eeep

Halloween...

Originally was a vampire. But then the fangs wouldn't stay and tasted gross so now I'm a goth chick, I think... I just saw the wig and liked it and worked around it.

Pictures of these past few days coming soon...

Thursday I had art class. I painted. Then I got korean food with the homies (Nassim, Katie, Iris, Andy, Jacob, Priya). The waitress spoke chinese so I spoke to her in chinese. She said my chinese is very good. Afterwards we went to Katie's for a bit and hung out.

Friday I did absolutely nothing. I was SO drained that all day I couldn't get out of bed. I didn't end up going out either.

Saturday... I made up for Friday. I went to the catacombs, then we tried to go to Notre Dame but it was closed, so we went to the Pompidou to see the feminist art exhibit called "Elle". Everything had to do with vaginas. One particularly striking film was of a woman, naked, on a beach, hula hooping with barbed wire. Another one, a girl was sewing words into her foot and her hands. Another one was an adaptation of Barbe Bleue but with Blue Beard as a woman. It reminded me of Matthew Barney, the way she utilized space.

Then we went to the Marais and I bought a leather pair of shorts and a skirt. Then we went to dinner at Chez Marianne. Then I went home and took a shower, and met in the 15th to go to Nassims. The crew was there and we went to Le Tigre, which I didn't like at all. So I left because Claudia's friend was at Chez Moune and said it was a wild party that night there, so we went there, me, Claudia, Annabel, Jeff, Maya, and Camille. The taxi driver said he was done for the night but I told him please please please and he finally said okay fine. It was SO crowded in Chez Moune, luckily we didn't have to wait in the line that was around the corner because the bouncer knew Camille and recognized me (he touched my face, as in stroked my chin, it was weird). We couldn't breathe or move at all inside so we went across the street to a bar and had a drink then we parted ways.

I got kind of sick towards the end of the night, I just curled up in bed and blacked out the rest of the night.

Pictures coming soon I promise!!! I'm too lazy tired now. People are coming over at 10 then we're going out for Halloween. I almost just want to lay in bed.

Today I got a costume and met up in the 3rd with Katie and Priya at an adorable little cafe called Merle (i think..) and the muse. The barista made a little heart in my latte with the foam. I did some reading.

Oh I almost forgot, when I was home, at around 10, I was on my balcony and men were yelling at me from down below "BEBE BEBE BEBE HEY BEBE" and then I went inside and some people were knocking my door and ringing the door bell and I thought it was Carla but I heard men talking outside, so I didn't open the door (my roommates were away for the weekend, it was just me). Then they rang over and over and over and over, and then they somehow pushed the door and opened it. I screamed WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY HOUSE and they were like "une fille une fille (a girl a girl)" and I shut the door and dead bolted it. Somehow, our door wasn't bolted right, so that it could be pushed in and opened even when locked. Strange.

tired!

I'm so tired.

This morning I had a midterm for written contemporary. I left half an hour early.

Last night I sent some emails out to clear up next semester registration. I contemplated double majoring, but then I'd have too many classes left and I wouldn't graduate in time.

I thought about college, I took advantage of it as best I could, traveling to Shanghai and French, coming out with refined chinese, and being able to speak French.. I studied psychology, cinema, my two areas of interest, as well as literature, sociology, philosophy, creative writing, music. My only regret is that I wish I applied myself more, though upon re evaluation, I did the best I could given my situations, and also because I learn because I'm interested, not because I care about grades. I've never really cared about grades.

I'm reading a wonderful book. Actually, Tuesday our atelier was cancelled because the french students are on break because of the strikes. I borrowed a book on Freud, and "Stumbling on Happiness" from Cyndi. I also succeeded in borrowing Luis Bunuel's that obscure object of desire, because for days I couldn't find a librarian to check it out from so instead of having to find it in the book shelf every time, I just took the empty dvd case and carried it around with me.

that night I went to the Yeasayer show at the bataclan. Annabel met me and we had a drink next door, then carla came, and we went inside and made it all the way up to the front and danced danced danced. Iris, Nassim, Andy, Will, Priya, Carson, were all there. Some random drunk girl climbed on stage and started dancing, and the lead singer tried to shake her off of him and said I don't know you!

Then we took the train to Katie's apartment, right downstairs was a bar named bottle shop. Annabel and I wanted to go to Popin so we went back to where we came. Popin was much less crowded than on the weekends. We went down into the dance room and danced like crazy, it was pretty much empty except for a group of butch ladies that started dancing with us. Then I met a guy who is in a band that annabel had on her itunes, and he asked me whether I wanted to be recorded because he's a record producer. This other guy came up to me and started talking to me, and I recognized him from the Ryan McGinley exhibit and we talked for a while, he invited me to some party on thursday but I forgot where it was or what it was. Then these other two guys started talking to us saying that their girlfriends were in the NYU program too, 2 semesters ago, and then we went outside and started talking to their friends, and one of the guys came out and was unbuttoning his pants. Then he flashed his penis. So I grabbed Annabel and said we're leaving. She didn't see, but I did, and it was disgusting. We took a cab home and I vidchatted with Nick for a bit. We also checked out a few other bars on the block which were cute as well, reminded us of Lit lounge in NYC. We got home around 2 or so, I'd say.

All day class yesterday, with a visit to the Musee de L'Orangerie, an impressionist museum in a beautiful garden. Pictures to come. Then we discussed The Discrete Charm of the Bourgeousie in film class. Then I had to go home to finish up some more work and I took a nap, then woke up around 2, and then fell asleep again at 4 and had to wake up at 7:30 and run over to school for my midterm.

Things I have to do:

Send Andy Hilford an email about grad school

in 2 months, send another email to the personality professor

apply for research position I got in my mailbox this morning (refine & edit resume)

write the stupid paper for Text and Image

edit journal entries for written contemporary

study for text and image midterm

study for film midterm

prepare my document for my advanced convo presentation

UGH.

Balzac and Chopra

Balzac was known for working slowly, but for extended periods of time. In fact, he would write for hours and hours, once he wrote for 48 hours straight and only slept 3 hours.

I finished Chopra's Book of Secrets.

A melange of spiritual teachings and modern psychology. I found it interesting.

Chopra answers 3 essential questions:

Who am I?- You are the totality of the universe acting through a human nervous system

Where did I come from? You came from a source that was never born and never will die

Why am I here? To create the world in every moment.

He says that fear is the avoidance of pain. He says that anxiety and fear are sources of the shadow self, as discussed in Jungian psychology- our reptilian brain that stores negative aspects we choose to ignore about ourselves that act automatically when we dislike a person because they remind us of our own shadows. Sometimes when we repress them enough, they come out in ways such as anxiety attacks or break downs. That's when they need to be addressed. And to address them is to just feel the emotion until it passes into nothingness. Because to be full is also to be empty, it's transient.

"Cancer, the most feared of diseases, is the body's vacation from death, while programmed death is its ticket to life. This is the paradox of life and death confronted head on. The mystical notion of dying every day turns out to be the body's most concrete fact..." he goes on to argue that because our cells are programmed to die, our past selves, are all dead, because we've been renewed cellularly, so there's no use clinging onto an image of oneself, of identity, because it only serves to limit and constrain us to something that is already dead. He says that the gift of death allows constant renewal, a constant progress, and allows us all to develop and grow and shape shift to the next stage. Life is not continuous, physically nor mentally, so what are we afraid of?

He also goes on to quote Nietzsche, who says that humans are the only creatures who must be encouraged to stay alive. This is literally true, our cells receive messages that either tell it to stay alive or to die. Our body can trigger chemicals in our balancing act between life and death, as blood vessels receive signals triggered by cancer cells to bring blood supply to the them, and the exact opposite chemical is triggered in pregnant women that can cause a fatal disorder in which blood vessels die. The fact that the secret of health lies inside of consciousness is something ignored by modern day science.

Chef d'Oeuvre Inconnu...

Last night I had so much work! At 2 am I still hadn't written my 4 page fiche de lecture on a book that I had not read. So I went to sleep.

Had class at 9, then after it I ran to the library at 10:45 and at 12:15 I finished, and at 12:16 I printed, and at 12:30 I had the class in which it was due.

Don't know how I did it. And the most surprising thing is, I felt no, absolutely no, anxiety pulling off this little stunt. What a difference. It's like I have no fears or self doubts anymore. Strange feeling.

Balzac

Nick sketched me. I'm realizing everything has to do with noodles lately. Noodle monster. Feeling like a noodle. Nick's noodle doodle. Nick stretching his canvases like noodles.

This is too funny. So Nick tried to set this as his background but it cropped me and was just acorn head boy.
So then he decided to go all out and make this the desktop:

But then it got too creepy so he had to change it.

Working on a 4 page paper on Balzac's Chef d'Oeuvre Inconnu... due tomorrow. I think I'm gonna sleep instead and work on it tomorrow between classes. I'm not worried at all strangely.

Ce Week-end

Friday night was Nicholl's party. She got 20 euros worth of candy from our favorite Swedish candy store on Rue de Martyrs.

Claudia, Connie, Brittan, Ellen went home. I went out with Annabel, Nicholl and Susan, first to San Souci, then Chez Moune. Ran into Louis there, obviously, with my luck. He told me to learn to press the green button. I asked what? He said, that's how you answer your phone.

Then we went to another bar around the corner called Bus something.. apparently all the artists used to go there and take a bus there. There was a long line, but we walked up to the list guy and asked if we could go in and I think he brought out the manager or owner or someone who let us in. Inside, we were by a table, and some of the people at the table started telling me they thought I was "tres charmante" and gave me a drink. Then we went upstairs to the smoking room, which apparently all the rockstars used to do drugs in.

Around 4 or 5 I came home.

Next day I met Priya at the Grand Palais for the contemporary art exhibit that was only showing for the weekend. It was called FIAC

It was massive. We spent 2 hours or so there, on my way out the guard told me once again that i was "tres charmante" and didn't check my bag. The minute we left we got caught in the worst rain storm I've ever been caught in. Pellets of freezing cold rain. We found a cafe and I ordered some french onion soup and a tea. We were drenched. We then went to Champs Elysees and saw The Social Network, which I didn't like. Meanwhile I was freezing to death inside the theater because my pants were still wet. Then I came home and passed out.

Today Nicholl and I had a 3 hour brunch at Rose Bakery. So delicious.

Analysis

Snippets of my Biutiful analysis. Don't want to spoil anything since it doesn't come out until December in the states.. so I'll leave it as is.

ALSO! i'm going to madrid!

Biutiful

Today I went to Musée Delacroix in the morning for Text & Image

He used to live in my neighborhood before he moved out to St. Germain.

Then I went to The Flying Ant with Will, Connie, and Andy for lunch. We all ordered the same thing, un café and a salmon quiche. The waitress looked at us like we were aliens, all ordering the same thing.

Then Will and I did some reading, and Carla came over to meet me. We walked over to the MK2 on BLVD St. Germain to see Biutiful. It started 2 minutes before we got there. Parfait.

I watched this in Spanish/Chinese with French subtitles. It was definitely a language exercise for my brain.

It left me feeling only an Innaritu film can make me feel. The same way I felt after I watched Amores Perros, which was one of my favorite films in high school, for which I wrote many poems. His films make me feel physically cold, they open me up to the world and let the coldness penetrate me, when usually I retreat within myself to establish barriers between me and the outside world. It's so jarringly true, sad, real, what he presents in all of his films.

L'Esprit

Un petit truc!

School Art School

Today I had class at 9:00. Then I went home and took a nap!

Then I met up with Nicholl at the swedish candy store to go to the 19th arrondissement to the art class that I'm auditing that I haven't been to in 3-4 weeks (Opera, sick, then I had a field trip to a movie last week). Today we made portrait collages.

Nicholl told me that the area we live in is where all the hip youngin's (artists, musicians) are trying to live now. They call it SoPi because it's south of Pigalle. They like it because all the old legendary musicians and artists lived there.

Teacher's (Marie Lepetit) art studio

My collage
Teacher let them smoke in the studio


She has a beautiful siamese cat named Ombre- which translates to shadow.

You can't really see that well, but part of the head of the man in my collage is purple, and it says "dans" which means in- which was done purposely as the theme which is "inside the head".. most of it is psychological imagery, and the "dans" draws attention to the fact there's a symbolic intent behind most of it. also if you look closely i cut out 2 windows in the upper left hand corner and there is a head peaking through one of them and 2 people kissing in the other window. there's tree symbolism for inner growth, a man with an exploded head of objects- meaning chaos in the mind, some optical illusions, rorschach blot, as well as 3d stuff (i made the man's eyes look as if they're behind 3d glasses) i guess it has to do with perception and the internal aspects of it, how meaning is made.

tomorrow morning i'm going to the Musée Delacroix.

Musee D'Orsay

Today I went to Musée D'Orsay for my weekly field trip with my Text and Image class.

The teacher explained Baudelaire's critiques, as well as Gautier's critiques.

She also mentioned what a Lorette was, which is more high class than a high class courtesan. They were named after Notre Dame de Lorette where they all lived, which is my subway stop! I told her I lived in that neighborhood and she said, wow, most famous artists/musicians lived there, like Wagner, Chopin, and I forgot who else she named. I'm going to send her an email asking for a full list. Good to know profound inspiration was born where I'm now living.

Class was cancelled when Leila and I got back to school. We usually cut it pretty close to our Advanced Spoken class, but our teacher wasn't able to get to school because there were people protesting and sitting in the tracks of the subway. Instead, a few of us watched "Marius et Jeannette" which I didn't particularly like.

Then we had cinema class. Our teacher gave us the talk about our grades on our papers once again, this was the third time he prefaced that we shouldn't expect a good grade because most people get C's at the beginning and his goal is to get us to improve our composition and to not be worried. He said very very very few people got A's on this paper. Then he talked to us about how some of us did our formats wrong, ignored the structure, and wrote papers that were too long. I thought, I definitely failed this one, since the 2 page paper had turned into a 4 page stream of consciousness and had no format whatsoever, and completely ignored the guidelines. When he handed it back, after he called my name, he smiled softly. I looked at my paper and I got an A. He wrote at the top, your thoughts are VERY interesting, even though you didn't follow guidelines

i realized that in school, i've never been book smart, because i hate studying. instead, i'm an abstract thinker.

carla and i had an interesting talk during our break. she said that she saw a video about how in the future, jobs will be geared towards more right brained people, more creative types, who aren't book smart, who are the innovators, who think of ideas like ipods and iphones who don't just reproduce the same things over and over. we talked about how the school system doesn't encourage one's own passion in learning for the betterment of oneself, rather, it promotes a structured and very rigid box of thinking- it's an institution that teaches you more how to take tests rather than how to apply the information that you learn. i guess with my type of mind, it's a very good thing i didn't grow up in china. at least i feel that in the states, i'm more encouraged to exercise my mind the way it's naturally inclined to be exercised. it sucks because all of life is set up in a way that's better for people who are good at learning by the book, working repetitively, and i've never been that way- i spend a lot of time thinking and creating ideas and i get bored easily by routine, and society tells me the way that i am is wrong. but it's not.

i finally felt like i was recovering. so when i got home, the first thing i did were the dishes. then i cleaned my entire room. then i made dinner and tried to do a little bit of homework (i have major add when it comes to homework. don't know how i made it all these years through school. i guess i just got really good at taking tests and getting by with little to no effort. man, i wish i had better concentration, i could have learned so much more)

i can't tell how i'm feeling yet. i feel kind of.. blah. really tired, but i can't tell if that's just the sickness. i can't tell what's me, what's the sickness, and what are the meds. everything kind of hit me at the same time. but i guess that's the way it works for me. all the cherry blossoms die at the same time, and then spring comes and they blossom more than they ever did before.

oh and i should probably say that 2 nights ago i had an insane incident in which a french man decided that we were meeting up when i told him i was sick and couldn't hang out, and this lasted for 3 and a half hours, of him calling me non stop and leaving me voice mails and texting me and telling me i was being "silly and surrealistic" for not wanting to hang out, and that even if i were sick we could make tea and watch movies and i said definitely not, and he WALKED TO MY HOUSE and stood downstairs for an hour asking me for my door code. i told him i was watching antichrist to which he responded was his favorite movie and i think he really wanted to watch antichrist with me. uh. i hung up on him over and over just so he would stop calling but he wouldn't let up. i finally begged him in 3 different texts to please stop calling me, i need sleep, s'il vous plait, and he finally stopped at 3:30am.

maladie

I've been so sick I couldn't get out of bed since Thursday evening, except to get food.

Today I missed my morning class, but made it to my 2 other classes because I had to also make up a quiz I missed last week. I then made an appointment with a doctor for tomorrow, as I have no idea what it is I have.. It feels like a flu, it's just as debilitating, but I don't have a fever. I haven't been this sick since.. Sophomore year when I stayed up for a week straight because I had school, work, and finals, then I crashed so hard.

But, I watched a lot of movies and got a lot of rest. I watched:

Entre les Murs- 2008 Palm D'Or winner, takes place in a classroom for a year, showing the rapport between teacher and students in an impoverished, mostly 1st generation immigrant school.

Breaking the Waves- a girl in a very religious town marries a man, who goes away and is fatally injured and becomes fully paralyzed. he asks the girl to take on lovers and recount the stories, so he can live vicariously through them, since he can never make love to his wife ever again. she does, against her own morals, because she believes she's healing him through doing this and things spiral out of control

Antichrist- made by lars von trier, same director as breaking the waves, the son of a couple falls out the window and the mother becomes extremely depressed. her husband is a psychiatrist and takes her out of the hospital and into the woods so he can cure her himself..

A L'aventure- a woman is unsatisfied with life and decides to quit her job, cheat on her boyfriend, and starts dating a psychiatry student who also is a hypnotist, who introduces her to a strange realm of hypnosis and sexual awakening

The Last Mistress- a Catherine Breillat film about a man in 18th century Paris of high social standing who is about to marry a girl in high society, but before he does, he has to come clean about his 10 year affair with his mistress. Mistresses were short lived, so the film explores the dynamic between the two that kept them together for 10 years.

Wild at Heart- A 20 year old girl runs away with her beloved manslaughtering robber of a boyfriend who is "wild at heart", but so is the world around them.

did NOT like entre les murs, a l'aventure

1) not much happens, and there's not much resolution at all. overall, i was left disappointed, as i didn't learn anything and neither did the students. the french really do love school documentaries don't they? think etre et avoir.

2) HORRIBLE HORRIBLE MOVIE STAY AWAY. barely any plot, this lady wanted to learn about the world outside of the social expectations and institutions of marriage and work, but she ends up learning from a random guy she picks up at a cafe and a homeless taxi driver who sits on a bench all day. then she turns bisexual, then she cries when random guy suddenly declares love for some random sadomasochist submissive girl he meets, i don't even know how.

liked: breaking the waves, the last mistress, antichrist

1) self sacrifice, the power of love, shows the hypocrisy of religious institutions..

2) interesting. just, interesting and easy to watch.

3)very psychological. the director was recovering still from a deep depression during filming, and i could definitely relate to some darker aspects of this film, having just recovered myself.

loved: wild at heart

1)lynch. enough said.

so it looks like i'm going to london first week of november. here's hoping i get better soon.

Penis Envy

This morning I noticed on my Google Buzz that Nick Bright posted a wikipedia article listing incidents of penis removal

I checked out the list and I noticed that most of them happened in China.

Which got me thinking that it couldn't be just a coincidence. There must be, what Freud calls, "penis envy" engrained in the Chinese psyche moreso than in other cultures. Which led me to explore the 1 child law as installed by the Chinese government in 1979. As a means of population control, because China was becoming overpopulated, the government imposed the law that only one child could be born into each family and subsequent children would engender the family to severe fines. This led to Chinese society becoming extremely male oriented, moreso than in the past (Chinese always valued boys more in history- note that all emperors were males, there wasn't ever a queen Elizabeth-type in China, emperors were always allowed many wives, thus women were always valued less) because male heirs would ensure the continuation of the family lineage and acquire the assets, as well as continue any family ventures. Thus, it was common knowledge in China that little girls born after this time would be left on the street to die, often there were wheel barrows of corpses of deserted little girls, and even today, most orphanages only have little girls and rarely any little boys are unwanted.

So this entitlement that boys are born with is more pronounced in Chinese culture than anywhere else.

Thus, we can note that the women who cut off the penises of their lovers were mostly provoked by their unfaithfulness. Perhaps this triggered a deep seated penis envy, one that is more deeply embedded in the fabric of Chinese society- so they were born a male, and therefore they're allowed to do so much that women can't? What entitles them, just an extra bit of flesh? It triggers more of an aggressive attack, more of a displacement because there's much more anger, hurt, hatred, and repression involved in the Penis Envy of the Chinese.

Penis Envy by Freud's definition is the complex that develops in girls when they're young, and they see a naked little boy, and they realize that the boy has something that they do not possess themselves. This then creates an opposition, a have, and a have not, which automatically instills a sense of "lack" in the girl. She then unconsciously denotes that she is lesser than a male, or in relative terms, the - to the +. Very Simone de Beauvoir, who says that the idea of femininity is only definable relative to its masculine counterpart.

here's our google buzz thread:

Maria Liu - In 2010 Maria Liu attempted to cut off Bright's penis with a venus razor after a domestic dispute over the division of assets which would occur after the annulment of their shot gun wedding in Vegas. Liu wanted shared custody of C.F. Dean but Bright insisted upon granting full custody to Liu, who then burst into a hysterical rage while shaving her legs and begun lashing at Bright's nether regions. Bright fainted and later gained consciousness at the hospital, having had been dragged to the hospital by Cloudy. His severed penis was rescued from the garbage by Magnus and was re-attached, albeit not entirely successfully (50% function). Liu was never heard from again, and to this day, remains on the FBI's top 10 most wanted list. It is assumed she ran away to Europe.Edit3:10 pm

nicholas bright - lulz4:34 pm

nicholas bright - i love that sentence density4:35 pm

nicholas bright - me: i love how
everyone flushes peens
down the toilet
i just control f'd the word toilet
and 12 of these cases
women
threw the peen
down the toilet

maria: because the penis looks like a turd
the brain makes these associations8:33 pm

No Chartre Or Lyon

Couldn't make it to Chartre/Lyon this morning. Was too sick. Flu, I assume

Look at this sickness:

I bought some strawberry/raspberry/cherry tea, made a visit to the amazing candy store close to my house (to die for! i'm so impressed by french candies! this is dangerous...) yes i know i'm not supposed to eat candy when i'm sick but sick makes me depressed and when i'm depressed i want candy!! i am a little kid. i also bought more tomato soup.

i'm watching Breaking the Waves now.

Yesterday I finished Godard's "La Chinoise",

and went out to a movie called "Les Amours Imaginaires" for my written contemporary class (the movie sucked, it was made by a 20 year old director and took a lot, too much, influence from in the mood for love.)

Sick

Woke up feeling pretty sick.. like a fever is brewing. I had a 2 page paper to write on Notre Jour Viendra, which I saw yesterday with Carla. I ended up writing 4 pages because I liked the movie a lot. Apparently my professor hated it. I find it a bit frustrating when I want to express an idea that is already hard enough to express in English, let alone attempt to translate that into a secondary language.

Anyway, I felt like shit this morning. Got dressed, basically stayed in my PJ's, a total mess, walked out of my house at 1:30, running late. Train wasn't coming for another 7 minutes because there was a delay. Transferred onto the 9, and I noticed there was a man who was walking behind me and walked ahead of me and kept looking back at me. I felt weird so I went the other direction. Later I noticed the same man waiting behind me, still looking at me. Then he tapped me and I froze looking at him strangely because I was antisocial and anxious in the morning from being so sick. He motioned for me to take out my headphones. I did and he asked me something in french. In that moment I couldn't understand so I mumbled that I didn't speak french like an idiot. He said in english that he liked my purse and wanted to buy the same one for his sister. It was clear to me that he had been pondering what to say to me and decided upon the bag, because when he first saw me my bag was obscured from view on the other side of me. We had a short little conversation and when the train arrived I hopped right on, away from him. I noticed him continue to look at me but I didn't make any eye contact. I was bright red at this point because not only did I feel exceptionally awkward but he was the most intimidatingly beautiful man I have ever seen in my entire life. As he left he looked back at me and smiled a lingering smile. Bye.

I felt really sick during class. I think that at this point of sickness I'd have a hard time understanding english, but french was even harder. I had cinema class and I had a serious bout of anxiety because the room was so cramped and I was all the way on the far side of the room. It sucked. The class was great though, we went over Notre Jour Viendra and The Prophet.

Then on my way home there was a man in the elevator that tried to talk to me again in french. I again, was very very awkward. I don't understand why today is the day i'm approached by people who want to talk to me in french as i'm pretty sure i'm sending out massive "i'm sick leave me alone" vibes. Dah. Then when the man went upstairs I heard the piano from upstairs playing furiously. A few mornings every week I'm woken by someone playing the piano, and it's beautiful, and I think I solved the mystery of who the player is.

Pictures stolen from facebook

ravioli!

wine tasting and olive oil drenched bread, the best olive oil i have ever had. it was a bit spicy because it was so fresh.

Ciao Bella

Friday around 2, Carla and I headed out to meet at Porte Maillot where the buses to the airport were. An hour later by bus, we were at the Beauvais airport which is a tiny airport with only 4 gates. The monitor said we boarded at 6:45, so we got some food and waited. At 6:30 we went up to check out the monitors again, and next to our flight number was "Cloture" flashing in red. We realized that 6:45 was when our plane departed.. whoops. The gate was already closed, but we ran out right before the plane closed its doors.

A 2 hour flight, and we were in Pisa. We took a bus out to Florence, which took another hour or so. Carla's friend Mickey is studying in Florence through NYU so we were going to visit her. Carla's other friend Sophie is studying in Madrid this semester, but she came in for the weekend as well. They picked us up and walked us back towards the Duomo which looked like this:

It didn't look real at all. Mickey's apartment which is massive, is right by the Duomo which is in the city center. 8 girls live in that apartment. A few of the girls were out for the weekend in Rome and Milan, so I slept on one of their beds. Carla slept on the couch, and Sophie took the loft in Mickey's room which you had to climb 2 chair stacked on top of each other stacked on top of a desk to get up to. We got pizza to go (Eggplant) and I went to sleep that night. The other girls went out, but I was too tired.

Originally, we had planned to go to Rome for the day but that would have been too tiring as we'd have to wait all night until the trains ran again at 5 in the morning.
We got some Gelato on the way for breakfast (I got mint chip and pistachio)
Then we went to the food market to pick up some food for a picnic. We got dried fruit (coconut, kiwi, pear, strawberries, cherries, bananas, pineapples), giant pears, and cheese
This is the fake David in front of the museum with the real david inside.
We walked along the river
And hopped over the bridge onto one of these.. dangerous and illegal, but whatever.

We got a pesto cheese with pine nuts inside and this other cheese that looked like a little hamster. It was hard to open
but I managed to break it apart

Then Carla and I went to the Duomo

Climbed all the way up, lots of traffic jams, as part of the narrow stairwell was shared for entering and exiting. But it was well worth it.

We went back to Mickey's apartment & went out to dinner at Dante's. I had a spicy ravioli filled with spinach and ricotta, and we had some wine. Afterwards we went to a bar

Then to another bar, on the way we found this lovely horoscopic light display
then to a club called Space which was wild. To get in you got a card and you used the card to pay for everything including coat check and drinks and you paid the total on the way out

Italian men were very.. forward. A lot of them grabbed my butt and one even put his hand up my skirt. It was like swimming in shark infested waters. We'd move somewhere and a bunch of men would follow and circle around us. At one point, a guy came up to me and said that his friend was in love with me and to please please talk to him. He was really cute but I said I wasn't interested, and he said "you're too pretty for him anyway". Haha. Later I saw the guy who wanted to talk to me screaming at the guards because he didn't want to pay, saying that he needed his insulin because he was a diabetic and if he wasn't let out he was going to die. Classy.

In Florence, it's illegal to sell food after midnight. So to remedy drunk munchies, there are underground bakeries! We walked to one

And waited outside for an hour at least. A bunch of guys with scooter helmets came to talk to us, they didn't speak english, but Sophie started speaking Spanish, to which they responded and continued a conversation. They asked to see my tattoo, and all of them screamed in awe. I later asked Mickey if it was uncommon to have a tattoo in Italy, but apparently everyone does and I'm not sure why they were so awestruck. One of them then started asking if we'd go over to their house, because it was around the corner. Apparently they knew that the bakery had closed for the night and didn't tell us, because they wanted us to stay there and talk to them. I screamed Pasta party?? and the guy was super excited and tried to bring us over to their apartment. But our mission was to get food, so we found a pizza place, and then two of the guys came to find us. One of them said "Pasta party!" I said "No sorry, my friends don't want to go" they said "Why don't you come by yourself then?" at which point I ran out of the door. They watched us bolt longingly from their apartment door.

It was about 6am when we went home. At 9 in the morning, Carla and Sophie burst into my room. I was already up because it was so cold I couldn't sleep and NYU in florence housing only supplied tiny thin little blankets for each of its residents. I was so hung over, and we were already late for the bike tour. We got dressed in 15 mins and ran out the door, running through Italy, attracting strange glances.

We drove in a van for an hour out to Tuscany where we toured and wine-tasted

And saw some sights

Before jumping on a bike for a 13 mile bike ride. My bike was named Harry Potter

Then we all had lunch together. I got penne with tomato sauce. The couple sitting across from Carla and I were newly weds, this was part of their honeymoon. They said that in highschool, the girl played an online game and was matched randomly with her now husband. For years they dated long distance before she finally moved out to New York for him, and now she works at HBO.

Mickey tried to put her helmet on backwards, and a girl just stared at her and said 'yeah I was watching you but I didn't say anything'. Mickey also took a wrong road and got lost. Sophie wasn't allowed to bike ride so she had to take the van.

After this all day debacle, we headed back around 6 or so, got gelato for dinner. We got it at the best gelato place in Florence which happened to be very close to the bakery from the night before. While we were standing on the corner, I noticed one of the guys (Carla and I called him "backpack" because he wore a backpack) from the night before come outside and I said "Oh my god oh my god don't look". He saw me and went to the window of his friend's apartment where they wanted us to go the night before which was right across the street and pointed to us. Then we ran away. I read my Jung book while everybody else did homework. We were going to go out but having only slept 3 hours before such a long bike ride, we decided it would be better if we didn't.

Next day we had to get up at 9 or so because the house keepers came at 9:30 and if they knew there were overnight guests, Mickey would be written up. Apparently overnight guests are not allowed.

I saw dese bebes

Florence is the home of Pinocchio
I had a honey wheat croissant and a green tea
Museums were closed, we wanted to check out David. But instead we saw this guy
Then Mickey picked us up at the bus station and took us over to the NYU in Florence campus which was... gorgeous. Fig trees, olive trees, hills..

Carla picking figs

After we went for our last italian pizza. We got one with pesto, and another with tomato sauce

I had so much fun, Florence is easy to navigate since it's so small that it's completely walkable. Also, everyone speaks English. The problem is that if I lived there I'd get so fat, also there's not much of a cultural experience because it's so touristy.

Then Carla and I went to the airport but we had some extra time so we ended up exploring Pisa for an hour. Carla asked a few people where the leaning tower was, and in Pisa barely anyone speaks English so they didn't understand. Carla put her hands up in the air vertically, then tilted both of them to one side, and then people would laugh and understand what it was we were saying. Haha!
And I then found Waldo in the airport
The moon was bright orange as we flew home.
It felt great to be back in Paris. Paris is starting to feel like home.