Happy New Year's Eve!

Tonight Ty and I are heading down to the South Bay to celebrate with some very special friends the end of '08 and beginning of '09. Happy New Year everyone and have a safe and amazing night!

One more Christmas Pic!

No one had more fun that night than little Morgan. She did a number on all of the wrapping paper like you wouldn't believe.  It was hilarious!

Christmas Pics

T-money feeling no pain at the Ham Family Christmas.  Cheers everyone!

Me with my new stocking that Delsa made for me this year. This is an absolute work of art, lined in purple with 2 great tassles that you can't see in this picture. I learned needle point 101 in France and I hope one day I will be able to make something like this! A girl can dream!

Hope you all had a fabulous holiday and have a safe and merry NEW YEAR!!

SF Twins

Last night was our annual girls night out Holiday Christmas "Work Party" The restaurant we ate at, Nob Hill Cafe, was accompanied by the famous SF Twins.  We went over to take a picture with them and talked to us for a bit, which was basically them spouting off. They kept saying, "You can have single bliss or married hell"

hahah

Weirdos!

Our last dinner in Paris for a while!

I lied. We are posting again!

Tonight we decided that, to celebrate our last night here for a while, we should go out to a fun dinner.  We went local, right around the corner from our place, to the famous Brasserie Lipp..

This is my kind of place.. Right on top of the menu in red:

(No salad as a meal)

We both went with the roasted chicken, a speciality of theirs, and split a small carafe of "Lipp" label reisling. It is a fun place and a total SCENE! The place was packed!! Rumor has it that the closer they sit you to the window, the higher they think of you when you walk in.. Reasoning being, they want people to be "seen" eating there...  So, if you go into Lipp and they seat you upstairs in the back.. well...  yeah... Time to enroll in charm school ... (This is Lipp talking, not me.. )

C and I must have been charming tonight, because we got placed right in front of the window. So either we look like high rollers, or we were just there really early. We are going with "A."

We are just putting the finishing touches on our packing, and contemplating wether to stay up until 5 am, or try and get 5 hours sleep.. I think it'll be a combo of the two!

See you all soon!

Last Day :(

If ever a day deserved the upside-down smile keyboard frown, it is today...

:(

Today is the last day of our vacation... Tomorrow we get on a plane. and in 12 hours, we will be back in the United States. This trip, if you have been reading, has been FULL of new adventures for Courtney and I. When we get home, our adventures will continue! We have a new place to live in, new jobs to find, and we have acquired on this trip new hobbies and desires that we will be bringing with us back to America! I have rekindled my love of drawing and reading, and Court has become a master needle-pointer! Im pretty sure that next time I cut my finger, Court will be able to stitch it up with a selection of fancy colored yarns.

Today we spent packing and cleaning. I THINK we are going to make it out of here in the same amount of suitcases that we came in! Bonus! That normally doesnt seem like a huge task, however, if you go back about 3 weeks, you will remember that we have a deer-head carry on this time. (wine related purchase)

Last days dont always have to sad, in fact, I don't think I would have felt right leaving France, without one last trip to the laundrymat! Every time I go, the craziness level builds just a little..  Today was no acceptation.  When I went there today, I walked in and could SWEAR that I heard someone watching "THE EXORCIST" on a portable TV...  I was close..  it was infact a homeless woman on the ground, smoking cigarettes, drinking some kind of liquor (or detergent, who knows...  same effect) yelling at people who were doing their laundry around her. I am not exaggerating when I say her stale, smoke stained voice sounded just like Linda Blair in the Exorcist.. Only a french dubbed version. 

People were just walking around her... ignoring her... So I figured, "Im here," and I have to get this done, so Ill just go for it. I sat there for 2 hours doing laundry, listening to a woman who was possessed by an apparently highly pissed off french Demon. Sometimes she was quiet. If someone walked to close to her, she started screaming. If you walked to close and looked at her, she would scream then spit on you. And sometimes, just for no reason, she would just start screaming and spiting at nothing at all. Its nice when someone is an equal opportunity swear-spitter like that.

Anyways... To make my day even better, about 45 minutes before my laundry was done, ANOTHER crazy delinquent walks in, and the two of them start talking, and share a beer and cigarette. Obviously, this newcomber didnt fear catching crazy (or tetanus) and the two of them talk-spit-yelled for a good 15 minutes.

I was going to take a video of this little vixen for everyone to see, but I was afraid that if she caught me, she would put a gypsy curse on me (and I dont mess around with those!) so I just snuck a camera phone photo. What you cant see if the big bottle of booze behind her, or the stale pile of extinguished cigarettes next to her...  

Ahhh... what a catch.. If only I were single....

We still have a few hours left in the day to enjoy Paris  (Like it could get any better than this morning!) so unless we post again later tonight, we will be spending time with you all the the States really soon!!

Zero Degrees?!? I didn't think that temperature existed!

Friday we decided to take the Paris "Hemmingway's Paris" walk.

The walk is mostly directed towards his book "A Movable Feast," which is all about his life and early years in Paris.  Needles to say, neither C or I have read this book (But we really want to... It's on the list now...  Courtney's list at least.)

The walk was fun, but it was freezing. It was one of those Bone-chilling colds. The type that hurt when you stand still, or feel a slight breeze. It was literally ZERO degrees out. ZERO. That means that any temperature at all that isn't a negative, is warmer than we were.  

We walked for 2 hours, and afterwards C and I ducked into an old fashioned Paris "Bar Cafe." They are really fun places to eat... Very authentic Paris.. Essentially a bar, with a few tables, and a small menu (2 items) C ordered "The Fish" and I got "The Sausage"...  Then the lady who served be told me I "Obviously wasnt french" because I ordered a sausage, and still had some of my hot chocolate left?? I laughed at this, but it turns out that it was sort of scandalous, since about 5 minutes later I heard the two guys behind the bar say "blah blah Sausage blah blah Hot chocolate" and stare at me in unison. Wierd.

Later that night, we went over to our good friend Jennifer's house for some wine! She brought us out some delicious goat cheeses, and we sat and talked for HOURS!!! 

Today, it was JUST as cold outside, and rainy, so we pretty much stayed in! Not the most adventurous way to spend our last saturday, but it felt good to just do nothing and rest up!! Tomorrow is going to be a big packing, clean up day, so at least we can attack it well rested!

We cannot believe that this trip is almost over.. 10 weeks!! We have learned so much about ourselves and the world.. about culture, art, and wine...  There is no better education than traveling! 

Tues, Wed, and Thursday

We have had a good few days here in Paris.  The internet has been so bad lately, that we havent been able to really update the blog daily..  So, here is our 3-Day blog update.

Tuesday:

Tuesday we got up and took the train to Versaille Palace. Courtney and I have both been to Versaille twice, but have never actually gone inside the chateau. Plus, right now there is a exhibition by artist Jeff Koons inside the chateau, which is the first time a contemporary artist has been allowed to display work there. If you dont know who Jeff Koons is, google him. His art is really fun to look at, and was a great contrast to the decor of the palace..

Also, when we went to Versaille, it started DUMPING snow... This was actually pretty fun! C and I got totally covered between the walk from the train to the palace doors...

Snow, In action at the palace.

Me, covered.
C, covered!
Jeff Koons art...  Giant balloon dog

Jeff Koons "Michael and bubbles"
More Koons
C and I reflected in the famous "Hall of Mirrors"
Koons sculpture outside Versaille, snowed on.
Snow covered palace gardens

Wednesday:

On wednesday. Court didnt feel like doing much during the day, so I went back to the Musee Armee. The Musee armee is the military museum here in Paris. I went before on this trip, but it was closing and I only got to see a part of it. This time, I went JUST to see its display for WW1 and WW2.  They have such a fascinating collection...  Pretty much at least one example of every uniform worn by all sides in each of the world wars, not to mention guns, cannons, documents, etc...  Also a lot of interactive displays. There was also enough english there that I was able to read about most of the items and events described.

On my way there, I passed a movie theater I had never seen before called Le Pagode. It was China themed, and in a house built to look like one of those old Chinese houses you see in movies.. Very cool. I guess it was built by the founder of THE BON MARCHE, whose wife loved China, so as a gift, he built it for her, and had everything flown in directly from China for the construction. Anyways, now its a movie theater... It had the most interesting crowd.. Seriously.. It was like going to the Opera.. All adults, dressed really nicely. No kids, not really even any young people... very fancy! We saw BURN AFTER READING. And in the end all we could say was "At least the theater was interesting!"

Thursday:

Today we just walked. We left the house at noon and walked for 6 full hours (with a short food stop)

I have no idea how far we walked today, but we pretty much covered all the Paris landmarks...

We started on our street, and walked to Montparnasse.. From there, we hit Invalides (where the Musee Armee is, as well as Napoleons tomb) . then the Eiffel Tower, then the Arc du Triumph...  After that we went down the Champs Elysee, then up to the Hermes and Chanel stores (The Chanel store is actually built into Coco Chanel's Paris townhouse) to the Place Concorde, then back home... From a distance, we could see Notre Damme also.. And even though we have walked by that at least 10 times this trip, Im going to add it to today also.. Just to cover ALL the landmarks at once...

Invalides..  That whole building is Napoleons tomb...

The Champs lit up for Christmas
Place Concorde and the Ferris Wheel (We thought about going on it, but thought again and didnt)
View from the walk home...

Yesterdays photos.....TODAY!

Out of order...  But we are lucky they are up at all!!!

This was the sky after we left the Louvre... Look how thick the atmosphere is here....

The lights of the Eiffel tower over Paris...
Courtney outside the Pompidou with the famous LIPS fountain
The wicker airplane with scissors....
Picasso      Delecroix    - 

The Louvre at night.. Looks awesome all lit up... It's hard to believe that it was, at one point, someones house..
Courtney in modern art .....
Now just try to visualize these photos, in the right order, in yesterdays post.

Masterpiece...

Or, maybe....  The photos the day after was on purpose in order to create the feel of need and desire in the blog reader, symbolizing the contrived needs of modern societies dependence on instant gratification..... hence, the post is now MODERN art.

Ug.. It hurts being this artistically gifted.

We have seen a lot of art, that we cant show you...

We had 2 big museum days...

The Pompidou center on Sunday, and the Louvre today (Monday)

The pompidou center is Paris' largest modern art museum. It is HUGE... 5 stories.... With a gigantic permanent collection. 

The Louvre is, the louvre....  It has everything...

We have some good photos.. but blogger wont let me upload them.. So that will have to wait...

sorry!

Pompidou was a fun museum.. For one, it was open Sunday.. For two, it was free... After being here for 2 months, you come to value those two attributes.

There was a lot of art that I consider on the "not good" side... But a lot was really interesting..

Every time I walk into one of these places though, and look at the canvas that looks like someone threw a paint covered cat at, I seriously ask myself. "Now really.. Did this person actually think this is art? Or did he just know that, because he was famous, he just had to make any mess on canvas, and sell it for thousands of dollars."  Most of these artworks weighed heavily on the latter. 

Some though were actually pretty cool.. Like the 30 foot long wicker airplane hanging from the ceiling, full of scissors and nail files. I know.. Already sounds bad ass...  But the message was actually good...  The work was called "30,000 treasures from Airport security" (something like that... I was too busy checking out 5 tons of levitating wicker to really read the plaque...) anyhow.. It was a message about how we have created a world paranoia about weapons on planes, and what constitutes as a weapon these days..  things like nail scissors, bottle openers, etc...

I have a picture of this.. that you cant see.

There was also a big squiggly line room that you could stand in.. Like being IN art...  I also have a picture of C in this room. 

The louvre today was a different kind of art. First, we did a 1 1/2 hour tour of the basics..  The stuff that the louvre is known for. Venus di Milo, The winged Victory, Mona Lisa, The French liberation painting I refer to in my delecroix post, etc...  There was also a cool temporary exhibit that was part of the Picasso and the Masters series that is running in 3 museums here.. 

This was his tribute to delecroix, and how he took one of Delecroix paintings, and painted 12 different versions of it... 

There was also a Mantenga exhibit that is only there for a few months. Mantenga was sort of the father of perspective in painting. He was a master of his time, but in the end was seconded by the work of DaVinci and Bellini.  It was fun learning of an important artist that I had never heard of before!

Well... I hate to cut this short with no pictures, but the blog site is acting up, the internet signal is weak, and the laptop battery is dying!

OH.. before I go.. Tonight C and I "philosophized" at Le Deux Maggot cafe! We people watched and talked about projects we want to do, etc. We kept asking ourselves why we dont do that more!!

After that, we played French Monopoly..  Only in france can you get a community chest that says "Fine for drunken misconduct, 5000 francs"

I got that one.

Reading....

As I was sitting here before dinner, realized that I have read a ton of books on this trip!

I'm typically not a big reader..  I always wanted to be more of one... Just never happened...

In the past two months I have read:

Hell House - Richard Mattheson

Button Button and Other Short Stories - Richard Mattheson

Midnight Tales - Bram Stoker

The Hound of the Baskervilles - Arthur Conan Doyle

Lair of the White Work - Bram Stoker

Currently reading: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle

That is more books than I (embarrassingly) typically read in an entire year! 

Something about no TV I guess!!

Sorry for the silence!

Hi All!

Sorry for the little stretch of silence..  It's not that we havent been doing anything, It's just that we havent been doing as MUCH. Not to mention that for some reason, al the stuff we have seen this week, didnt allow photos...

Paris has gotten cold. Very cold. Sometimes we walk outside because it looks nice, and then 30 mins later, its grey and cold again.  It comes fast and hard.  It also makes it a little harder to just get out and walk around, because it has been raining off and on for the past week. 

We have hit 2 exhibits since the last post. The first was at Foundation Cartier. This exhibit was 4 video installations dealing with global migration of people. The first video was interviewing small tribes of people, who were happy in their small native lands. The Second was a video just showing people in cities living their lives. The third and fourth were about people forced to leave their native land as refugees or due to natural disaster. It was actually very interesting.. Court and I were skeptical when we first heard the premise, but both came put really being glad we went.

The second exhibit we went to was actually a small museum.. the Delecroix museum. This is literally a 5 minute walk out the front door, and for whatever reason we had never gone. It was Delecroix's studio and apartment in Paris, converted into a small museum. Delecroix is most famous for this painting:

That painting wasnt at the museum...  But a lot of his sketches were. He used photography to take pictures of his models to practice body composition, and they had a bunch of the photos and coinciding sketches together for the exhibit. It was actually very cool and inspiring. I bought a book that reprints all of them while I was there.  In the museum, it talks about the love he had for painting "his chapel,"  which is inside the church st. Sulpice. He painted 3 large paintings on the walls of the church.. And since St. Sulpice is also only 5 mins away from our place, we decided to walk there and check them out as well!

Today we just walked around a bit. We are a bit museumed out! Paris feels like it has twice as many people in it today than it has since we have been here! The streets are jammed!!

Next week is our last week.. I cant believe it has already been 2 months..  We have done so much, and to us it doesnt feel like we have done enough!  4 countries, and 10 cities by my count.. not to mention countless museums and exhibits!! I think though, that we are also both looking forward to seeing our friends and families again!

Finished Product

Lost in Translation

It was blue skies today in Paris, right to the right of Ty you can see the Eifle Tower, its small from here! We haven't seen the sun in a few weeks, it feels like, in Paris so we were pumped! 

First stop, Sonia Rykiel exhibit at the Les Arts Decoratifs museum in the Louvre.  This was awesome!  It was huge with tons of clothes from her collections, videos of runway shows, photographs of shoots in huge black and whites and a special anniversary collection that other noteworthy designers did especially for her. My favorite was a Roberto Cavalli number that was meant to be twirled. Ty's was, (I made him pick one) a Super Man dress with a cape that said Sonia on the back, it was cute. Forgot who did that one though. He was a champ going to this with me and faking his interest in woman's fashion. Although he loved the concept art. Donna Karan appears to do hers in water colors, gorgeous! Wish we could take pics there but it was prohibited. I did snap 1 pic but it doesn't do the show justice so we'll just use our imagination. We did stop off at her flagship store which is around the corner from the apartment on our way home to come full circle. I am a new fan and I love this season's handbag collection and accessories. Its really fun and has tons of rhinestones on them, bringin it back. The best was seeing this older man taking a nap in one of the chairs near the dressing room and his wife, all snazzed up with her multiple shopping bags, coming over to say, "Irving, I am done, Irving!!! We are leaving!!!!!" Her friend was right behind her and said, "Is he dead?"

Ty was cracking up.

But before we made it home, we ventured back to a favorite restaurant, mainly because the view is so gorgeous and you can sit outside and stare at the Louvre behind big glass pane windows that block any wind. Here we are waiting for our food.

This is the view from our table.

We both ordered the Tuna which we had last year but it was more of a tartare then with avocado. This was fantastic although not the same, raw, and with a ginger ponzu sauce I think. We savoured every bite. It was a no carb kind of a day. Gotta love it!

Unless you count sugar as carbs...  The weather took a quick turn for the worse so we decided to come home and finally make toffee! This is a tradition in my family and always makes if feel like Christmas. Its a huge hit but really a challenge to make. So many batches I have thrown away in my lifetime, candy making is tricky.  But when you nail it, its worth it!  Here I am at step one, melting the butter.

Skipping ahead a few steps, Ty helping me stir, my hand felt like it was going to fall off after 20 minutes of solid stirring.

Pouring it out on a greased cookie sheet... crucial.

Melted chocolate. Check.. About to drizzle toasted chopped almonds. 

I am letting it sit overnight before I do the other side with chocolate and almonds. I will post the finished product although Ty and I came home tonight and tasted a corner. Its definitely my best batch YET!! I am not sure whether its the european butter or what, but its perfect! My Mom would be proud as its her special recipe.

Oh, after the toffee was done, we headed back to the American bookstore. I have 2 funny stories about that.

1. The first night we went to hear David Sedaris, we were smushed in the back with a bunch of people. This one girl was there and was about our age and started to have a panic attack, then she fainted. I am not sure if she was star struck or what but she was out cold and then came too, right in time for his readings. She was kind of a spaz before that and we were doing our best to ignore her.

We were in line with her when he signed our book and she told him, "I am one of those people you write about, where I think my dog is my child, I call her my daughter" He looked at her slightly amused and nodding out of courtesy. 

So anyways, we went back to the store yesterday to get Ty a new book and she was there, with her "Daughter". She has a Tri-colored King Charles Spaniel which is the same breed as Ty's parents 2 dogs, Tucker and Morgan. Tyler got excited to see the dog and went over to pet it and noticed she was attached to the fainter. He starts talking to her and shows her a picture of T and M. She starts off on a ramble, "Oh, they are so cute.. are they males? I keep looking for her for a husband. Everywhere I look, I see a dog and I want to breed her but the vet said it would be very irresponsible as she is too old, but I keep looking anyways, she needs to find a husband. Oh, you live in Marin, how is San Francisco? Like, can I take her shopping with me? I have a bigger bag that I take her in that no one knows she's in there, its black. (The one she is carrying now is sparkly gold, all bling'd out) I might move there to study animal rights law but I am worried about her, (pointing to her daughter) are they very dog friendly? Because we have a very good life here, everyone loves her in the 6th, all of the restaurants call her the princess of the 6th, I think I am going to write a book about it."

Um... Ya. That is seriously how that went. I meanwhile, was flipping through cookbooks wondering how Ty was going to get to walk away from this one but he did, like a gentlemen, say nice to see you again and bee-lined it for the horror section. Incredible.

2.  While we were there last night we read about another author reading going on tonight so headed over early to get seats closer to the front. Mission accomplished, we were an hour early and snagged front row seats, this was not the David Sedaris smash hit however. This book was called, The Journal of Helen Barr, a diary about a jewish girl in Paris during the Nazi occupation.  We both thought it sounded really interesting and it did once we heard some of it, the niece of the author was there to read and tell a little background about the book, she was the one who got it published last year and it has since been a best seller in Paris and is being printed in 21 more languages currently. 

So... the room fills up, and the reader speaks the ENTIRE time in French. There was an english speaker who read aloud the parts from the book that the niece did, but not any explanations, nothing. It was 2 hours long and then there were questions. Ty and I fortunately were in the front row, eyeing each other like we wanted OUT! I wish we had discussed a signal, never in my life had I wished we had a secret code tug on ear or something. But the room was tiny and we were in the dead front so we had to stick it out. Finally, after questions were going for what seemed like hours and my stomach was growling, I bailed. I couldn't take it and my manners were out the window. Oops.

It was a bit torturous not understanding anything and I said once we were outside, "See, that is why I never sat in the front row? You never know when something might suck and you gotta bail"

Whew!  We were laughing that it was at the American bookstore and we should have known at the very beginning that the host said, "I am sure all of you speak French enough so we can do this in French." 

Ya, that's why we are buying books at the AMERICAN BOOKSTORE!!!

hahaha  

Ripped off and Souf'ed up!

Mondays are a tough day in Paris. Sunday, you generally know that everything is closed. Monday however, is always hit and miss..  SOME museums are open, SOME are closed... Court and I decided that, since we are staying in Paris for the remainder of our trip, we should go see some of the modern art exhibits that people we have run into keep raving about. 

Let me start by saying that I HATE modern art. I dont hate all modern art, just modern art that is considered "Modern Art." However, with the new theme of our remaining days in Paris being 'exhibit exploration' I decided to open my mind up to the concept a bit more...

Today we went to the Luxembourg museum to the exhibit called "Miro to Warhol" ..  It is 80 modern art pieces from the private collection that they repeatedly remind you is the "Most important collection in Portugal."  

If this is the important stuff, I would hate to see the unimportant.

For starters, the ticket price was 11 euro each, and after the audio guide at 4.50, we were into this thing for 26.50. Thats EURO remember...  so it's a hair over 30 dollars American...  That is SIX double-Doubles at In-N-Out....  But I digress...

So we get in and find that the audio guide is only good for like 6 paintings in the museum.  Also, when you listened, it just talked about the artist and some of his OTHER works...  Not really the piece at hand...  Kind of like when we were at the Royal museum in London, and the lady kept telling us about all the beautiful colorful frescos...  that are at the Louvre.

Anyhow.. The art was literally awful. I have seen better collections of art in my garbage can. Plus, for having the name WARHOL slapped proudly across the banner out front, you would thing they would have more than TWO prints... ONE of which being.. you guessed it.. a can of Campbells Soup. 

The museum took 30 mins to get through..  and when we left, C and I sort of looked at each other and said "Wow.. THAT was a waste." Oh well.. they can't all be winners.... 

Anyhow.... Since C and I live for contrast, we ended up having dinner at a place that really WAS a winner... 

My mom has been raving about this place for years...  It is kind of around the corner from us. and specializes in soufflé! Neither Courtney or I had ever had a souffle before (as far as we could remember) so we were pretty excited to try something new!

They were delicious! C got Truffle and I got 'Fromage' which was some kind of really good cheese! For desert, we shared a 'caramel and sea salt' souffle as well!

So, even though the day started rough, it ended with a great dinner! Thanks for the recommendation mom!