They said I was Blairena...

I couldn't resist.... The trailer for Gossip Girl Season 4 has just been released and OMG it's WAY too similar to my own Paris adventure. How does this keep happening? Things are starting to get a little creepy... (for the record, mine was a motorcycle and not a vespa and it belonged to one of the French waiters...)

Click the link if you dare...

xoxo

http://ausiellofiles.ew.com/2010/08/16/first-look-gossip-girl-season-4-trailer/

Paris is my hometown

I had heard some terrible things about Paris. "It's overrated." "It smells bad." "The people are rude." "They hate Americans." "Don't expect anyone to be nice to you." So imagine my surprise when I got there and everything (aside from the exchange rate) was PERFECT.

Paris is beautiful. It does not smell bad. It deserves all the romanticizing it gets. Parisians like Americans in general and I didn't meet a single person who wasn't wonderfully kind to me. Think free meals, free alcohol and a seemingly endless supply of handsome men offering to carry my luggage. I was in heaven! Then again, I was a 20-year-old red headed girl traveling by herself, but still. (And in case you are wondering, no, I do not speak French but I wish I did. It's a truly captivating language)

I spent three days in Paris and it would be impossible to convey all of my adventures here, but I covered the following:

- Eiffel Tower (around, below, at night, from every angle, but didn't go up it)
- The Seine (at least three miles straight on both sides)
- The Champs-Elysees
- Aperitifs (coffee, martinis...)
- The Arc de Triomphe
- Shopping (omg the buyers in Paris blow my mind - the selection in Printemps is phenomenally well edited)
- Looking
- Walking
- Crepes
- Champagne
- Creme brulee
- Picnic lunch of a baguette and cheese
- Local Markets
- Sacre Couer
- Learning French from cute Frenchmen
- Post-midnight motorcycle ride around the lit up city
- Paris in the sun
- Paris in the rain
- French movie set
- Musee de Orsay
- Notre Dame
- The Louvre (walked by it, drove around it at night, ran through it in the rain, but didn't get past the lobby under the pyramids)

Not a bad record, I thought. I have about a million pictures (and not nearly enough) of my adventures, but here are a few:

Literally right across the street from my hotel, Hotel Boileau, in the 16th district.

Eiffel Tower. I took way too many pictures of this.

Arc de Triomphe. I wonder if this is where C.S. Lewis came up with Aslan's door between worlds. (Prince Caspian reference if you're wondering)

Beautiful. I'm pretty sure this is the bridge without traffic that all of the young people of the city picnic on in the late afternoons. When I walked by it was literally swarming with beautiful Parisians drinking wine and eating baguettes.

I'm pretty sure this exact spot on the river is in both Funny Face and Mission Impossible (2 or 3?).

The Louvre.

Notre Dame. Disney made it really hard for me to walk through the cathedral without images of card playing gargoyles and gypsies with perfect hair...

Sacre Coeur. Beware the aggressive Jamaican vendors at the front gate.

Crepe and coffee.

Paris in the rain.

The Louvre in the rain.

Sigh. I almost cried when I had to leave Paris, I loved it so much. But I will be back. :)

Distracted by the Beach

Ok, it has officially been way too long. Europe was INSANE and then the second I got home there were meetings for LCS Designs (which went really well btw) and then three days at a beach house in Oceanside with my family....I know...excuses. I promise I will catch everything up, but right now I'm staring at a huge pile of junk sitting on my floor from 11 weeks of traveling and it has GOT to be cleaned up. That, and then there's nothing in my fridge and I have a 12 page essay to write. For now though, here are a few shots of the beach, just to make it obvious why, after traipsing around like a dream in foreign countries, I have come to the realization that I already live in one of the most fantastic places on earth.

Everything looks brighter in Brighton.

Quick shout out to birthday boys Nate and Derek. Don't know where I'd be without you both :)

I'm on my way to Paris, but I had to make sure to catch up on the last of London before I had new adventures to post about.

Anyway, last Sunday, I escaped the confines of the city and took a train to Brighton; a lively seaside city that provided just the relief I needed.

The waterfront. Such a beach town feel, I was immediately nostalgic.

Brighton is the second most popular destination in England - there were so many people but it didn't feel crowded to me, the mood was so light at festive!

The beach was made of pebbles instead of sand. Not the easiest to walk on, but definitely cleaner and adds some really cool coloring to the scene.

The pebbles almost matched my dress.

I believe you would refer to this woman as a fishmonger. And yes, that's all raw seafood mixed together in "seafood salads" in little cups. Best idea ever. I wish California would pick this up, but I doubt it would pass sanitation standards. Soooo yummy too!

The orange stuff is shrimp cocktail sauce in case you're wondering.

Brighton is famous for it's pier. It's like a big carnival on water with arcades, rides, restaurants, bars, and the best donuts I've ever had (outside of Voodoo Donuts in Portland, Oregon of course).

Antique sewing machines in a shop window a few blocks inland. They filled two giant glass windows into this shop.

Wandering around, I came across the Royal Pavilion, a Russian inspired palace plopped right on the coast. The juxtaposition was a little weird, but it was worth poking around in, if only for novelty's sake.

Sunset in Brighton.

Famous fish and chips from a restaurant on the pier.

Ok this is totally random but I saw it walk home to the train station and thought it was one of the weirdest advertisements I'd ever seen. I don't know if the bars across it make it better or worse...

Oxford

Saturday was Oxford Day. Before catching my early afternoon train over, I stopped outside the House of Parliament to play London tourist for a bit. I don't think it's possible to take a bad picture of this building. Here are a few I took:


After Parliament, just an hour's train ride took me to Oxford; home of Oxford University (duh) and the friendship of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.

I didn't really have a set schedule for Oxford. It's smallish, so I really just wandered around, taking pictures of fantastically old buildings and ended up stumbling into most of the main sights anyway.

This ox statue was the first thing I saw when I walked out of the train station.

Between the train station and the center of town, there's a small river with a trail along it that sort of winds through very English woodsy-ness. I had time, so I followed it for a ways, and discovered a community of nomads living on long, picturesque boats parked along the bank.

Bridge along the river.

Part of the Bodleian Library of Oxford University.

The Bodleian Library's iconic dome. They seems to be following an Italian theme. There was an Oxford Bridge of Sighs right down the street from this "duomo."

Most of the Oxford University campus was closed to the public that day, but I was able to sneak back into the students only sections to explore the dorms (hidden by ancient stone walls) and this pretty garden/quad area.

I camped out in this quad-like meadow for a while; snoozing and studying French and pretending I belonged there. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon in England.

Leaving the grassy area. So England-beautiful.

After cruising the university, I stopped for tea at a local shop (possible called The Rose?), frequented by well dressed 20 somethings and even more well dressed 50 somethings. Best tea of my life.

More Oxford perfection. My favorite part is that the guy running on the left matches the house...

The Botanical Gardens were closed, but a side gate was open to the rose garden so a browsed through it as I wandered around.

Ramdonly glorious sights like these are what I love about taking the time to simply wander. This was up a random back alley!

After a few hours of exploring, I stopped at pub/restaurant The Metre for a light dinner of appetizers and wine. As I sat there, I wrote the following rather silly pondering:

Tolkien used to live in Oxford. I wonder how often he sat as I sit, wine in one hand, pen in the other? I wonder how many greats have also sat as I sit now? And how many of those single, contemplative diners went on to rule their worlds and how many faded into the turning pages of history to be forgotten next to the exploits of greater beings? And which will I be? How are the pages of my history to be recorded? In bold, italicized lettering, splashed gloriously across the page? Or a mere footnote, in tiny font at the bottom, noted by a barely identifiable asterisk?

On the way back to the train station, I passed by Oxford Castle. It was closed, but I hopped the fence and climbed the castle mound for a quaint view of Oxford at night. Then it was back to the train, and back to Kings Cross just before midnight.