ce matin la

we're back from paris which is very bittersweet. i never wanted to leave but my feet are screaming for a rest after 5 days of walking around nonstop in ballet flats and boots. ah the sacrifice of trying to look parisian, even though i know no parisian woman would've actually mistaken me for one of their own. i've got too many stories and sights to tell about for one entry so i've decided to break them up. today is all about favorites!!

favorite morning view: okay, this one kind of doesn't count cause it's actually the valley over lacoste at 6:30 the morning we left for paris, but when else would i have been up so early to see such a beautiful thing? and it's kind of on the trip...






favorite facade picture: this is the facade of notre-dame which we went to first thing when we arrived. our hotel was so small and dingy but it was in the middle of the latin quarter, three blocks from the siene, and right across the river from notre-dame so i really can't complain. notre-dame was gorgeous, of course, and we got to walk by it practically every day!

favorite stained glass: and this is saying something because i LOVE stained glass. this is really quite a silly obsession to have because i want to take a picture of every stained glass window i see and they are so hard to photograph without them being blurry or incredibly overlit. but this one is in notre-dame and is gigantic! i love the colors with all the blues and purples. i wish i could be the guy who got to walk around bragging how he made this for everyone to admire.


favorite statue: this is in the luxembourg gardens (ou le jardin du luxembourg if you prefer) tucked away in a little alley of the park. the middle of the garden is completely open with a little pond where kids can sail mini boats and you can sit around and eat baguette and fromage and then there were all these little side aisles where you feel like you're tucked away in a forest. this statue was so cool behind this long pollinated pool.

favorite artwork: so i know that i went to the louvre and the musee d'orsay and every other ridiculously impressive museum that houses practically every important piece in history (the winged nike, mona lisa, luncheon on the grass, cupid and psyche, duchamp's fountain, olympia, the gates of hell, just to drop a few names) but this painting was the coolest thing because i was not expecting to see it and i had never heard of it. i can't remember the name of the artist right now (helpful, i know) but it's at the centre pompidou and the artist wrote all over the canvas (it's huge) over and over by copying philosophical texts and then had really cool textures and paintings on top.

favorite fashion piece: so we were in a cholocatier and this woman was in there buying chocolate with her awesome hat and when she left i had my friend pretend i was taking a pictrue of her while i zoomed in on this lady. it is the craziest hat i've ever seen and although it was really hard to pick my favorite fashion sighting in paris, i figured few had the confidence to walk down the street in this.



favorite graffiti: i searched high and low for some banksy and i was so determined i'd find some in paris, but alas, it must be hidden pretty well. needless to say i was pretty sad but then i saw this awesome cat outside the centre pompidou and decided it was better for everyone else that banksy's pieces aren't all over the city because then things like this wouldn't be nearly as funny.

favorite favorite: last but not least, le tour eiffel. we wanted to up it so bad at night but we got off the metro at 11:05 and the last elevator up is at 11. as we were incredibly bummed, we sat down in front of it and it started lighting up! i guess it was actually perfect timing instead of being too late because we got to see both five minute shoes of the tour sparkling. it was so cool to be right next to it when it was going off like this!! and we got to go up it the next day so i really didn't lose at all.


not so favorite experience: i had my first experience with the french police because we were badgered by a french gang! i know, such excitement in paris! this is such a long story, so the short version is we were walking home at night along the siene (baddd idea) and this group of guys was leaning against this van and as we walk buy, one guy starts talking to us and yelling at us. and we keep walking of course, and he keeps walking with us and it somehow escalates to him trying to throw a punch at one of the guys we were with, misses him, and hits his girlfriend instead. given that everyone probably had a little to much wine in them, ali (the girlfriend) starts fighting back and kicks this guy which just escalates to this whole thing. no one seriously got hurt, but a couple of bad punches were thrown and we finally got away. so we went to the first policemen we saw and end up having to go and identify the guy, get him arrested, and spend like 3 hours in the police station. apparently the group of guys was a sort of french gang and this badgering was supposed to be this guys initiation into the group but seeing as how he couldn't even punch the right people and we all started screaming and yelling and fighting back, and i guess seeing as how he got arrested, he won't be joining that gang. it sounds a lot more intense than it was, but still, i had a run in with a french gang.

i have to go get a foot massage now and sleep for three days. more exciting categories later!!

artist of the day: Lawarence Yang
super cool ink and watercolor pieces
http://www.suckatlife.com/artwork.html

if 6 was 9

so i think the most interesting story of lacoste thus far is that the bartender at one of our two bars in town, cafe de sade, is also a porn director. i guess he uses his chances at the bar to find new stars because the other night he told my friend, in french of course, that her boobs were nice a small, perfect for his films, and would she like to be in them? i don't know what exactly her reaction was, but if it was me i would've been saying "je ne parle pas francaise!"

we went to a town nearby called Vauclause where there's a fountaine which is a gorgeous pool of crystal clear water that flows in a river down the town and into other towns nearby. the weird thing about the fountaine is that they've never been able to find the bottom of it. jacque cousteau tried to find it and never actually got to the bottom. i still don't really understand how they still haven't found the bottom since we've been able to discover the darkest depths of the oceans, but i guess maybe a tiny fountaine in provence isn't their highest priority on things to explore.


we also went to the best boulangerie that i've been to thus far in france (and i've been to a lot). they had the cutest pasteries and i just wanted to buy all of them.













classes are getting harder and harder to go to as it's actually staying sunny outside and i just want to lay in the fields of daisies and poppy flowers all day and tan. but we're going to paris on wednesday and i can't wait!!

artist of the day: Lois van Baarle
An awesome dutch girl who i can't
believe is only 4 years older than me
because her stuff is so cool

http://loish.net/

the bomb

on friday, we went to Arles for the feria paques which is where they have bullfights and running of the bulls like in spain. the first thing we did was go to an amateur bullfight. even though i cry pretty much at every episode of grey's anatomy, i for some reason thought i'd be totally fine seeing a bullfight. i guess i never actually believed they'd just kill the bull right in front of us. silly me. i left after two fights (there were six) because i couldn't take it anymore.

nevertheless, though, i'm glad i went because it's just one of those things you need to experience in life. i think the most surprising thing about the entire experience was the difference in cultures. the whole time, i couldn't believe i was one of the only people crying. everyone else (europeans) were cheering at the matador while i just wanted the bull to fight back and realize there's never going to be anything behind the red cape being waved. i didn't realize bull's were such dense animals until i went to the fight and they continued to fail to realize that their real target should be the matador, not a red sheet of cloth. but, as i was saying, none of the europeans were remotely disturbed by the event and it made me wonder if i were to grow up with this in my culture and just accept it as tradition, if i wouldn't be so upset by it either.


the much more exciting part of arles was all the festivity in the streets with bands playing and shops everywhere. we also saw 2 things on the van gogh map: where he painted "the asylum garden at arles" and "the night cafe"



as for life in lacoste, it's finally finally sunny!! but i know i shouldn't even get excited about this because rain is forecasted again for the next few days. but i'll enjoy it why it's here! sit on my terrace and overlook our luberon valley with some baguette et fromage. i'd like to say i miss home, but even with bullfight's, i'm choosing provence.

gobbledigook

i hate beginning things. i love having new projects and adventures, but it's always simply the act of starting that keeps me from doing something. i never draw on the first page of a sketchbook because i don't think anything's good enough to be the first thing someone sees (i know this idea is silly because even if i skip the first page, whatever page i do start on essentially becomes the first page).

so, since i hate beginning things, i've decided that i'm just not going to begin. this may be the first entry, but it's really not the beginning. i've always wanted to start a blog but i never thought anything in my life would be interesting enough to talk about. but now i'm studying abroad in france and i figured what a better time to start than while i'm traveling around provence!

for my first entry, i'm just going to talk about myself, since that's essentially what you're supposed to do on a blog, right? here's 25 things about myself, with props to becky, my other half, for letting me steal the idea.

1. my ultimate 3 unrealistic dream jobs are: to be a rapper à la MIA, a victoria's secret angel, or a performer in cirque de soleil
2. when i was little, i wanted more than anything in the world to be a penguin trainer. i still don't really know what i wanted to train them for... but i was determined.
3. i love making playlists. any occasion to make one, even if it's just a new playlist for the gym or for working in the studio, i jump on.
4. i HATE the number 4.
5. i've always secretly wished i was pigeon toed. when i was younger, i tried to stand pigeon toed all the time because i thought it looked cool.
6. i will never say no to chocolate. never.
7. my favorite food is bread. i could seriously eat bread for every meal, every day and never get sick of it. lucky me, that's not only normal but expected in france.
8. although i am a very sarcastic person, i hate when people are "jokingly" mean. not just teasing, but when people say something mean very seriously and then say they were just kidding. cause usually, they're not.
9. when i have kids, i hope i look like the mom's in france. i saw a women the other day pushing a stroller in patent leather heeled boots on cobblestone, uphill. i completely support fashion over function.
10. my favorite writer ever is francescia lia block, simply because of how i feel when i read her books.
11. i'm a perfectionist and very ocd about things, yet i'm probably the messiest person i know
12. i can't get up in the morning if someone turns the overhead light on before i'm out of bed. it's too bright and puts me in the worst mood and i'll refuse to get out of bed.
13. things i wear everyday are my beaded bracelet that matches becky's, a hair elastic (either in my hair or around my wrist) and 3 rings (although i switch them out). if i'm missing any of these, i have to go back and put them on, otherwise i feel completely out of sync.
14. i always eat small candies, like reese's pieces or snow caps, in two's. always.
15. i've seen almost every single episode of boy meets world and fresh prince of bel-air.
16. i'm very supersticious, but about weird things, like i have to put on my right shoe first or else it'll be a bad day and i always have to be wearing my rings.
17. my black boots are my favorite thing in the world to wear, along with sunglasses.
18. i hate when people change the song in the middle of another one. i have to let it play all the way out before picking a new one.
19. one of my favorite weird coincidences is that my sister is named laura and is left handed and i'm rachael and right handed. L & R
20. when i was five, my sister, our neighbors, and i used to color trees with the dust of side walk chalk. we thought this was so cool that we wanted to start a business where we'd color other people's tree's with colored chalk dust. and i honestly thought this would be an awesome business.
21. i love pictures of trees. i have a favorite tree in every city i spend a long period of time in.
22. i'm certified to sail a boat up to 50 feet on my own. but simply the idea of me driving a boat that big is scary.
23. the things i want to do most before i die are: travel to my neverending list of destinations (thailand, india, new zealand, and japan to name a few), scuba dive, ride an elephant, see the seven wonders of the world, be a certified yoga instructor, live on a sailboat, and write a novel.
24. my two favorite people in the whole world next to my family are my best friend and soul mate and my boyfriend and other half.
25. i really hate making lists.