I got my visa today!
Woot. Now I just have to go try to get a residency card when I get back to Paris. Which will be a whole other set of hoops to jump through.
But yay! I’m legal! And stuff!
Monthly Archive for November, 2005
I’m thinking Friday evening for the ZG.
If you wanna hang out before then, drop me some email (cola at geeklikethat dot com) or give me a call. My cell phone is working and the number is the same as always.
You know, sometimes I post photos to flickr and I don’t really have much to say, journal-wise.
I took a few pictures while I was traveling from Paris to LA this week. The Zurich airport is maybe the poshest airport I’ve ever been in. Something about the art, the light, and the designer clothing stores made me feel like I maybe wasn’t in the right tax bracket to be flying through there. John says it’s the Nazi gold.
On a slightly different topic, I love organizing my photos into various sets. I created an in-transit set for pictures I take while going places. It’s good times. Being able to group and re-group photos across sets makes me happy.
Next time I blog it’ll be from the US.
Leaving tomorrow morning on a 10am flight to Zurich, where I will catch a flight to LAX.
I’ll be in SoCal until Sunday morning, at which time I will fly to Oakland. I’ll be in Oakland until the following Saturday morning. Then I’m back in Paris, hopefully for a good long stretch.
Wish me safe travels!
‘les and I went for a nice walk today. Sunday’s are strange in Paris. All the shops are closed (esp. the big chains and department stores) but lots of people are out on the street window shopping. I guess that’s what you do when nothing’s open and you want to take a walk….
Anyway, we walked up Blvd Haussmann in the 9th in the vain hopes of finding a few clothing stores open. Nothing was open, of course. But we did get a chance to get to know the 9th a little better. Blvd Haussman mostly seemed to have large office buildings until you suddenly hit a large shopping district, centered on two huge department stores – the Galeris Lafayette and Printemps, which happen to be across the street from each other. Both of these stores have elaborate Christmas displays up so we stopped to do some people watching. The displays were all animated and kid-oriented, which moving dolls and little stuffed animals. Both stores had lights up out on the side walk as well as some decorations on the sides of the buildings.
A few blocks from there is the old Opera house. It’s a neat building, festooned with statues and busts of famous composers. I was impressed. I’m hoping to catch and show there are some point. I think most of the performances at this venus are ballets.
On our way home, we decided to wonder over to the 18th and walk down Blvd de Clichy, which is where the Moulin Rouge is. The 18th is a weird district, what with being known for having a giant church and about 10 blocks of strip joins and porno palaces. It’s also oddly touristy. Having only walked around there a little bit, I’m now wondering if someone will decided to clean up Clichy they way the cleaned up Times Square a while back, or if it’s firmly considered to be part of the local color to have a half mile of strip joins along a major street. The whole street was pretty clean and wholesome if you don’t count the strip joints so maybe the decision’s already been made…
“OK, get ready to kick my ass, but it’s really tough to live in San Francisco for any length of time and emerge as a lover of slam poetry. I understand how slam poetry might be acceptable to those who’ve never been burned in the holy hellfire of terrible slam poetry everywhere, all the time, but I shudder when I hear it. Hell, I shudder when someone says something in a really adamant voice and it just happens to rhyme.”
So yesterday I biked myself over to the Bon Marche (which just happens to be the oldest department store in Paris) to have a look around at their gourmet food section. I wasn’t all the impressed by it, although it was huge. It was sorta like going to a big Andronico’s or something. Everything looked really nice but it was way over priced.
Anyhow, the Bon Marche is way the hell away from where I live. It’s on the other side of the river and it’s really a pain in the butt to bike to. When I left it was only 2pm and it wasn’t even raining. So I decided to pop over to the Louvre and spend a few hours wondering around there.
I’ve never been to the Louvre before. It was outstanding and rather overwhelming. I was there for 3 hours and only saw a fraction of their collection. I skipped all the paintings except for the Mona Lisa and tried to focus on their statues and even then I didn’t see nearly everything they had.
I did manage to see the three things that I always think of when I think of the Louvre – the Mona Lisa, the Winged Victory, and the Venus de Milo.
The Mona Lisa isn’t worth the hype, I have to say. I think that’s a fairly common opinion, but I want to say it myself. I’ve actually seen several da Vinci paintings, having been to the Uffizi and all, and I gotta say that I really don’t care for any of them. I’ve also seen a few of da Vinci’s sketches and I liked those a lot. They’re significantly more interesting than the paintings corresponding paintings. The Mona Lisa isn’t even better than the rest of his work. Eh.
Now, The Winged Victory is a whole other story. That thing is worth the hype. First off, it’s bigger than I expected. Damn things is huge. And it’s just beautiful. I think I was most impressed with the way the her dress drapes over her. Something about the play of the clothing and the way it captures motion is just stunning. Ah. I could have stared at it all day.
The Venus de Milo is also lovely. She didn’t make the impression on me that Nike did, however.
I also got a chance to see Hamurrabi’s code while I was there. I was giddy in a way only history geeks can get. Hamurrabi’s code is the oldest written law code to be found so far. It was written on a huge black stone slab and was clearly meant to be displayed for everyone to see. It was ever so exciting to see them up close.
I took a bunch of photos in Louvre, but most of them were on film. I did take a few digital photos, though. They’re up on flickr now.
Yet more Spain photos. Yes, I know, I took a lot of pictures. I know. No. Really. I know.
While I was working on scanning my photos from Cordoba and Sevilla, I realized that I forgot to scan most of a roll of photos from Segovia. Some of these were my favorites from Spain. The one pictured above is for sure.
So I scanned in those photos and I’ve posted them. You’re welcome to just go through the Segovia directory again. Or you can just click on the images below to see the new ones.
Enjoy.
I’m coming back to the States on Monday.
And I keep thinking of things I want to get while I’m there. Some of it is stuff I just want to pick up from home. Some things I’d like to buy because things are somewhat less expensive in the States.
To Buy:
- Flannel PJs – It’s freaking’ freezing up in here and I only have on set of flannel PJs. I’d like at least one more.
- Slippers – I left my giant slippers at home. I think I need a more packable pair anyway. Thick wool socks will also do the trick.
- A bathrobe – See the note about it being freezing. I want a nice soft bathrobe. Mmmm
- Black or grey wool pants – I think I’ll need a pair. I really want some wool salior pants but other wool pants would also be nice.
- Yarn – Not only am I have trouble finding a good selection of yarn here, but it’s more expensive. Oh how I long to live in Italy where wool comes from. Heh.
- The Knitter’s Handy Book of Patterns – I want to start to learn to design simple things like gloves and socks. I really want to learn to make socks for some reason. I think my feet are just cold a lot right now.
- Various other pattern books and um…stuff to read.
- You know what I’d love? To be able to sew something while I’m back in the states and have access to a sewing machine. Like a bag or something.
To Grab:
- A bigger purse than the ones I have here.
- My black cloche hat.
I think I’ll be updating this list as things pop into my head.