9-7-2011

Continuing the documentation of our daily free breakfast, in addition to toast and jam, today I discovered that there are also digestive biscuits! It's important to eat a good breakfast before going sight seeing all day. Taking pictures (with other people's cameras) is hard work. Horses. This is Buckingham Palace by the way. I just didn't want to put the typical touristy building pictures on here.

Messenger hipsters look the same no matter where you go. This is Trafalgar Square I was a little bummed out that there aren't swarms of pigeons there anymore, but I guess I'm happy that I didn't get pooped on (I'm speaking from experience). The monument is too tall for one shot. Oh yeah, we had just gone to the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery, but ironically for a place all about pictures of people, you aren't allowed to take pictures in there.

Now you are allowed to take pictures in Hackney, but considering it's recent news making as the cool place to riot and go looting, I was a sissy and kept my camera in my bag. Well, really I wasn't a sissy for being dumb enough to go there in the first place, so maybe I was smart enough to keep my camera in my bag. In any case, the only picture I took was of the Burberry Outlet Store which ended up being a big let down. Kind of like the lack of rioting and looting in Hackney that we went to see.

I mentioned before that both Paris and London are full of shops full of things I'm specifically interested in. This one was pretty extreme. I didn't really take any pictures of the cases full of every kind of camera I've ever wanted, mainly because I was shy, but also because I was seriously considering selling organs to buy a Leica (I'm still not sure I made the right decision). To try and distract me from my camera lust, Nicole took me to the British Museum. The Musee d'Orsay is in a cool converted train station, but equally cool architecturally, this museum has a giant glass ceiling that connects its separate buildings. The buildings are full of ancient old stuff like holy cats, fancy hieroglyphs, statues that are this tall, and more holy cats. People in Paris and London both like drawing sculptures. In preparation for Paris, I really wish I ordered one of these from the late night infomercial that promises to teach you other languages. I don't think that this is the French version though. I liked how this room looked, like we should be smashing the floor with Indiana Jones or something. I bet this would have fit me since it's sized for Asian people.

I've already forgotten what this fancy building was, but I'm pretty sure it was just a random fancy building that we passed while chasing dragons and walking down Fleet Street. Johnny Depp made a musical about making meat pies out of people on this street. I tried not to think about it when I ate my meat pie yesterday, but it was pretty cool to think about while we were walking down the street today.

We did a lot of walking this trip. We rode trains or walked everywhere, which makes you very tired and hungry. I'm understanding this pub thing more and more every day. They're the best place around to sit down and eat food when you're tired. And there's beer there. I had more beer even though I don't really like it since I still think that's the right thing to do in pubs. Another thing I don't really like to do that I figured was the right thing to do since we were at a pub was eating fish and chips (with my beer). I really don't like fish. I eat sushi because it's raw and tastes good, but I'm pretty sensitive to any form of cooked fish as being fishy. Well, much like rude French people, and London only having gross food, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I really really like fish and chips. I like fish and chips way more than I like beer. These guys sitting next to us liked hearing themselves talk way more than they liked beer. And they liked beer a lot. I should point out that this was all at a super cool pub called the Cheshire Cheese that's been around since forever.

This is a literal tourist trap. The whole time we were in London, I felt that traffic was out to kill us and sang Nicole the Smiths song about ten ton trucks and a double decker bus killing the both of us pretty much every time we crossed the street. This is the only solid proof I have that this theory is valid, but it's pretty solid. I was going say that I wished Cleveland had a river we could walk along at night because I really enjoyed the Thames and the Seine, but well...yeah, Cuyahoga...step your game up. All three places have rivers and I have 20s from all three places.

9-6-2011

In addition to Mod stuff, I've gone though various stages of obsession with British bands my whole life. From when I was a little kid and my mom made me listen to the Beatles, to getting a tattoo about a Smiths song not that long ago. So I was happy to see this Clash reference even if it was being misused as an advertisement. Now just like how Paris has a bad reputation for being full of rude people who hate Americas (which we didn't really experience at all), London also has a reputation for being grey and rainy all the time. I would like to point out that this is untrue. It's actually quite tropical with palm trees growing everywhere. Yeah whatever, London's notorious reputation as an umbrella killer is actually pretty well founded. Everywhere I looked were broken or horribly injured umbrellas. Umbrellas aren't that interesting to look at though, so we went to go look at art at the Tate Britain instead. They had a pretty great exhibition on Turner's paintings, but I thought it was pretty awesome to see his sketchbook, and pigments, and palate. Granted, this was all under glass unlike our experience at Sargent's studio, but it was still really cool. This mirror was actually really cool too, but it doesn't look as dimensional in pictures. Awe, then we came into this room devoted to the late Lucian Freud who had sadly died only two months ago. Freud was a painter we discussed a lot when I was first learning to paint in college for his incredible paint handling. The other painter we talked about a lot at this time was Sargent. Really though, look at this mark making. His paintings and light quality look so good from far away, but his brushwork is almost like Monet. Clearly I saw a lot of paintings that I liked a lot. Nicole found at least one painting that she liked a lot. I'm not really sure what this guy likes, but he was pretty crazy to talk to.

After museuming, we decided to go to the museum of department stores. This is Harrod's. They literally sell everything. Including unicorns. Both the window glare and animal people reminded me of Deyrolle. We actually spent a long time just looking at their window displays. I probably looked like this.

Ok, so our trip to Paris was pretty much perfect and I did everything that I wanted to do, except for a few things. Deyrolle was closed when we went, so I didn't get to go inside and buy a framed butterfly, and I totally forgot that I wanted to eat onion soup (and didn't really see it on any of the menus to even remind me). The biggest regret immediately upon leaving, was that I cheaped out on ordering something made with truffles (I still stand by the decision that I'm way too poor to order $50 risotto though). In any case, Harrod's kind of had two of those things covered. The weird taxidermy, and at least getting to see the biggest truffle I've seen in my life. They sold all sorts of little truffle stuff too, but look how freaking huge that mushroom is. If it were a white one, it would probably be worth more than my car. Lots of things in Harrod's are worth more than my car. Their escalators alone are relics from ancient Egypt. They also had a super creepy stature of Princess Diana that I really dropped the ball by not photographing. I think I was being shy of security guards, and genuinely creeped out by it.

Food picture time! London has great fast food. They have a large variety of premade walk-up places that have good (and sometimes healthy) food for cheap. Way better than the options we have back home. Plus their yummy food comes in convincing packaging of it's quality and cultural authenticity. Each box is like a little passport for a meat pie.

Another thing that London beats America for is antique stores. We're pretty lucky to find junky knockoffs of antique jewelry in the U.S. at all (and we go to a lot of antique stores). Everything is real in London. Real like really expensive, but real like they can trace history and makers of each specific piece. It's all super fancy too. I think Nicole was bummed out that she didn't get anything, but I think it's important for her to keep all of her internal organs at this point in her life. Speaking of internal organs, Nicole encouraged me to go visit a store to help destroy my liver. That's a long list of ways to pollute your bloodstream and I would like to try them all.

So back to the weather out here. We already established that Paris in the rain is romantical. Let me also point out that London in the rain is just plain miserable. Like Biblical flood level downpours. It's no wonder why they hangout in pubs all the time. This was actually our first pub experience and it was really great. Another criticism of London is that the food all sucks. This isn't true either. I really like bangers and mash, and pretty much every pub has the best mustard I've ever had in my life (other than Happy Dog black truffle mustard...but truffle anything is cheating). One thing that I don't like is beer, but I felt that it was only good and right to drink beer at a pub while in London for the experience.

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.