. Yay! British stuff! We found Dr. Who figures and the second best collection of Harry Potter wands we would find this trip. We did lots of shopping too. The stores out here are just kind of more specific to my interests. Like they have entire stores devoted to obscure nerd shoes and running really far. You can even buy secret society people's appendages. We found my people's hood (the lanterns and funny symbols, not the trattoria). I took lots of people pictures in London too. And stuffed animal pictures. Nicole and I wandered into the total tourist trap of the Rainforest Cafe, but how could we resist going somewhere with an animatronic snake? More touristy, I remember my mom had to explain to me as a kid that Piccadilly Circus wasn't really a circus when I told her I wanted to go there. Even as an adult, I kind of wish that it was a circus, but it did have this store with a funny name where I bought all together too much Lonsdale stuff. I was pretty excited to randomly walk by a random gallery hanging a pretty important photographer's show on the way to Carnaby street. I've been interested in Mod stuff for years so this was fun for me. I'm also interested in ginger beer, but back to Mod stuff, I shopped my Face off. This wasn't entirely selfish though, because for a good reason next month (hi, Jen!) I need a suit. It's incredibly difficult to find a good suit in the U.S. for me since I'm the size of a malnourished American twelve year old, and most suits are cut to fit people who eat McDonald's every day. Amazingly, the first suit that I tried on here fit everywhere except the sleeves. I guess being the size of a short-armed British person is better than being the size of an American skeleton. In any case, I was sent to Franco Italian Tailor. That's his real name I swear. His sign wouldn't lie. Yay! More mod stuff! The socially awkward junior high schooler still living inside my brain told me to stick those all over my clothes, but I managed to leave with my dignity. Besides, I think this subculture is now more applicable to my current interests. I think stuff like subcultures and fashion are part of why I like taking people pictures so much. It's interesting to document how people dress and present themselves in public. I tend to present myself like a perpetual juvenile when it comes to immature bathroom graffiti.

This post is atypical. I typed for too long without posting a picture of food. This is all the moneys I have left after shopping today.

9-4-2011

So on the plane to Paris, they were playing the Woody Allen movie Midnight in Paris. I wouldn't call the movie great, but it was "cute" to see before actually coming here. One of the thematic elements was how romantical Paris is in the rain. Paris decided to be real romantical for us the morning we were leaving. It really is pretty like this though. Pretty like tiny marzipan vegetables. Pretty soon it was all memories and stories to tell and we were ready to depart to the next place. This is Gare du Nord. It's a really famous movie set where the movies like Oceans Twelve and the Borne movies were shot at. It's also were I ate my last high school French class word. This is a brioche. It tastes like fancy bread. After going though customs, we headed for our train. I was really hoping that this train would take us to Hogwarts or Narnia, but after speeding though the French country side and though some fancy tunnel (no pictures because I fell asleep), we arrived at the Olympics. Unfortunately, we were a year early so we decided to have breakfast instead.

Now if you've read my blog at all before, you know that I like food. I like eating food, talking about food, and taking pictures of the food that I eat and talk about. Paris was great for this because pretty much all their food is photogenic. We aren't in Paris anymore. Don't get me wrong, that Shepard's pie was tasty, but...well...at least this bubble and squeak breakfast was a bit more visually attractive. Aston Martins are visually attractive, but even James Bond gets flat tires.

After breakfast, we got to our hotel too early to check in, so we decided to go shopping to kill time. Time is a very important part of this story. Nicole's favorite store is Anthropologie. We've been to them in pretty much every major city we've been to in America, but this one is special because it also has exclusive European designers (or so Nicole says). I say it's special because it has scenic little stools where I can sit and look at a waterfall while Nicole shops. More importantly, it has free wi-fi which was a rare commodity in London. While looking at said waterfall and enjoying the internet connection, I decided to research if anything there was anything of interest close by. There was. I got really excited because I found that John Singer Sargent, one of my favorite painters of all time, lived and worked a few streets from where we were (from 1901-1925). After finding the address, I started rushing Nicole so we could go see the house and take pictures of it. This did not go well. It's really not worth rushing a shopping girl. It went even worse when had to stop in this shop to look for an umbrella since it was raining. Finally, we were on our way and searching for the little plaque that tells you where famous people used to live. I asked Nicole if Olivia Wilde lived there too because I would also like to visit her house. This did not go well. We started to get close to the address and I started to get little kid excited. For Nicole and I, seeing painters' studios is a little bit like catholic people seeing all the churches we saw in Paris. As I was just starting to take a picture of this door...it started to open up and the woman who now lives in the house came out. Through all my rushing Nicole, to umbrella searching, to exactly how quickly we were walking, all of this was somehow timed down to the second. Things get a little bit blurry at this point, because I got really really embarrassed for getting caught taking a picture of someones door. I kind of remember blurting out a string of nonsensical stutterings and stumblings asking if is was really S-s-sa-argent's s-s-st-tudio?! Somehow my nonsensical rant (and creepy long hair) didn't scare the woman too badly (probably because Nicole looks trust worthy), and she confirmed that we were in the right place. Even more amazingly, she told us that she would buzz her husband because he would probably like to come talk to us about Sargent. The next thing we knew, we were being invited into the house and up the stairs into their private residence to see Sargent's studio and living space. See the big framed sketch in the upper right? That's an original concept sketch for the Boston murals that he painted from 1895-1919. All the other paintings were by the current resident who was a very prolific and accomplished painter in his own right. These are paintings he made in various places all around the world. He was really the most hospitable and interesting person we talked to this entire trip. His wife was very nice as well, but he anecdotally told us that she normally isn't so friendly and often tells him not to talk to strangers. He was actually surprised that she let us in, but since she did, he was glad to tour us around the studio/home and showed us things like this palate that belonged to a very famous British painter, and this arch that was the property of John Singer Sargent. I don't think words or pictures adequately describe how totally surreal this experience was. We saw signed letters from Sargent and Prince Charles, heard about Sargent's ghost haunting the house, and stories (with magazine pictures as proof) about Princess Diana posing for a portrait in the very spot where we were standing. It's hard to describe, but seeing the light quality, it really just kind of made sense to have a studio in this space. It was like magic. Sargent probably mindlessly looked out this window all the time. Not wanting to overstay our welcome, we reluctantly went back down the stairs and left one of the most interesting and exclusive places I'll ever go in my entire life. And none of this would have happened if Nicole was even a few seconds faster or slower trying on dresses at Anthropologie. Thanks, Nicole.

As we were leaving it began to really set in that we were in London and surrounded by all sorts of historical British stuff that I has always heard about but never seen. See the factory down the tracks from our hotel? That's the factory from the Pink Floyd Animals album cover. We saw it every day for a week. No big deal. As interesting as London stuff is, I'm going to jump back to Paris stuff quickly and mention this little package. This was our last ration of cookie time. It got smashed up on the train from Paris, but they were still good. Really good. If anyone knows where to get these cookies around here, please let me know. Life hasn't been the same since finishing these last ones. Here's some more weird Europe stuff. This is very London stuff. We were going to take pictures inside of it, but it smelled like pee. More random London stuff. They just have buildings like that randomly in the mix. Here's a random Westminster Abby building not too far from our hotel. This sculpture reminds me of the Jay Z and Kanye Made In America song. Fancy. Really fancy. Look! British hippies Camping by a big clock!. Look at that clock and the moon. It's really pretty here at night along the big river. We walked along the river a lot this trip, but this was the first time going there for me. It was also the first time I encountered these. Then we encountered this eye and a random carnival. Nicole and I like carnivals. Especially carnivals that blast techno music like some weird carnival rave. We don't really ride the rides though. We mostly just eat the food. This is skateboard graveyard on the Thames. Speaking of eating, our search for food tricked us and looked like we were in Paris again. We chose Indian food instead. Sorry Paris.

9-3-2011

This guy isn't just a street musician on the metro. He's a cutthroat business man who wanted change for pictures, then demanded bigger dominations than the coins I gave him. In fairness, I probably only gave him like four cents at first. I'm not sure it was worth it.

Nicole and I have a collection of photobooth pictures of us from different places we go. I'm starting to collect pictures of the photobooths where we take the photobooth pictures for our collection.

Hey look, it's The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame! I'm not sure who this guy is or if he's been inducted or not. This reminds me of old spy movies. The Louvre is pretty much art overload like a shower 1,000 art history books all falling on you all at once. Before totally blacking out, I took pictures of winged sculptures that I remember from classes like Cupid and Psyche and the Nike mascot. I try not to take too many pictures in museums, because it pretty much defeats the purpose of seeing these masterworks in real life if you're only viewing them though a tiny screen and not really looking at them for real. Art overload causes craziness. My eyes were popping out of the back of my head and people looked like they were made out of vegetables. Nicole started making oaths with Horatii until she passed out from art exhaustion. At least she had a nice ceiling to wake up to. This picture reminds me of being in school. I miss those times.

This is the Jardin des Tuileries. It was nice seeing a bit of nature in all the buildings. Nicole and I like walking around trees. I also liked this antique looking Bentley and this quiche lorraine from a cafe. Nicole likes French fries and ham. Not everyone looks cool on a Vespa. Paris is so fancy. I already miss just randomly seeing buildings like that on every other corner. Of course I already miss the food as well. And not having to drive and just taking the Metro everywhere. This French lady followed me back to the hotel. Nicole chased French cats whenever she saw them.

9-2-2011

This whole trip, we walked miles and miles every day. Mostly in search of food. Somehow I totally flaked though and didn't take any pictures of the miles and miles of train ride we took to visit this guy at his house. He has the fanciest house I'll ever see in my whole life. Here's a picture of me trying to get in. I like looking at details. There's a lot of punch you in the face spectacle there though and lots of really nice views. It's just room after room of opulent craziness. The opulent is the decor and architecture, the craziness is the tourist (who apparently want to murder me). Hi! I might do this to our ceiling. Nicole called this the "Wall of Mirrors" (bears are allowed to be one letter off). Windows. Here's another mandatory tourist shot. For some reason, the fountains were all off, but these guys were cool. We took long walks in the woods to see this little tiny house. Nicole was happy we finally made it. This is the kind of stuff I have tattooed on me but for real. I would probably get this tattooed on me. This is a royal potty. It's very minimal. I gave Nicole a flower as we were leaving.

Hey look, it's another high school French class thing! This is a croque madame. It's like a French grilled cheese sandwich with ham and an egg on top. They made mine doubly unhealthy since they knew I would like that. We ate these before going shopping at super fancy Pretemps. Then we ate mousse.

At night, we heard noisy punk-ish sounding music coming up into our hotel room. Clearly, this is pertinent to my interests, so we went searching for the source of such noise. There was a band randomly playing in the street in front of some cafes for people like this to listen to. In case the audience wasn't entertained enough by the music, screaming guy decided to transform into screaming naked guy. This guy loved taking cellphone pictures of screaming naked guy. We think that this is screaming naked guy's girlfriend. She was getting tanked and dancing in the street. I don't know how we always end up at places like this no matter where we go, but I like it.

After we had enough screaming and naked, we went to eat couscous down the street. Couscous is a big deal in Paris I guess, since there are a lot of Algerian and Moroccan immigrants and immigrants always make the best authentic food. This is the only meal I ate the entire time I was in Paris where I was painfully full afterward.

9-1-2011

So clearly, we're really into eating crepes. Well, the internet tells me that crepes are really from Brittany in the northwest of France not Paris, and many people from this area take the train to the Gare Montparnasse by where we are staying. As a result, this area has the most and best variety of crepe places and types of crepes. Those are breakfast crepes. After shopping around and looking at mushrooms for a while, we were ready for another place to have lunch crepes from this creperie.

Here's some random stuff...we saw fashionable people, we want to be friends with pizza cat, Nicole is scared of robot bathrooms, more fancy gates.

My mom would be really happy with how many times we went to church on this trip. I would probably be more inclined to go to church more often if they had fancy ceilings like this that I could stare at when I was bored. These windows wouldn't hurt to look at either. I really like old religious things. I think they're really pretty. This is back outside again. There was so much detail in all the sculpture around the outside of the building that We just sat and stared at it. It's all very hard to picture. I was a bit disappointed that we didn't see the Hunchback.

More street picture time...the Seine is still romantical, very romantical but also good for working on your tan. I really liked how the street vendors that sold the touristy stuff looked. I probably looked like this. I wish I looked like this. I like people pictures. Nicole and I went to sit by the river but found out that in addition to being romantical, it also smells like pee. At least it looks nice in pictures. Something that would look nice in pictures is the inside of the Musee d'Orsay, but they don't let you take pictures. You can always Google image search for "Bouguereau" and see the paintings that I like.

The street lets you take pictures, so here's a picture of meat, Nicole with a baguette de tradition française, foreshadowing for when we get to London, and a fromagerie where I managed to speak enough French to buy something (this was a major accomplishment). This is delicious dinner for the night.

8-31-2011

Stairs are the theme of today. Those are the ones from the hotel, but we went up and down over two hundred stairs to visit the catacombs. I've wanted to go here every since I first heard about/saw pictures of this place when I was a kid. There are literally walls of bones all though miles worth of tunnels that date back a very long time. I guess there six million people's remains though the whole thing. It's really amazing and surreal to see in real life. Here are some other interesting parts that weren't bones.

When we resurfaced, we went to sit at a cafe and look at people. I think Paris is a pretty great place for people watching. This lady is wearing a dress on a scooter. Then we did some window shopping and more people watching and more window shopping. This A.P.C. is on the "Rue Madame" that they put on all of their labels.

Like the catacombs, I've wanted to a creperie in Paris as a destination for a long time. This was the first crepe of the trip, and it was very good. I kind of wish I had one right now as I'm typing this. Nicole drinks a lot of tiny coffee. I bet she wishes she had one right now as I'm typing this.

Look, it's night time now. Night time is a good time to visit the Eiffle Tower. I know for sure that there's a law that every tourist must take a picture of themselves in front of it. The tower turns on its sparkles when Nicole puts her arms in the air (really it did). This shot is pretty obligatory as well. The thing that sucks about pictures is that they're never as cool as seeing something in real life. So here are a few pictures to help remember what it was like looking at the real thing, but it's nothing like actually seeing stuff like this and this in person. One nice thing about pictures is that that they're free, so I can steal shots of the gift shop (even though I got yelled at for it) and get the overpriced kitschy souvenirs without paying for them. Don't look down.

After looking around at everything at the tower, we started to go home as the cafes were closing. Crepe stands stay open later than cafes, and any time is a good time to eat crepes. To wash down the crepes, we got an Orangina. This drink is a word that they taught us about in my high school French class that I never though would actually matter in my life. I pretty much though that about my entire high school French class actually. Boy was I wrong. By this point, I was really wishing that I had paid better attention. I feel it necessary to publicly thank my teacher for the little bits of French that did stick in my brain though, because that's pretty much the only way I was able to do anything out here at all.

8-30-2011

These traveling posts are going to be very long and very scattered. I'm sorry in advance. I took way too many pictures.

This is this view from the back of our hotel. Nicole kept looking back there for French alley cats, but she never saw one.

This is an art nouveau metro sign. I think its cool that such an iconic decorative style is still being used for utilitarian purposes. Old people just like to make out under them.

My preconception of Paris mostly comes from the movie Amelie (and Warner Brothers cartoons about skunks), so I was excited to find the apartment and market from the movie in real life. As you can tell, it was closed. It was ok though, since the movie was set in Montmartre, an area historically known as the home of many famous artist, writers and musicians, and we somehow ended up in an area specializing in fabrics. So I was content to wander around here anyway. One thing that was open however was the cafe that Amelie worked at. They serve cheese and coffee.

Montmartre is also the home of a French national treasure and major tourist attraction not to be missed. The A.P.C. Surplus store. The store wasn't open yet when we got there though, so went to go look at some old church on a hill to kill time while we waited. This guy lives on the cathedral. This guy has a sacred heart. They all hangout together outside. It's really fancy inside. It's nice to look at.

We wandered some more and found a park, the exact opposite of a cathedral, and another famous place (which has been forever ruined in my mind by Christia Aguilera).

This statue is at the Cimetiere de Montmartre. I really liked seeing these dates and imagining there was some old lady out there that refuses to die even though she's outlived her expected century. Keep going, old lady.

There's so much fancy stuff everywhere that I forgot where I saw this monument, but it was on the way to the Champs-Elysees. I'm pretty sure there's a law that every tourist with a camera is require to take this picture. Look at these fancy gates and long line of people waiting to enter the ornate door. It must be some sort of museum right? Nope, that's just the fanciest Abercrombie & Fitch store on the planet. I guess I can't complain much, because I went half way around the world and was really excited to visit the Nike store to look at running stuff. While we're on the topic of American establishments corrupting the world, I had it on good autority that the McDonalds on the Champs-Elysees was a necessary stop for the people watching. It is. Also interesting for people watching (and America ruining the world) were the street performers that confuse Paris with the Brox in the 70's. It's pretty much understood that tourists love seeing upside down street performers though. Here's something equally touristy, but decidely French. It's Laduree, the super fancy and world famous patisserie that people come from all over the place buy cookies at. Don't get me wrong, it's totally worth going there to buy cookies. They invented double-decker macaroons which are pretty much the things I'll miss most from Paris. That and the architecture. Totally unrelated, Nicole's fancy coffee robot is apprently super popular in Europe. They have entire stores all over the place there for people to buy their capsules (Nicole has to order hers from the internet). Speaking of Nicole, she was too much of a giant to fit through the Arc de Triopmhe. This is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and these soldiers were coming to make sure it was ok. This guy was not ok. I like taking people pictures when I go places because people are almost always more interesting to look at than places. Here are a few random people that I photographed. I like to take natural and unposed shots of people, but this guy looked unnatural and posed even though he wasnt. Places are intersting to look at too when they're as fancy as this or this.

This place was very high on my list of interesting things to see. They specialize in taxedermey and strange stuff and have been around forever, but they were closed since we got there around dinner time.

Since it was dinner time, we decided to have our one planned fancy dinner of the trip at a fancy place. This fancy place is famous because it's been around for ever and ever, and lots of writers and artists hung out there. It's so fancy that I didn't feel comfortable picturing all of our food, but I promise it was very pretty and delicious. This dessert was too pretty and delicious not to picture. Speaking of fancy, here's a picture of our rental car in front of the restaurant.

8-29-2011

We made it and we're alive. We even managed to make it though customs, and I stumbled though enough broken-highschool-level-French to get us through the train station to our hotel (this is a much bigger deal than I care to explain). More importantly, our hotel is above a boulangerie which bakes croissants and pain au chocolat. I would be totally fine with spending all my moneys on pasteries.

After carbing up, we were generously tour guided around by Nicole's relatives. I though it would be mostly rude to shove a camera in their faces though, so I shoved my camera in stranger's and local dog's faces instead. Walking along the Seine is supposed to be romantical. That's not New York in the background. Paris has a smaller Statue of Liberty replica (or Statue of Anarchy) like the one in New York. Paris also has a larger replica of the Eiffel Tower like the one in Las Vegas. I was interested to see that these people live in tents along the river. I was also interested to see this woman at all.

Beyond showing us where not to get robbed, Nicole's family also was nice enough to cook us a real French meal for dinner. This is Raclette. It's named after a type of cheese and is delicious. You can read about it on Wikipedia. This is wine. That's on Wikipedia too.

8-28-2011

Nicole and I like French things. Like French toast and French fries. It's only logical then that we should wait around in an airport for airplanes, so we can get on one and fly to France. Actually, it took more than just one plane and a very very long time. It took all day and all night and past bedtime.

8-27-2011

Sienna says that we can't go anywhere without our bags.