Brilliant Brizzle

It was the reunion of all reunions. On Thursday afternoon, nearly ten years after our last departure and 17 since the year we spent together, I flew to Bristol, UK to spend the weekend with my favorite au pair Rachel and her family. I was stoked. As I descended over the gorgeous English countryside, however, I all of the sudden began to worry about what our relationship would be like. After all the majority of our interaction was when I was three, and frankly I don't remember any of it. What if our personalities didn't match up and the whole weekend was awkward? And was Rachel afraid the girl she knew at age three would be someone she wouldn't get along with at 20?

Now I've had some pretty dumb notions on planes before (I spend a lot of time up there), but I literally don't think I've ever been more wrong in my life. If it's possible to have a mother, an older sister, and a best friend all in one--that's Rachel. The nicest, most loving person with the sweetest infectious laugh you've ever heard. I exited customs with wide eyes frantically searching the arrival area for a familiar face, and there she was, right in front of me. We made eye contact, and suddenly everything just sort of clicked. After a tense week of being on my own in Paris, I was instantly relieved.

I spent Thursday night drinking my first cup of English tea, eating loads of pizza, and meeting Rachel's husband Dave and his son Sam. Sam explained cricket to me as we watched it on the telly, although I still don't totally get it. But they don't understand American football either so I guess we're even for now.

Later on I moved into the Purple Room upstairs, complete with my own bathroom and a lovely scenic window view. Which also meant time to open my suitcase and find out which fundamental item I had inevitably forgot to pack. Unfortunately it turned out this trip's casualty as a result of packing an hour before I left was pajamas. That's a new one. Usually it's a hairbrush or toiletry of some sort of thing that is easily replaced, so this particular forgetting really caught me off guard. Ashamed, I slept in my clothes.

The view. An excellent contrast to the hustle and bustle outside my window in Paris.

I slept like a rock the first night since I had really only gotten 3 hours of sleep the night before. Don't ask--what happens in Paris stays in Paris (I feel like I'm going to be saying that a lot this month). But I woke up promptly the next morning, in time for my second cup of English tea before we headed out to start my very own guided tour of Bristol, courtesy of Rachel and her amazing mum, Nanny Pat. Little did I know I would be completely smitten with the city by the end of the day.

First stop was the S.S. Great Britain. Admittedly I was only mildly interested at first, until it clicked on the way over about how big of a naval powerhouse Britain has historically been, meaning this ship was kind of a big deal. I learned that it served a lot of different purposes over the last 175 years based on the state of the nation during the time period; but, originally it was conceived as a luxury transatlantic ocean liner. After discovering this Rachel and I looked at each other immediately thinking of our mutual vacation proclivity: CRUISE SHIP.

The grandaddy of Royal Caribbean.

Accommodations have definitely been updated since then, but the inside of the ship was still pretty swanky for the 1800s. Except I was majorly creeped out by the lifelike wax figures of statues that I couldn't tell apart from the other real people on the ship.

We then head over to our next destination and to meet Nanny Pat for the very first time. Oddly enough it's a little nerve-wracking to meet for all these people who only know you from your baby pictures. I guess I raised a pretty high bar for myself at age three, so I was worried I wouldn't meet those standards I set when I was barely toilet trained. But I forced myself to forget about it because little did I know Rachel and Nanny Pat had planned an extensive itinerary that would keep me on my feet all day (literally). We began at St. Mary Redcliffe Church, just another 600-year-old architecturally stunning structure chilling in Europe. No big deal. That's the thing I love about Europe, there's so much more history here. Every building is fab, and constructed out of gorgeous stone or intricate woodworking rather than giant iron pylons and enormous glass windows that the U.S. really digs.

 She would stick out like a sore thumb in Hinsdale.

Before we knew it lunchtime was upon us, so we journeyed through the town until we arrived at my very first pub in England, The Llandloger Trow, a 400-year-old tavern that withstood a World War II bomb leaving half the roof missing and the upstairs windows tilted on a slight 15 degree angle. And bearing the only other word in the English language beginning with two L's besides llama. Thank goodness it survived otherwise I wouldn't have the opportunity to discover the delicacy that is the jacket potato. 

All bundled up. 

More familiar in the States as a baked potato. But jacket sounds so much cooler. Makes me want to rename other skinned fruits and vegetables, like "turtleneck banana" perhaps. The British have better names than us for everything really. For example:

How polite is that?

It basically implies, "If you wish to leave this is the route you would use, but take your time." As opposed to EXIT or SORTIE which is more like, "Get out of here already." Loves it. Or how about this one:

I half expected it to say "Rubbish."

Anyway I digress. After lunch we passed through St. Nicholas Market which was teeming with shoppers and vendors alike. Rachel and Nanny Pat's favorite tent sold t-shirts with stereotypical Bristolian phrases unintelligible to my American mind. Their hilarious translations had me doubled over, so I considered that my 8-minute ab workout for the day.

Not that I needed it because we walked everywhere. I should be used to it by now, but it's still exhausting. The end of the day made it all worth it though. We headed towards Bristol University through the trendy, youthful Clifton neighborhood that was reminiscent of a college campus back home, yet with a vintage feel surrounded by all that historic architecture. Like what an Ivy League school tries to look like. It was magnificent. 

I'm a sucker for gothic architecture.

It was official: I am coming back. As soon as possible, and for more than three days next time. Hopefully Rachel and Dave are down. If not I bet Nanny Pat will be.

The icing on the cake was our final stop at the Clifton Suspension Bridge. The guy who designed the S.S. Great Britain also designed the Bridge. Talk about an overachiever. Nanny Pat lead us to several viewing points so I could experience it from three different distances to get the full effect. It was brilliant. Opened 150 years ago for horse-drawn carriages, it meets modern standards for automobile travel across the gorge. Now that's engineering. I also learned that it used to be a common suicide bridge, which explains the extreme fencing job and the Good Samaritan Hotline number on the bridge towers.

I know I'm standing in the way, but you get the idea.

Lush. Gert lush. (It's a Bristolian thing.)

And as if that wasn't amazing enough, one after another about a dozen hot air balloons began to speckle the grey skies with some color. It was one of those moments where everything just kind of aligns. It was perfect.

If I were a mildly talented photographer showcasing at one of those art festivals everyone goes to but doesn't buy anything at, this would be my chef d'oeuvre. 

The next incident would change the entire course of events over the next two days: Dave bought me my first cider. It tastes just like sparkling apple juice you have on New Years Eve when you're six, until all of the sudden your limbs go numb and words start flowing uninhibitedly out of your mouth. Wicked. We all finished a pint at a pub along the Avon River and then relocated to another lovely joint so I could check one of my lifelong dreams off the food bucket list--real fish & chips in England. Also another pint of cider. And another English delicacy I wasn't aware of: mushy peas. They were quite delicious actually.

From baby food to a traditional English dinner, apparently Rachel's favorite dish to serve me is mushy peas.

We returned chez Miles and head straight to bed (not before another cup of English tea, mind you) in preparation for our trip to London the next day. All in all I have to say that I fell in love with Bristol. I think it's the multi-faceted nature that I'm obsessed with. Part countryside, part lovely habitable neighborhood, part harbor town, part college campus, all with Old Britain influence. Oh and did I mention Banksy?

Grim Reaper on the side of the Thekla boat.

The Cheating Wife down the road from Bristol Uni.

As if the aforementioned wasn't enough, the satirical graffiti artist was raised in Bristol and has left his creative mark around the city. I hadn't even heard of him until one of his works appeared in Westwood a few months ago, and now I was experiencing his originals in real life. Rachel has a few canvases depicting his work that line her hallway too and it looks really cool. I'm a huge fan. 

Friday night had me on a giant Bristol high, leaving me thinking that my trip couldn't get any better.

And then we went to London.

No School Tomorrow!!

That's right, my vigorous 3-day school week is over and it's officially the weekend. Today has been spent mostly getting ahead on studying though in preparation for my trip to England tomorrow! Who knew you had to study in a study abroad program? Turns out taxation isn't a walk in the Tuileries Garden. But it's still pretty interesting and way less complex than a 10-week course at UCLA would have been.

Yesterday was the first of our organized walking tours with the program. We took the Metro as a 40-person group and all I have to say is I felt so bad for the poor French people trying to get on with their daily lives that ran into our giant glom at the station. I sort of felt like I was on a kindergarten field trip following the leader, sticking to the buddy system, and repeating the colors and numbers of the metro lines over and over again. As an already seasoned Metro-rider, I found this quite nettlesome.

My buddy system and I in the Metro tunnels.

Our first stop--l'Hotel des Invalides. It is home to the French Army Museum and, more famously, Napoleon's tomb. It was odd going through the World War II section of the army museum because I'm so used to seeing everything from the American perspective rather than the French perspective. I did my best to read all of the information (it was all in French), but shortly I got a headache from scrutinizing every single word in order to translate. One thing I did learn is that the French like tassles on their army headwear. One helmet was decorated with long platinum blonde strands erupting from the top. It reminded me of a Barbie. 

Des Invalides. The French sure do have cool buildings.

Napoleon's tomb. Talk about a complex.

The picture of Napoleon's tomb was taken from the second story of the crypt looking down. It was kind of creepy looking at the coffin on the pedestal. I kept picturing a shriveled midget inside. Not really the most pleasant of images. I wonder what he is wearing in there.

Then we head over to the Rodin Museum around the corner. If you have no idea who that is, don't feel bad because I didn't either. But he was the dude who trademarked "the Thinker" pose in sculpture.

When I look at this the only visual that comes to mind is Winnie the Pooh saying "Think, think, think..."

Am I right?

Rodin also apparently had a legit house that-surprise!-they turned into a museum. The sculptures inside were pretty angsty and all naked, so I think I would have rather seen all his furniture and stuff instead. But the views of the gardens (where the Thinker statue is) from the upper balcony were magnificent. 

Caught by the paparazzi. 

After we finished walking through the museum we were free to go, so some friends and I decided to walk to the Eiffel Tower which wasn't too far away. It's probably one of my favorite things here, I could visit it a million times and never get bored of the sight. Yesterday was especially sunny, lighting up all the greenery of the parkway leading up to the Tower. French people and tourists alike were lounging on the grass all over. It was a pretty sweet sight.

My calf muscles will be bulging by the end of this trip with the amount of walking I do daily.

At the end of the night we took a relaxing stroll to the Seine to hang out along the banks like the other young French folk. I felt like less of a tourist when the river cruise boats sailed by and the passengers were taking our picture as if we were the locals. 

Don't let the amount of light deceive you, it was probably around 9:30pm. It never gets dark here for some reason.

So that's the really fast, lazy version of what the last two days have been like. I'm feeling an evening nap creeping over me, and I think I'm about to let myself succumb to it. Bonne nuit errybody.

Tribute to Bob

I would like to dedicate this post to Robert Schaller, the Founder of the Feast. Without him I would not be on this amazing trip, so I am thankful. The following are photo highlights from our time in France together:

The père et sa fille. Adorbs.

The tallest man in Europe atop la Tour Eiffel.

We conquered the Metro together.

He said, "I want to go to the top."

"You want to do what?"

I give him props for climbing up 287 stairs.

Celebratory gelato. Because we always have gelato. Even in France.

Notre Dame, our favorite site we visited.

Can't wait till the next father-daughter excursion! (Sorry Mom and Beth.)

Back to School!

While I am quite sad that my dad's trip has come to a close, I must confess that I cannot even contain my excitement for the second and main portion of my study abroad.

I checked into the Citadines apartment/hotel yesterday (shoutout to Bob for rolling my 50 pound suitcase through 3 transfers and up and down 5-10 flights of stairs on the Metro from our hotel near the Eiffel Tower to my "apart-hotel" a few blocks down from the Bastille). The setup is pretty sweet. Similar to a (small) apartment I've got a little kitchenette area to prepare my own food, but the rest is like a hotel room with a cleaning staff that comes in once a week. It is actually quite lovely.

My bed (right). Already messy. And made for the only time all month I'm sure.

The kitchen. Eco-friendly bag full of groceries and a plate of chocolate croissants I stole from the hotel this morning.

View outside my window in case I ever forget I am in Paris.

After a rather large café au lait (necessary to stay awake for the 3 hour lecture), I headed into my first study abroad class in the Citadines conference room: International Business Law aka Management 109. If you promise not to tell my professor, I'll admit I hadn't done the reading for class today (Rome was too fun). As a result, I had a few jitters walking into the "classroom." Or perhaps it was the caffeine from the café. Either way, to my relief I discovered that no one else had read either. I have never been more excited to be surrounded by underachievers. 

Today's class was mostly an overview of the program. My heart was pounding in excitement (or again from the caffeine jolt) as our professor, who is the associate dean of UCLA's Anderson School of Management, described to us all the walking excursions and field trips we will be taking around France during the month abroad. Then we eventually delved into the law material, discussing how to do case briefs. Luckily for me I have an overenthusiastic nerdy lawyer for a father, so I am way ahead of the game. (I got a lecture on how to brief cases over lunchtime lasagna in the Piazza Navona in Rome.) 

After class a bunch of us decided to head out immediately to grab our first Parisian lunch together and later buy groceries at the supermarché. As true Los Angelenos, my fellow UCLA students and my first déjeuner in France was at Planet Sushi. Secretly against my will I might add, as I am partial to du pain et du fromage. To be fair, this was the most legit sushi place ever (way to be outdone, Japan).  It was designed like those cute little hotdog joints where the food comes around to you on a mini train. Then you pay for every plate you pick up. 

Ultra modern. Lots of pink. And check out the sushi conveyer belt against the wall.

It gets better. They sell dessert sushi rolls. And in true European fashion, they contain Nutella and are wrapped in a crepe instead of seaweed. France, even your sushi is epic. I am in awe. 

If you're wondering if Nutella and strawberries taste weird with rice--they don't. Rice has no flavor; it's just chewy. 

We ventured off to the supermarket for groceries afterwards, where I purchased all the essentials: yogurt, Orangina, and frozen lasagna (among a few other things). The reason why I shopped so light? I have two giant packs of protein bars thanks to Ranger Bob. That's more protein than a whole brood of chickens. Plus I'm sure I'll be eating out even more than I want to since we're often away from the hotel. 

I returned to my room mostly to refrigerate my perishables, but since I was there and without solid plans, I decided that I should probably do my homework for International Taxation, the other course I am enrolled in here. BUT--you'll be proud of me--I already did the reading for tax! Though I barely removed the cellophane on the business law textbook, I powered through the tax book earlier in the summer when I was bored. Phew. More time to catch up on the reading I didn't do and eat the chocolate croissants on the counter. 

Later on the majority of the kids in my group are meeting up to hang out along the Seine for the night. Ooh là là! Quite the Parisian I have become. 

Zut Alors

Bonsoir! Ah Paris, je t'aime. This city is incredible. I can't believe I'm finally here, after eight long years of oral exams, the dreaded subjunctive, and a dependence on freetranslation.com, French class has finally paid off. I've wanted to come here ever since that fateful day in Madame Beyer's sixth grade class when I conjugated my very first verb.

I bet you're all dying to know how I've been faring in the City of Light, but unfortunately I learned the hard way never to trust a Radio Shack employee and have a dead and currently unchargable laptop. The voltage adapter recommended to me for European outlets does not support the wattage of my MacBook charger, and what with all the extreme blogging I have been engaging in the battery well has run quite dry.

One of my first memories in Paris has been asking the guy behind the counter at the local Office Depot (makes sense they have those here, "depot" sounds so French) who spoke zero English if they had laptop voltage adapters. Now that was an experience. Madame Beyer taught me how to conjugate the verb chercher so I could communicate that I was looking for something, but "voltage adapter" never came up in our vocabulary lessons. Nevertheless I struggled through and was actually directed to some kind of adapter, but not exactly what I needed. So for the time being, let your imaginations run wild with visions of the shenanigans I have gotten involved in thus far, and I will debrief everyone on my happenings once I figure out the charging situation.

All I'll say for now is Vive la France. Vivent les Nutella crepes. And vivent--for lack of a better term--les voltage adapters.

Ciao Roma!

This post is bittersweet. While visions of Nutella crepes are dancing in my head aboard my flight to Paris, I can’t help but think that the last four days went by too fast. We saw practically everything on the map, but I could see those monuments a thousand times over and still never cease to be amazed. But I tossed that coin into Trevi Fountain, so with or without Neptune’s blessing, I’ll be back.

Some final thoughts on Rome:

1) Gelato just trumped froyo in my book. Sorry Red Mango, you’re going to have to do better than that. There’s nothing more perfect in the ice cream genre. It’s creamier, lighter, it doesn’t melt as easily, the spoons are neon… need I say more?

          

      2) What’s up with the cat obsession? Every street vendor and souvenir shop carries a large 12-month calendar of cats posed on various Roman architectural structures. 

I don't understand.

I've been to the Colosseum so I can safely say this vantage point is not real.

    I mean, I have two cats, but that doesn’t equate to wanting to see Whiskers lounging at the Colosseum for the entire month of November or Oswald playing in St. Peter’s Square all of July. Out of curiosity though I put together my own calendar using the CatPaint app, just to see how it feels.

Fat cat on the Spanish Steps.

Black cat at the Roman Forum.

Laser cats at the Trevi.

       It feels creepy.

    3) Lack of drinking water. Water fountains don’t exist, except for the occasional janky pipe coming out of the ground in some of the piazzas. They should put all those bathtubs on display in the Vatican Museum to better use. Water isn’t free at restaurants either. So there is no advantage frugally to order water at a restaurant. Oh except for the fact that a Coke costs almost $9 US. Which leads me to my next point,

    

     4) Everyone in Europe is skinny. Or rather, no one in Europe is overweight. At first we were shocked, but now I kind of understand. Soda consumption is severely curbed by its uneconomic cost, for one. We saw one Burger King and one McDonald’s the entire trip (and none in the airport), suggesting that fast food is not a celebrated concept over here. Convenience stores don’t have endless aisles of chips and candy, though interestingly enough they are big on Pringles. Still, candy is packaged in what we would consider “fun size,” and cookies are more like biscuits than giant sugar bombs. They are also masters of portion control. A novel concept I realize. But how is it that I could consume an entire three-course meal in one sitting in Rome when at home I can’t even finish an appetizer as my entrée? Calorie count aside, I’ll take the three courses.

      5) Everything here is smaller. Not just the people. Cars, streets, buildings, shopping carts, etc. Yet everything functions just as well, if not better. America’s obsession with largeness is becoming increasingly evident to me as I spend more time in Europe. We’ll see if Paris is the same. One thing I know for sure is that my first automobile will be a Smart Car.  I don’t care if it’s barely bigger than the Fisher Price my dad used to push me down the street in. It’s so small that it’s length is about the same width as a regular car. I’ll never have to learn to parallel park. I can just pull in perpendicular to the space. Win win.

   Well I'm in Paris now so it is time to move on. Ciao Roma, it's been real. Bienvenue à Paris!

Why Do All Good Things Come to an End?

Good question, Nelly Furtado. Today unfortunately marked the end of 1) my time in Rome and 2) the beautiful weather we've been having all week. Thankfully the rain held off just long enough for us to make our final stop in the Eternal City: the Colosseum.

Whoa.

Holy cow. This might just be the coolest darn thing I have ever seen. The Romans were extremely advanced for their time, building this enormous arena over 2000 years ago. Funny enough, despite how ancient it is, it doesn't look much different from modern day stadiums like Soldier Field. The whole thing used to be covered in marble too. Fancy.

A primeval Rose Bowl. 

Apparently it had nearly 80 entrances, so after the matches they could have everyone cleared out in about 15 minutes. Certainly not the case anymore. Though I don't think they had to deal with as much parking lot traffic. Inside the stadium man would fight man, man would fight animal, or animal would fight animal. Animal fights were to the death, and they fought so often that species almost became extinct. Guess PETA didn't exist back then. Michael Vick would have fit right in. 

Next door to Il Colosseo is the Roman Forum, a plaza filled with ruins from ancient Rome. Now about two years ago, I visited the historical site of Jamestown in Virginia only to find, much to my disappointment, that all that was left was a few one-brick high foundations. At the Forum, there were giant arches, halves of temples, and other well-intact government buildings of downtown ancient Rome. These guys were amazing. 

McDonald's can't compete with those arches.

Or these.

I'm just a bill yes I'm only a bill, and I'm sitting here on Capitoline Hill.

They must've used rubber cement instead of Elmer's on this side of  Julius Caesar's Temple.

Imperial Rome was not a bad way to end my trip here. Our tour guide also looked like a cross between Hugh Laurie and Steve McQueen which made for an entertaining time, despite the fact that my walkie talkie thing died halfway through and I had no idea what he was telling us. I can see why the people of Rome were p.o.'ed at Victor Emanuele for knocking some of this down to build a giant white marble monument for himself. The true beauty of Rome is how advanced these people's thinking was at the time and how it shows up in architecture all over the city. No need for skyscrapers here.

My last supper consisted of traditional Italian fare: bruschetta, insalate, fettucine, and pizze. The food here is amazing because it's restaurant fare tastes like a home-cooked meal made with love rather than something heated up from a freezer. I shed a tear as I spooned my last gelato in Rome into my mouth. But least my food baby will last me another 24 hours.

Mama mia!

I'll wrap up Rome tomorrow on my way to France. Buona notte!