A Blog in Reflection

One year ago today, I left on the adventure of my life.

I packed all of my bags, said "Ciao!" to my friends and family, and high tailed it out of the country. That got me to thinking about all of the amazing places I've been in 365 days and holy crap, there are a lot of them.

You are more than welcome to peruse my adventures as they have happened to me here in this blog, but here's a little (geo)graphical explanation of my adventures: Map o da world. Or if you don't want to see the names of the places, here's just a picture.

But the link should show you all of the names of places too. Granted, I probably forgot some a long the way (like Assissi.... I loved Assissi. St. Francis is awesome)(And Duluth. I was for sure in Duluth this summer), got them out of order, or didn't list every time I was back in KC this year. But the main point is here are the 25 (more like 27 with the ones I forgot because I'm a dumb ass and Google Maps won't let me add more than A-Y) cities that I've considered part of my journey this year. 

I don't know if this year will hold as many cities, or as many "adventures" but I'm glad this one was so thrilling. 

Berets and art. Paris Days 2 and 3

PARIS! Day two (commence).


So we woke up kind of late (we're both still teenagers, we can't help it) and ate breakfast.  This consisted of some yummy bread with jam, and orange, and some juice.  After that we get ready for a day of adventure!  It's basically what I do. Well, that, and look at art. I do a lot of that too.


On the way to step one, we passed the monument to Princess Diana, I'm sorry I didn't get a picture, but it's beautiful, and I thought of Vanessa like I was supposed to.


Step one: Find Rodin Museum. If you don't know who this is, shame. I'll give you a hint, you should "Think" about it. That's a wonderful clue. Still no? Ok, he's the guy who made "The Thinker". Keep up. This museum includes a wonderful garden and outdoor area where you can walk around all of the sculptures and be surrounded by carefully sculpted (non-artistic) bushes. Then inside there are more sculptures by both Rodin and some other and these are marble, plaster, the popular bronze, and even a few manuscripts/letters. All very cool and some super sweet things. I totally dig it. Oh, and we also saw a famous French rockstar. I wish I could give you a name, but I've been sworn to secrecy. That's the line I'm sticking with.


Then we took a little stroll and a little bus to the d'Orsay (is that redundant? I don't even know) Museum. Now this is sweet. It's actually in an old train station (we're talking the super classic, must be from a movie kind of thing) and the collection is seriously impressive.  So we grab a quick (or quick as it can be in a crowded cafe in the museum) bite to eat and hit up the exhibits. I'm going to be super brief about all of the awesome things I saw in hopes that some of you art people will find this wonderfully amusing, but you non-art people (why am I friends with you again?) will not be angry with me.
(oh, and sorry these titles are in French, the magnificent d'Orsay website likes the French titles, you can Google them if you would like. Or go here (http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/tools/plan-salle.html) and click on all of the rooms and have a blast!)


Monet:
Poppy Field, La Cathedrale de Rouen (times two. Go series paintings), Essai de Figure en plein-air: Femme a l'ombrelle tournee vers la gauche, La gare Saint-Lazare


Degas:
Dans un cafe, Foyer de la danse a l'opera de la rue Le Peletier, Dance Class


Renoir:
Jeunes Filles au Piano, Bal du mulin de la Galette, La Liseuse


Manet:
Berthe Morisot au bouquet de violettes, Le de jeuner sur l'herbe, Le Balcon


Whistler:
Arrangement en gris et noir #1


(In case you were curious, that was all on one floor. And that's a VERY incomplete list. Go to that website. Make yourself smart)


Seurat:
The Circus


Van Gogh: (Side note, you should watch the Simon Schama Power of Art video about Van Gogh, it's awesome)
Portrait de l'artiste (two of these too!)
La chambre de Van Goch a Arles


For those of you who speak/read French, I apologize for the lack of accents, it's late here, and I'm not so good at figuring out how to copy and paste those in without one of those fancy keyboards/minion to do it for me. I'll work on it.


Next step (2? 3? Who knows. I don't do numbers. Chloe? Hannah? Help!).  Champs-Élysées!  And with that comes many things.  First was the super sweet Ferris Wheel that takes you up to see Paris from the air (a lot like the Eiffel Tower, except it spins) and there was this joyous atmosphere of a carnival and there was this catchy French song playing in the cart-thing and it was awesome. 


Once off the Ferris Wheel, we walked down the Champs-Élysées through all of the Christmas markets. And believe you me, I am one of those strict-THERE IS ANOTHER HOLIDAY BETWEEN HALLOWEEN AND CHRISTMAS people, but will all of the cider, and the chill in the air, and the delicious looking things, you couldn't help but feel just the beginnings of the holiday spirit. So we smelled all of the wonderful things being served up, and watched the crowds, and walked down the lines of year-round stores, and just had a splendid time.  We eventually wound around to eating at this Crepe place where pretty much anything worth mentioning is on a crepe. And that's awesome. I had a delicious crepe with ham, mozzarella, basil, and sun dried tomatoes then an applesauce crepe for dessert. It was wonderful.  Then we walked all the way home, watched the French version of Dancing with the Stars, and went to bed. 


As if that wasn't exhausting enough, we began day three in much the same way as day two with a late start and a good breakfast. Then we began the whirlwind that is the Louvre in under a lifetime. Hard to do, many attempt, and few do it well, but I can honestly say that I think we did pretty well for ourselves. Once again, I will attempt to make a very incomplete list of the wonderful works we saw.  


David:
Portrait of Juliette Recamier
Crowning of Emperor Nepoleon
Intervention of the Sabine Women
The Lictors Returning to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons
The Oath of the Horatii


Mantegna:
St. Sebastian


Arcimboldo:
The Seasons (These are 4 separate paintings: Spring, Summer, Winter, and Autumn)


Leonardo da Vinci:
Mona Lisa (watched the crowds)


Caravaggio:
Death of the Virgin (Probably one of my favorites not just of the weekend, but in life.)


Gericault:
Raft of Medusa


Rubens:
The Marie de Medici Cycle


Michelangelo:
Dying Slave
Bound Slave


Canova:
Cupid and Psyche


And something like 10,000 others, but I was in a hurry (even if you were there from open to close, you might get through a small room throughly. Not a joke. There are 35,000 works in the Louvre. Count those zeros again.)


But, sadly, we had to bolt, and made it back to the apartment where we met Sebastian (not the saint, Juliette's older brother) for lunch with the family. This splendid meal included something like baked mashed potatoes, and steak with pepper spread, shredded carrot salad, and a delicious rhubarb custard thing. Oh and there was American coffee. It was lovely. 


Then, I had to leave such a wonderful place. I know, tear. And I made my way back to the airport where I had the (un)pleasant surprise of being delayed for an extra 2 hours. No explanation, just delayed. And two hours later, I was starving, eating peanut M&Ms and playing endless games of solitare. When it gets to the point that you gladly turn to your Gaga readings for entertainment, that it's really bad and you're really bored. That's a sorry, depressing statement, but it's the truth. So instead of getting back at 9 ish, I was back at 11:30. It sucked. 


But the airport was honestly my ONLY complaint about the entire weekend. Good food, good art, good company. Always winning. 


   

Reunionize Me Captain! Paris Part One

I would like to begin my re-telling of my Paris adventures with a joke that I made up in 3rd grade.

Set up: (a little bit of background so that you understand how wonderfully clever this is for a 3rd grader)

My class was in French class and our teacher wasn't yet there. So we are nicely sitting in the circle in this little room and someone asked, "Where did the French teacher go?"

Me: "She went out to take a breath of French air."

BAM. That's how funny winners are.

BAM. That's the air I was breathing all weekend. But for real. It was spectacular. I loved it.

So we'll start from the real beginning now. I packed all of my needed things for the weekend and made my way to the airport, full of excitement and the sense of adventure. Just like a little kid. The funny part of that is that I was going to meet up with a friend of mine I hadn't seen since the year after the birth of that beautiful joke you read above. That's a long time ago. And I couldn't believe that it was really and truly actually happening. So I get on the train to go to the airport. Watch this guy ask everyone in the train if it was going to the airport, then watched him get off at the wrong stop (unfortunate). Get there. Go through security (no they didn't search me), get to my gate, and sit down and relax for a bit. I grabbed a bottle of water and when I noticed people starting to line up in front of the gate, I thought, hey, that's not a terrible idea, I'll jump in line.

Bad. We're waiting there for about 15 minutes (still on time) when suddenly, right as we were supposed to start boarding, there was an announcement over the loud speaker that said that our flight had spontaneously changed gates. So everyone who had been waiting in line sprints down the hallway toward this other gate. I'm not even kidding. Literally running down the hallway, dodging past other travelers and magazine stands to get to the other gate. I get there like everyone else, a little winded, but totally wired for sound. And we wait. And wait. And wait. And by this point, I'm thinking, wow, that sandwich place looks really good right now. I'm hungry, but I ran all the way here, and of course the minute I get out of line, we'll start boarding. Instead I watched the two girls who were wearing I Puffi sweatshirts (awesome).  Although that was a fascinating past-time, it was still another 20 minutes before we actually boarded. Which eventually made the plane late by that 20 minutes. Boo.

None the less, I made it to Paris and began my search for the mysterious Orlybus. The only major problem with that is that I don't read or speak French past the extreme basics. We're talking the kinds of things the colorful puppets say slowly in the teach-your-baby-French videos.  That kind of basic. So after a brief search, I found the bus tickets right by the bus and got on. And other than the interesting choice of music (I didn't realize that the French would like Gloria Gaynor so much) I decided that regardless of my lack of language proficiency, "I Will Survive". (Get it? that was great). I get off at Denfert-Rochereau and there they were. Juliette and her mom. Perfect.

We hugged and it was just so strange to see someone who I used to be such good friends with. Crazy, but really fun. We then jumped on a series of trains to get to Juliette's grandmother's apartment. From about this moment on we began the necessary catching up. This involved everything from where are they now discussions to all of those nifty cultural differences that we discovered.

By the time we made it the apartment we were warmly greeted by her grandmother (she's so sweet, seriously) (s) and I was shown around the place. Couple of things: 1) It's huge!  I thought that our apartment in the center of Rome was big, this is about a 5 minuted walk from the Eiffel Tower and it's probably twice the size of ours. 2) The bathroom is split over two rooms. Let me explain. In one room there is a shower and a sink, and down the hall (like a ways down the hall) there is the toilet and another sink. Fascinating? Yes. But everything about it was just so cozy and fun. It reminded me a lot of my cousin Bev and Don's (except the bathroom(s) wasn't (weren't) tiger themed.  It was just that home feel with the piano in the corner and the old school chairs and the table cloth, it was lovely.

So we settled in, talked for a bit, and then sat down to a wonderful homemade dinner.  Now the thing about Italy is that they LOVE to eat. And I don't take this lightly, they love the act of eating, of sitting down and enjoying every bit, every sip of wine, the conversation, the food, the atmosphere, everything. The French are a oui bit different. There is distinct point to the meal. There is still that love of food, but it's not about the experience, it's about having dinner. (This is such an abstract and random thing to describe to you, I'm doing my best, promise) For example, this three course meal would have 3 very different reaction in the US, Italy, and France.

US:
Family dinner, everyone is talking and kidding around. Kind of like Thanksgiving (I'm going to be craving turkey later this week) where the family gets together and talks about everything.  I don't know about you, but my Thanksgiving dinners have people eating for just about an hour-an hour and a half then everyone watches football and waits for someone to cut into the pie.

Italy:
A 3 hour affair where there are at least 2 bottles of wine and everything is savored with the utmost deliberateness. There is probably some crazy storytelling and lots of hand waving.

France:
It felt like any regular family sit down dinner. Not the kind where the whole crew is involved, just the immediate family.  You eat, you talk, you talk about the day-in three courses, but faster than the Italians would have.

We had this turkey with mushrooms and gravy with rice for the first course, a simple salad with an oil and vinegar dressing for course numero dos, and fruit and yogurt for the last one. It was wonderful to have a home cooked meal that I didn't have to cook.

Then, The Pezron family and I went out to see the Eiffel Tower by night. Magical? Oh ya you betcha!  It was so incredible! Not only is it just a stunning piece of architecture (no one can argue that) but to see it lit up by night is just magical. I'm totally impressed. But the crowning jewel was when we went all the way up to the top. That's right, get out your Bucket List counters, because this is on there: Top of the Eiffel Tower by night. CHECK. You can literally see the entire city from up there. And all of the other monuments are so well lit that you can identify them and practically plan your next day based on what you see. And that's awesome.

After taking tons of pictures (I promise I'll get on that asap) we walked back home and pretty much immediately went to sleep. Successful day? Of course. And I couldn't ask for a better reunion. Especially when there are basically two more days of magic to cover.

But that report will probably have to happen tomorrow, I'm still recovering.

Airports rock

I'm alive! I have oodles to tell you about Paris, and the wonderful time I had with Juliette and family, but it is currently 12:36 am and I'm exhausted. Let's face it, spending an unnecessary 2 hours in an airport is just not as relaxing as it could have been.  But, alas, I am home now, and before I start typing things that are unrelated, cow, or are misspelled, rowme, then I will go to bed.

Close-knit

Fun fact!

Exactly one month from yesterday, I will be back on US soil.

I know some of you are incredibly excited for this, and others are dreading every moment that brings that date closer. I'm sorry for you. But yesterday also marked a magical occasion.

I found a knitting store.

Well, I didn't find it, but I was in it!  A girl from my Cin City class showed it to me and we had a wonderful time reveling in the amounts of yarns, and I consequently spent far too much time looking at patterns that only require one set of needles (and that I could do in Rome).  I miss it hard core, but I know it will only be a distraction. Somehow I've managed to overlook that little obstacle, and continued to look at patterns.

That aside, I leave in approximately 45 minutes for an epic reunion in Paris!  Reunion? How? What?
Let me explain.

My childhood comrade Juliette moved back to France after 4th grade. Through the magic of Facebook, we have managed to keep in contact and even plan this eventful reunion. I'm incredibly excited to see the girl who played on all the same soccer and basketball teams with me, and I haven't seen since we were 10. So think about that next time someone disses the good old Facebook, bringing people together decades apart.

So I need to finish packing, probably should eat something, and need to get on a train/plane!

I'll let you know of my revelries on Sunday!