Now that I'm back in good ol' LA, it's back to the drudgery of school. There ain't a whole lot to look forward to other than weekends. Thank goodness for NZ in a few months! It'll definitely give me something to strive towards. Just gotta get through a little bit more before the big payoff. Wish me luck. In the meantime, survival and fun weekends (oh...and good grades too) are the short term goals. In an effort to achieve this goal, this weekend I had some help from Cat. Fresh from a trip to "the motherland," we had an awesome time catching up on our recently completed spring breaks, reminscing about the days of yore, "eee-key-ahh" commercials and good times in general. Never a dull moment I tell ya. Anyways, enough of my blabbering...here are a few pics (thanks again Cat).
Here's our lovely homemade meal. Rice, chicken curry & sukiyaki. The empty Zippy's container was filled with the curry and (unfortunately) not chili. Sukiyaki was courtesy of Cat. Thank you yet again! Brooke Fraser and the Cardigans provided a lovely background music for an equally lovely dinner.
Next stop after dinner...Mashti Malone's. Tasty, tasty ice cream for those of you who haven't been. They have some crazy flavors there. That's "saffron rosewater" on the left and some sort of cherry flavored stuff with rice noodley things on the right. Good ice cream, excellent "ahm-bee-yahn-se" and cool times playing with Nikon's manual white balance. Apologies for the squinty eyes...I seemingly have no control over them.
Here's a clever reminder for confused people trying to park. Hopefully you can read it..."Ice Cream Only!" No real comment is required...
Final stop for the evening was a quaint French style cafe named Figaro. Small tables outside, candlelit, french waiters, french words. Can anyone say flashbacks?! Made me miss Paris more than anything else this week... Clockwise from left: Tarte pomme (apple tart), earl grey tea, (me), and coffee (sorry, can't remember the kind). Such a truly charming place. LA really needs more places like this. Come to think of it, LA needs to be more like Paris (or any other non-US city for that matter). NZ, Ice Palace, DZ, Paris, Beijing and random funny stuff were topics of discussion. Will have to try the duck at the restaurant the next time I'm around.
And that, my friends, was my awesome saturday evening. Merci Beau Coup, "Door-chair", Arigato and Mahalo to Cat for the good times. Let the countdown begin for NZ!! 3 months to go!!!
It's been a week since I left Paris but now I've finally got a bit of time to share the last set of pictures with you all. So sit back, relax and enjoy the show.
We begin at the Musee Louvre. Many of you will recognize the very distinctive, centrally located pyramid as one of Paris' most famous landmarks. This shot, taken from within the museum allows you to see the Arch du Carousel which is between the Louvre and the Jardin des Tuileries (a favourite of mine). Off in the distance, you may see the large office buildings in the La Defense area. The modern looking Grand Arche is also visible to those with discerning eyes.
Many of you might be expecting shots of the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, etc...but unfortunately I didn't take pictures of them this time around. They were far too crowded and I've got pics of them already. Instead, you all have the fortune of seeing some other artwork such as this lovely wooden carving from the museum's Oceania collection. This piece of artwork and I share a very special bond. We're both thousands of miles away from Hawaii.
Another Hawaiian artifact. It is a figure of one of the Gods and, in its time, would've been adorned by a bunch of beautiful, multi-colored feathers from long extinct birds. It's a shame the birds were all killed and we can't see their pretty feathers anymore...
Continuing with the Pacific theme, here's one of the famous stone statues from Easter Island. These things have always been cool.
You all must be wondering what's with all this Polynesian art? To quench your desire for other sorts of artwork, here's a beautiful sculpture known as the Marly Horses (there's a similar statue on the other side of this exhibit...both statues used to be displayed proudly, among many other places, along the Champs Elysee.
Another wing of the Louvre contains the restored State Apartments where Napolean III lived during the 19th century. I can't seem to figure out whether there's more gold in this room or on P Diddy's neck?
Alright, Diddy has a lot of "bling" but it would take weeks, maybe even months for MTV cribs to walk through the Louvre so my vote for extravagance will have to go to the French...I mean, c'mon, they have Versailles too!
If you all haven't noticed yet, one of the highlights of this trip was the amazing food that could be had. Here we have a picture of a bowl of french onion soup. What could be better than an onion soup with cheese-smothered bread floating on the surface?
It would've been awesome to have taken a picture of the main course but I forgot, once again, to get one until I was at least halfway through the salmon filet. So, you'll have to settle for a shot of the chocolate mousse that I had for dessert.
The next day, I wasn't able to make it out to Giverny (Monet's estate outside of Paris) b/c it was closed till April. Instead, we walked around Paris for a bit and got some shopping & more sight seeing out of the way. We also didn't make it to the Rodin Museum so instead of getting a picture of "the Thinker," you'll have to settle for a picture of this thinker.
They don't seem to have any shortage of fountains around here. Here's Carie, the lion sculpture and the fountain outside of Saint Sulpice.
Continuing onward, we made our way to the Jardin du Luxembourg.
And here is a pic of the Palais du Luxembourg. It was once the home of Princess Marie de Medici who had the palace built in 1615. Ain't it pretty?!
Here, Carie & I pose in front of the pond & fountain. In the background (between us and at my eye level), you can see the dome of the Pantheon where many French intellectuals were buried (Rousseau, Voltaire, Laplace, the Curies, Dumas, Hugo & Carnot to name a few).
That afternoon, I had to satiate my desire for Amorino's again so we took a long walk over from the hotel. Today's flavors were: Mangue (mango), Fragola (strawberry) and Amaretto.
Dinner on our final evening in Paris was at the famous Bowfinger. An excellent restaurant with exceptional service. I would have pictures of our food (and my creme brulee dessert) if I wouldn't have looked completely out of place and shamed my ancestors in the process of taking those pictures.
Last, but not least, here's a pic of the Place de la Bastille. This large monument, located in the middle of a sizeable roundabout, marks the location where the mighty Bastille once stood (before it was stormed by revolutionaries and demolished). It is beautifully lit in the evening as you can see in the picture.
And there you have it folks. Sorry about the length of the post but I wanted to get in as many pics as I could. I had a wonderful time and I really miss being there already. I am impressed with how comfortable I felt in the city despite my obvious language handicap. That's something I'll have to work on for the next time. On that note, I hope you all enjoyed the pictures. Take care everyone and have a Happy Easter!
Hi everyone. Happy Spring Break to all you fellow SC peeps! I had such a good time in Paris the last time around, I thought, why not do it all over again? Well, do some of it over again and try to see some new stuff too. Anyways, here are a few pics:
Here's the Air Tahiti Airbus A340 preparing to ferry me 10+ hours around the globe. Cat, I believe you were right about the logo...
The sunrise is a beautiful thing. It's one thing to see the beautiful European sun rise from ground level, but to see it several thousand feet in the air is a whole other experience...
Here is the glorious Arch de Triumphe in all its majesty. This time, I brought my camera.
Carie & I on the top of the Arch. You would be able to see the Eiffel tower in the background, but Carie's unusually large head is obstructing the view.
Don't diss my ride...it's a Renault...
Actually, I prefer this car...anyone at Renault care to hook me up?
At FNAC (French music & electronics shop), I ran into an old friend...
The kiddie playground at the Jardin de Tuileries. Carie is re-living her childhood. Unfortunately, the amusement park thing that was there over the summer wasn't there now. That meant no kebob sandwich (avec frites) for me...
This here is a beautiful picture and I think most of you know where I am without me having to explain... Why, yes! Those are Oakley Titanium C Wires with Emerald Polarized lenses.
Finally, here's a picture of the magnificent Seine River. It runs through the middle of Paris. Doesn't it look mighty fine here?
Yup, that's all I've been up to so far for the past couple days. For those of you who might be interested, I also visited the ACCENT center & the Daumesnil residence where I spent a good portion of this past summer. Such good memories. On that note, I'll leave you all to be. Have a brilliant time and check in for more pics at a later date. Au Revoir!!!
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