Blog to not think about upcoming horror that is the GRE.

Blogging adds to my list of things done today that did NOT help me prepare for the GRE, which is taking place tomorrow.  Other self-occupying activities include: reading a 10-page article on marriage in the NYT, running five miles, reading all of your blogs, catching up on former students’ lives via FB, vacuuming, mopping, cleaning sink, counter, toilet and shower, restringing a broken curtain, making myself a cup of Fortnum and Mason’s peppermint tea, reading an article in Elle about a Korean supermodel who recently committed suicide in Paris, and eating at least 3 clementines.  A lot of these things can even be construed as constructive (the cleaning for example, the curtain repairs, the eating fruit), but when I probably should be reviewing vocabulary or characteristics of an isosceles triangle, these things maybe shouldn’t be priority, especially considering I skipped class today to “study”.  I should maybe have one these standardized test things every so often just to make sure I get my room super organized and clean.  (I do clean regularly, but today was like extra mega cleaning.)

But really, the test is tomorrow, and my life has been this:

I know, I think the big black mass on the right is my strap. I’m sorry about that.  This was my table at Starbucks.  (Going here instead of a real library is probably a denial thing: as long as I don’t go any quiet and really conducive to studying, I don’t REALLY have to take this test…) Reviewing and Strategizing with notebooks and a Bic.  Accompanied with processed food stuffs and fizzy Italian mineral water.  And once a cheesecake au speculoos (amazing).  The point is, I’m tired of this freaking GRE crap.  And I’m excited for this test to be over. And I want to do well, because I don’t want to feel stupid. I know that this isn’t any real measurement of intelligence, but in a way it is, and in a way I really want to do well.  It’s a shame I’m horrible at multiple choice tests and when I can get it down to 2 answers I unfailingly convince myself to choose wrong one, but Seriously. I CAN DO THIS.

I mean, I have memorized a box of 500 vocabulary words that Kaplan has deemed important, I’ve resurrected math skills that have been dormant since the earlier part of this decade. I paid for an app to study words on public transportation.  I’ve given up downloadable television. I walk around with huge books of practice tests.

Really, who knows how I’ll do.  I just needed this half hour to stare at this pile of words.

Champs-Elysées in the rain

It’s Christmastime!  (I love that that is one word.)  Which means lights! and happiness! and decorations!

Flores del Sol

I don’t speak Spanish. No, not a lick.

The point is to lead you the Flores del Sol blog and etsy store, where you can enter to get FREE STUFF.

Beautiful flower arrangements! (and beautiful photos of them)

Vintage goodies (these were my favorite),

and more!

Go!

Today in Paris. Latin Quarter, Christmas market, and Notre Dame.

I loved today.  I left the house around eight, the crisp morning welcoming me with its light breeze and partly cloudy skies.  Chillier than usual, I stuffed my hands in my pockets and hunched my shoulders, pushing my scarf high on my neck.  Most days, music adds to my AM metro walk, but today it seemed as though every element was present for a perfect cold morning without a soundtrack.

Sunny for the first time in days, after class I enjoyed a walk from St. Sulpice to Chatelet, puposefully making my way to my first Christmas marché (=market) of the year at St. Germain des Prés.

Not sure why I spent all this time labeling this map, but I did, and I enjoyed it. So don’t judge me.

I LOVE CHRISTMAS MARCHES.  Love them.  I love the hot drinks they serve and the overpriced crepes. I love the wooden cabin things they sell their trinkets out of. I love seeing mounds and mounds of caramelized cakes.

The parts south (“left”) of the Seine where I walked are part of the Latin Quarter. I love the Latin Quarter. Affordable restaurants, people that stand outside trying to make you come in, cheesy souvenir shops, a place to walk around at night that isn’t scary.  It’s great.

Then, I love making my way across the Seine to the Notre Dame.

It may be cliché, but still one of my favorite places in Paris.  I love the open sitting area in front. I love that it’s not gated off at night. I love that it’s right on the river. I love that it’s huge and everytime I look at it I let out a small audible breath of amazement.

And guess who hangs out here?  Quasimodo.  Yeah. Pretty scary.  This guy stands in front and asks people if they want to take pictures with him.  Creepster.

Not bad, Quas, Not bad.

UPDATE:  My sister, Michelle, brings up a good point.  My poor nephew, Ephraim, recently had periorbital cellulitis:

Ephs wins because he doesn’t have to wear a mask.

Oh and I forgot to mention anything about the George Pompidou (or the Pomps, for short as I call it).  The thing is, is it’s ugly.  And i can’t seem to photograph well.  Because it’s so stupid looking.  They have done a cool thing though recently where they painted a huge calendar on the pavement.

I guess it’s not supposed to be be pretty or anything, and I can appreciate its place in history and effect on culture…  i just wish their putting pipes on the outside to create more space on the inside (and color coding them?? really??) could have been more aesthetically pleasing, but hey, I guess that’s the point.  So i’ll shut up about it now before I sound like a huge architectural doodoo.  (too late.)

Fall has come and almost gone!

Roma in pictures. Day One.

I was scared to get to the hotel because I didn’t pay very much for it.  I was expecting the worst.  Cockroaches and dirtiness, no heat, etc.  But I was pleasantly surprised when this is what I saw when I walked in.  Certainly nothing fancy, but definitely a room fit to be slept in for 3 nights.

Since I convinced Jeff to come with me the day prior to arriving, we ended up on different flights, meaning I had a morning and part of the afternoon to kill before he got there.  I wandered around in the rain and here are some things I saw:

One of these streets is called “Street of 4 Fountains” and on every corner in this intersection there is a fountain.  Here are 2:

Villa Borghese, the largest public park in Rome.

Other sightings.

The Spanish Steps.

The freaking Pantheon.  The original. Meaning, 2nd century AD.  World’s largest concrete dome.  SECOND CENTURY.

There is more to come, but I’ve been working on this for like a week and i’m sick of it, so I am publishing NOW.

Inculcating.

Very discreetly. Mostly through song.

Here are my cute primary kids!

It’s freaking Thanksgiving tomorrow!

Holy crap it’s Thanksgiving tomorrow in America and did I ever tell you that THANKSGIVING IS MY FAVORITE HOLIDAY ??? Well, it is.  I love it for its time of year, for the rice stuffing my mother makes, for being able to buy pumpkin in cans, and for being able to watch my brother Jason eat until he starts sweating and almost vomiting.  Once I saw him get up and walk around in circles around the table, moaning in agony from the discomfort. I love not having to go to school those days. I love going around the table and saying what we’re thankful for.  I loved it one year when we got 9 feet of snow and we had a whole week of snow days. I love it.  I love it because it is what it is.  We say it’s based on that whole story about us sharing with the Natives, but we really know that never really happened, which is why we can’t really ever ruin Thanksgiving… it’s a holiday based on a fallacy, so it’s already ruined.  Which is good because now we just use it as an excuse to make an outrageously caloric meal.  That we eat at 4pm.  Sometimes 3:30.

It’s ok though because some of us Yanks are getting together this week to eat ridiculous amounts of food. I’m in charge of the pumpkin pie.  And I’ve been forced to learn how to cook actual pumpkin instead of scooping it out of aluminum.  The pie is heavenly.  Little bits of candied ginger.  Mmmm.

But really, when I think of turkeys, this is the image that comes into my head:

This is right when he waves and says, “Hey buddy!”  Which brings me to another thing that I love. Seinfeld. Love like I spent the better part of my adolescence taping episodes. And indexing them. And watching them over and over. Until I could quote all lines. Trips to New York served as ways to immerse myself even more: NBC studio tours in hopes to run into someone, eating at Monk’s, really called Tom’s Restaurant, and being a patron to the Soup Nazi.  I got the crab bisque. Anyway, i cried when it ended, and for years I had an internal alarm at 10pm, the hour that Fox 29 would play reruns.

AND THEY’VE MADE AN F-ING REUNION SHOW. NOT EVEN KIDDING.

Maybe you know about this, and I’m way late on the boat.  (I literally just wrote that, reread it, and realized I have no idea what it means. But I’m leaving it because it’s making me laugh.  I think i meant to say, I missed the boat, even though that doesn’t make sense either.)  I’m not in America (apparently it’s the only country that knows about Seinfeld which makes me question every other country’s sense of humor) so that’s my excuse.  Otherwise I’m sure I would be the president of this movement.  So yeah. It happened. I watched it.  I almost cried from joy.  I was so giddy and it felt like a lost part of me was stitched right back on the ole’ heart.  They did it on Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David’s HBO show.  It’s Amazing.  Seeing them all there… hearing Jerry’s voice again… it just felt so right.

Anyway, if you dont have HBO you can find it streaming on the internet. And you should.  Life will be better.

I leave with you a classic Seinfeld moment. (In Rome, I couldn’t stop saying, “Five cups… chopped porcini mushrooms…”, so this scene has been in my head for weeks)

Who do you love? Elaine? Jerry? Frank? Banya? What is something you always quote? Got a favorite episode? Line? Scene? I would love to know.

Ace of Base lives on.

Proof:

This took place at the St. Michel metro station a couple weeks ago.  People, including me, were so. into. it.  Dancing and having fun and singing along. Even the homeless (to whom you must pay careful attention. He’s amazing. Especially around 0:34)

It goes a little wonky at the end because I couldn’t help but move my body to that beat.  Now, it must be stated that most street performers do NOT have this much success. Did you see that crowd??  He said he played for THREE AND A HALF HOURS that night.  I think we owe it to old man in front and the setlist which was amazing: that one song that goes, “And I said hey-ay-ay-eh-eh hey-yay-yeah, I said Hey! What’s going on?” + “You say it best… when you say nothing at all…” + Lionel Richie’s “All Night Long” can only equal success.

Rome Chapter 1: FOOD.

Going through the hundreds of pictures I took in Rome, I realized it’s way too hard to do a mega post on the weekend, so I’ll just do it in segments.  And I’m starting off with food. Because I’m Still dreaming about the homemade gnocchis.

It must be said: Italians really know how do do their food.  The French do too, but a lot of times to go out to eat in Paris really sucks when the bill comes.  The great thing about Rome was we could eat at real restaurants and it wasn’t that expensive.  (Which I think explains why the McDonalds (McDonaldses??) in France are always crowded whereas in Rome, NO ONE was in them. More cheap choices = less McDo = good.)

So pasta really isn’t that exciting where we come from.  Really.  But going to Italy will make you realize that pasta’s potential is totally lost anywhere else.

Homemade pasta. Tender porcini mushrooms.  Fresh tomato sauce.  Seriously real Parmesan cheese.  We came to this restaurant twice because this pasta melted our faces off.

Bruscetta. Pizza. Salad.  Looking at this makes me sad that this food is no longer available to me.  For the salads, they have bottles of balsamic vinegar and olive oil for the dressing.  The vinegar was SO GOOD i honestly thought about drinking it straight from the bottle.

Remember how Italy is the land of gelato?  Yeah well we took advantage of that.  I dont have pictures of it, but let me assure you, it was amazing.  And a small cup which they fill and load with twice its expected capacity is usually only about 2 euros.

This next is a stupid picture, but wanted to mention that I went into this cafe because it started pouring and so ordered a hot chocolate.  This hot chocolate was LITERALLY Chocolate that was hot.  Like putting a mug under a fondu fountain of dark goodness and drinking it.  It was pretty strong, but also really really good.

And to end, one last picture of ravioli stuffed with spinach and cheese.  Sweet dreams, everyone.